Bogalusa pastor pleads guilty to stealing $95K in disability benefits | NOLA.com

A longtime pastor of a Bogalusa church pleaded guilty to the theft of more than $95,000 in Social Security disability benefits, U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans said Thursday (July 26).

Jerry R. Newton, 54, of Slidell, is set for an Oct. 25 sentencing hearing before U. S. District Court Judge Jane Triche Milazzo.

Newton, who served as pastor of Bogalusa Baptist Church since May of 2007, pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government funds, Evans' office reported in a news release.

According to court documents, Newton applied for Social Security disability benefits, a process that requires the applicant to disclose any employment or income. Newton did not disclose to the Social Security Administration that he had a paid position with the church and owned two businesses when he applied for disability benefits. Newton owned Still Dreaming Graphics, LLC, and Kclean Sweep, a cleaning service, the U.S. Attorney's office reported.

Bogalusa pastor pleads guilty to stealing $95K in disability benefits | NOLA.com

Bajrang Dal Activists Shave Man's Head, Parade Him On Donkey For Alleged Religious Conversion

A man was tonsured, garlanded with shoes, and paraded in disgrace on the streets of Jalaun in Uttar Pradesh by Bajrang Dal activists who accused him of converting Hindu men to Christianity.

The Bajrang Dal activists tonsured the man for allegedly converting Hindus and paraded him through the town after his shaving his hair, eyebrows and moustache.

The mob reportedly accused Awdhesh Savita of luring Hindus on the pretext of attending a satsang and allegedly converted them to Christianity.

Bajrang Dal Activists Shave Man's Head, Parade Him On Donkey For Alleged Religious Conversion

Stop Transporting Exodus 22:18 to Africa, Evangelists; It’s Killing and Torturing Children.

Exodus 22:18 says, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

Here in the states, where we don’t take the Old Testament seriously and that verse is an embarrassment most Christians would prefer to ignore, it doesn’t have too much of an affect.

But as the influence of Christianity is waning in the West, fundamentalist Christianity is being exported to other populations.  And they, like the Old Testament “God,” apparently, do believe that there are witches. >br>
In Swaziland, as recently as 2013, there was a law banning witches from flying above a height of 150 metres.

In the Central African Republic, as of 2010, witch cases took up 40% of the court system’s case load (You know how much we try drug crimes here in the states?  For reference, that’s only 12% of our case load).

In another story written in 2014 about seven witches killed in Tanzania (East Africa) it is noted: “A local rights group, the Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), has estimated as many as 500 “witches” are lynched every year, based on reports that counted some 3, 000 people killed between 2005 and 2011. Many of those killed were elderly women.”

Furthermore, here are some additional cliff notes on the problem from the United Nations Human Rights Office,,,

Stop Transporting Exodus 22:18 to Africa, Evangelists; It’s Killing and Torturing Children.

Evangelical transgender conference rejects notion that gender identity can change - The Washington Post

With a statement as such, "ll the speakers have agreed to a statement published last year that rejects 'that a human being could possess a gender other than the one indicated by biological sex.'"  I'm not too sure about how much informed "Christian thought" will take place.

People have the right to their religious beliefs, said Anderson, who had never heard of the biblical counselors group. But he added that he was concerned that the mix of worldviews between religion and science is one “we don’t feel works very well for people.”

“We want to be very careful to keep what psychology has to say from its knowledge distinct from what religion may have to say from its knowledge,” he said.

The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors had planned its conference last year, Lambert said. But nobody could have predicted what has happened since then. Stars such as Laverne Cox of “Orange Is the New Black” and Caitlyn Jenner have turned the national spotlight on transgender issues, and the Supreme Court has legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

It’s important that seminary students understand the world they live in, he said. And it’s important for Christians to learn to think about the issues in a way that is “not just informed by Christian thought, but informed by Christian care.”

Evangelical transgender conference rejects notion that gender identity can change - The Washington Post

Decolonising the mind: The misunderstanding of traditional African beliefs - This Is Africa

To the modern African who distrusts these age-old traditions, indigenous faith systems can be nothing but evil. Proof of this is in the ritual killings that keep on happening in this modern age whether it is 100 graves dug up in Benin Republic or albinos being killed for their body parts in Tanzania. These rituals, otherwise called witchcraft, are said to exist due to the superstitious nature of Africans, which arises from traditional beliefs. It is believed that in rituals, people are regularly abducted and killed, their body parts used to create charms or “fetishes” that are said to bring riches to whoever bears them. These so-called ritual killings have attained the status of urban legends in countries like Nigeria where the 10% of Nigerians who adhere to traditional beliefs have to keep their faith secret or risk being labelled as enablers of human sacrifice. There is a great need to differentiate between legitimate spiritual systems and witchcraft, yet it is widely accepted that human sacrifices were part and parcel of pre-colonial faith systems.

That these rituals are done with the main aim of making money should hint at their true capitalist nature. In a world where everyone is looking to be rich and wealthy, indigenous African spiritualities are not exempt from being corrupted by those who would do anything to get rich. Discussions about the modern “innovations” in African cultures and religious practices are almost nonexistent, so most of us never consider that the growth of Pentecostal churches is encouraging witchcraft related fears or that market forces are central to today’s beliefs in witchcraft. A few months ago at a work meeting, the topic of ritual killings and idol worship came up and a colleague boldly objected to a idea that ritual killings had been traditionally done by Nigerians in pre-colonial times. She said she recalled when human sacrifices started in Nigeria  – at the time, she was a child growing up in the 1970s. Her opinion is backed by Chief Adelekan, a Yoruba diviner who at a talk in the Manchester Museum insisted that human sacrifices have nothing to do with his indigenous worship. But in people’s minds, this modern practice of ritual killings has been conflated with indigenous faith systems.

Decolonising the mind: The misunderstanding of traditional African beliefs - This Is Africa

ADDENDUM::Lawyer Who Advised Churches in China Faces Secretive Detention - The New York Times

A Chinese lawyer who has opposed a government campaign to tear down churches and church crosses faces up to six months in secretive detention after the police detained him and accused him of threatening state security, his colleague said on Tuesday.

The lawyer, Zhang Kai, who is from Beijing, disappeared into custody a week ago while in Wenzhou, a commercial city on the coast of Zhejiang Province, where many members of the large and prosperous Christian community have fought the government’s efforts to reduce the presence of churches.

Mr. Zhang was in Wenzhou advising a church when the police took him away last Tuesday, and they have since issued an order that could place him under secretive detention for six months, said Yang Xingquan, a colleague of Mr. Zhang’s from the Xinqiao Law Firm in Beijing. Mr. Yang, who was in Wenzhou looking for Mr. Zhang, cited information from the police and Christians in the city.

,,,
Mr. Zhang’s case combines two aspects of tightening restrictions on civic life in China under President Xi Jinping that have alarmed human rights advocates: an intense drive against human rights lawyers and restrictions on religion.

Lawyer Who Advised Churches in China Faces Secretive Detention - The New York Times

American Apocalypse by Matthew Avery Sutton review – the rise Christian evangelicals | Books | The Guardian

Hmm,,,a book review that I am having trouble pulling out what to highlight.  Not that it is a bad review or a poorly written one, but there be a lot of stuffs in this here review.

For starters, it touches on a topic I have posted about before How Corporate America Invented Christian America by POLITICO Magazine,

It was a watershed moment—the beginning of a movement that would advance over the 1940s and early 1950s a new blend of conservative religion, economics and politics that one observer aptly anointed “Christian libertarianism.” Fifield and like-minded ministers saw Christianity and capitalism as inextricably intertwined, and argued that spreading the gospel of one required spreading the gospel of the other. The two systems had been linked before, of course, but always in terms of their shared social characteristics. Fifield’s innovation was his insistence that Christianity and capitalism were political soul mates, first and foremost.

Where POLITICO criticizes the capitalistic aspect, Guyatt highlights Matthew Avery Sutton’s focus on the "prophecy belief at the heart of the modern evangelical movement."  What should be noted in the crossover of the main players.

Matthew Avery Sutton’s new book locates prophecy belief at the heart of the modern evangelical movement. At the start of the 20th century, conservative Protestants reacted to the populist politics and theological liberalism of their age with righteous defiance. The stereotype of religious conservatism throws up images of rural churches in the southern Bible belt, but Christian fundamentalism was born in the big cities of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, funded by wealthy businessmen such as Lyman Stewart, a California oil tycoon who bankrolled The Fundamentals (1910-15), the book series that gave the movement its name. Initially, fundamentalists struggled to endorse candidates for Congress, let alone the presidency. Most loathed Franklin Roosevelt, who won an unprecedented four presidential elections despite their disdain. Politicians became aware of the power of evangelical voters in the 1950s and 1960s, and Jimmy Carter himself was a born-again Christian (though not a fundamentalist). But it was only with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 that the religious right gained entry into the White House.
,,,
The central paradox of Sutton’s book, which he acknowledges but never quite resolves, is why anyone expecting Armageddon would waste time on politics. For more than a century, prophecy adherents have largely agreed on the end times sequence: war in the Middle East, world government and the rise of the antichrist will mark a seven-year period known as the tribulation. Jews will suffer particular torture, but will ultimately find refuge in Christ. Evangelicals can afford to be sanguine about this because they think God will teleport them to heaven just before things turn bad. Prophecy is an obvious recruiting tool for Christian fundamentalists, who can implore sinners to become “rapture ready” by emphasising the horrors of the tribulation.

But if the fate of the world is sealed, why bother trying to take over the US government? American Apocalypse suggests a range of answers. “No matter what happens,” wrote the celebrated evangelical William Blackstone in the 1920s, “we are under marching orders” to advance God’s cause. Billy Graham hinted that a religious revival in the US might delay the apocalypse, allowing more time to win souls for Jesus. According to Sutton, some evangelicals in the mid-20th century even imagined they could shield the US from God’s harshest judgments, a kind of religious version of American exceptionalism.

American Apocalypse by Matthew Avery Sutton review – the rise Christian evangelicals | Books | The Guardian

Pat Buchanan rails at ‘cultural cleansing’ of white Christian men from US history

Maybe I am a bit naive, but I just do not get exactly what Buchanan is complaining about ?

In a syndicated op-ed this week, conservative columnist Pat Buchanan argues that white, male, Christian historical figures are being “cleansed” from America’s national consciousness.

Unhappy that Saint Louis University (SLU) is relocating a statue of a Catholic missionary evangelizing to Native Americans, Buchanan published an op-ed on Monday decrying the statue’s move from a prominent outdoor location to a less conspicuous one inside. Buchanan further warns readers of a nationwide “cultural cleansing of Christian males.”

As evidence of what Christian men have to put up with these days, Buchanan quotes an SLU student’s description of the controversial statue. It “depicts a history of colonialism, imperialism, racism, and of Christian and white supremacy,” says Ryan McKinley, now in his senior year at the Catholic college. Buchanan disagrees with McKinley’s assessment.

“If the founder of Christianity is the Son of God,” Buchanan reasons, “then Christianity is a superior religion.” Students and staff at SLU who support the statue’s removal, Buchanan says, “seem to be ashamed of, uncomfortable with, or unable to defend, is the truth for which Saint Louis University was supposed to stand. But simply because they are cowardly, or politically correct, why should that statue be going into the SLU art museum? Why should not they themselves depart for another institution where their sensitivities will not be assaulted by artistic expressions of religious truths?”

Pat Buchanan rails at ‘cultural cleansing’ of white Christian men from US history

ADDENDUM::Anti-Gay Pastor Caught On Grindr Told Gay Teen He Was Going To Hell, Should Commit Suicide, Says Mom - The New Civil Rights Movement

Lying about who you are is one thing.  Actively preaching against who you are is another. Telling anyone to go kill themselves, from a position of supposed moral authority, that is evil.

Now, a parishioner of Pastor Makela's is accusing him of telling her gay teen son that he was going to hell because he is gay, so he should kill himself.

"If he's going to hell for being gay then he might as well commit suicide," Jennifer Kish says Makela told her depressed son when he was 17.

Stunningly, Reverend Makela not only advocated for the suicide of Kish's son, but then took his battle against him to the public, attacking Kish as well, she charges.

"Kish said the pastor also became vocal on social media about how he felt her son being gay was wrong and that as a parent she shouldn't support him," WNEM reports. "She said she confronted pastor Makela about the message he was sending her son and every other young gay person."

Anti-Gay Pastor Caught On Grindr Told Gay Teen He Was Going To Hell, Should Commit Suicide, Says Mom - The New Civil Rights Movement

An anti-LGBT pastor’s Grindr outing: The church’s hypocrisy and denial are the real sins - Salon.com

I'm sorry but I have no sympathy for the Church as it breeds the type of deception prevalent in this incident.  It is the same mind set I grew up with as a member of a Missouri Synod based church.  They do not allow women to preach, much less ordain them.  Being LGBT, well, your on your own.

BUT,,,

If  Makela is now "out" I hope he will be happy and go on with the life he really wants and not pull a Ted Haggard.

After the scandal was publicized, Haggard entered three weeks of intensive counseling, overseen by four ministers. In February 2007, one of those ministers, Tim Ralph, said that Haggard "is completely heterosexual."^[3] Ralph later said he meant that therapy "gave Ted the tools to help to embrace his heterosexual side." On June 1, 2010 Haggard announced that he intended to start a new church in Colorado Springs.^[4] In a July 2010 interview with CNN, he confirmed that he has "completely shunned away any homosexual feelings he has had in the past."^[5] In the February 2011 issue of GQ, however, Haggard said that, "probably, if I were 21 in this society, I would identify myself as a bisexual."^[6]

__

Well, well, well, what a surprise. Here’s the setup: Meet Reverend Matthew Makela of St. John’s Lutheran Church and School. Until very recently, he was an associate pastor whose church bio described him as a man “blessed” with a wife and five children, one whose interests include “family, music, home improvement, gardening and landscaping, and sports.” And, as Queerty reveals this week, he’s also enjoyed taking a clear anti-gay stance, writing in a now-deleted November letter to the Midland Daily News that “We don’t tell a person born with tendencies to abuse alcohol to keep on giving in to his innate desires because he can’t help it. We try to help him in his struggle.” He’s also spoken out on Facebook about how “The transgender movement is going to assist opportunistic sickos in preying upon children and others.” So anyway, guess who’s turned up on Grindr?

In screenshots obtained by Queerty and confirmed by Makela, the reverend is seen shirtless in a Grindr exchange, saying that “I love making out naked, oral and massage. And I top. Also love to cuddle.” He now tells Queerty he has recently “resigned” from his position but declines to comment further. As Queerty points out, what people do in private is their own business. But if you’re publicly promoting the idea that gay people are like alcoholics and that trans people are in line with “sickos” while you’re trawling for dates on Grindr, this is not quite in line with what you’re preaching about “taking the marriage union with the utmost seriousness.” And it’s genuinely sad and painful to imagine what this man and his family must be going through now because of the conflict between what he desired in private and what he promoted in public. This is what shame and secrecy — so often brought about by some spectacularly warped ideas about God’s will — do to people. Imagine how much turmoil could have been avoided by just being honest. Imagine, beyond the profoundly harmful hypocrisy here, the torment of a man who among other things wanted someone to cuddle. That’s goddamn heartbreaking.

[,,,]
The viciousness of Internet mob justice is real and very scary, and unfortunately the trolls will take any opportunity that presents itself to be threatening and abusive. I wouldn’t blame the St. John’s community in the least for not wanting to expose itself to drive-by attacks by Facebook cretins. And there’s a measure of compassion to be found in the church’s choice to not embarrass Makela in a public condemnation. But for St. John’s to so actively discourage its congregants from knowing what went down sure seems to indicate a certain “Please just slink off and let’s everybody just forget this ever happened” attitude. That’s unhelpful and profoundly unrealistic.

An anti-LGBT pastor’s Grindr outing: The church’s hypocrisy and denial are the real sins - Salon.com

See also:

Midland pastor resigns after gay news site posts screenshots from his smartphone

EXCLUSIVE: Grindr Screenshots Reveal Antigay Pastor Is A Top Who Likes To Cuddle

• UPDATE: Church Warns Congregants Not To Read Rev. Makela Grindr Story, Deactivates FB Page

“To make matters worse,” he continues, “the details of sin that have been kept confidential are being posted online by those who seek to do harm to the Makela family and to St. John’s. This is taking an already difficult situation and making it even more painful… The facebook pages associated with St. John’s have been taken down in an attempt to remove the opportunity for malicious posters to have access to St. John’s members…”

Here’s the typical closed-door religious attitude that we find appalling. If Kempin had it his way, Rev. Makela would have broken ties with St. John’s congregation without ever having the “details of sin” made known to them.

His community would never have known that the man telling them being gay is a condition comparable to alcoholism and that gay marriage is just another blemish on the holy institution was in fact seeking the intimacy of men himself.

“You’re a 10-foot-tall crybaby”: Bill O’Reilly destroyed by another Fox host over “War on Christianity” claims - Salon.com

Here's the deal, if religionist want my respect, then treat me with respect.  Quit calling for my (daily) execution because of who I love.  Quit ostracizing me for my beliefs while forcing your theocracy down my throat.  Quit with the platitude of "my church isn't like THAT."  Your silence speaks louder.

On “The O’Reilly Factor” last night, Bill O’Reilly tried to browbeat Fox Business host John Stossel for claiming that Christianity is not under attack in America today — needless to say, it did not go as O’Reilly planned.

Stossel came out swinging, acknowledging that while there are some issues that Christians can legitimately complain about, when it comes to O’Reilly’s “War on Christianity,” the Fox host is “just a 10-foot-tall crybaby.” After noting that Christians are not being killed on the streets of America for professing their faith, O’Reilly could only reply, “No, not yet.”

Not ever, according to Stossel, but O’Reilly was having none of it, insisting that Christians “are being verbally killed.”

“So what?” an exasperated Stossel shot back. “Eighty-three percent of the country identifies as Christian,” he continued, before adding that if there’s any truth to their being “a War on Christianity,” the Christians have clearly won.

“It’s not a matter of winning,” O’Reilly replied, “it’s a matter of respect.” After listing some of the battles he’s led in this war — against department stores that asked employees to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” for example — he railed against the “secularists” who claim “religion is bad” because it stands in the way of “unfettered abortion,” gay marriage, and legalized marijuana.

Stossel, who identifies as a secularist, replied that he doesn’t think access to “unfettered abortions” is really a plank in the secular agenda. O’Reilly countered that if that’s true, then secularists need to stop being mean to religious people, especially when it comes to one particular word.

“You’re a 10-foot-tall crybaby”: Bill O’Reilly destroyed by another Fox host over “War on Christianity” claims - Salon.com

How Corporate America Invented Christian America - POLITICO Magazine

In many ways, the marriage of corporate and Christian interests that has recently dominated the news—from the Hobby Lobby case to controversies over state-level versions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act—is not that new at all.

__

In December 1940, as America was emerging from the Great Depression, more than 5,000 industrialists from across the nation made their yearly pilgrimage to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, convening for the annual meeting of the National Association of Manufacturers. The program promised an impressive slate of speakers: titans at General Motors, General Electric, Standard Oil, Mutual Life, and Sears, Roebuck; popular lecturers such as etiquette expert Emily Post and renowned philosopher-historian Will Durant; even FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Tucked away near the end of the program was a name few knew initially, but one everyone would be talking about by the convention’s end: Reverend James W. Fifield Jr.

Handsome, tall, and somewhat gangly, the 41-year-old Congregationalist minister bore more than a passing resemblance to Jimmy Stewart. Addressing the crowd of business leaders, Fifield delivered a passionate defense of the American system of free enterprise and a withering assault on its perceived enemies in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration. Decrying the New Deal’s “encroachment upon our American freedoms,” the minister listed a litany of sins committed by the Democratic government, ranging from its devaluation of currency to its disrespect for the Supreme Court. Singling out the regulatory state for condemnation, he denounced “the multitude of federal agencies attached to the executive branch” and warned ominously of “the menace of autocracy approaching through bureaucracy.”

It all sounds familiar enough today, but Fifield’s audience of executives was stunned. Over the preceding decade, as America first descended into and then crawled its way out of the Great Depression, the these titans of industry had been told, time and time again, that they were to blame for the nation’s downfall. Fifield, in contrast, insisted that they were the source of its salvation.

They just needed to do one thing: Get religion.

[,,,]
It was a watershed moment—the beginning of a movement that would advance over the 1940s and early 1950s a new blend of conservative religion, economics and politics that one observer aptly anointed “Christian libertarianism.” Fifield and like-minded ministers saw Christianity and capitalism as inextricably intertwined, and argued that spreading the gospel of one required spreading the gospel of the other. The two systems had been linked before, of course, but always in terms of their shared social characteristics. Fifield’s innovation was his insistence that Christianity and capitalism were political soul mates, first and foremost.

[,,,]
Throughout the 1950s, a new trend of what the Senate chaplain called “under-God consciousness” transformed American political life. In 1953, the first-ever National Prayer Breakfast was convened on the theme of “Government Under God.” In 1954, the previously secular Pledge of Allegiance was amended to include the phrase “under God” for the first time, too. A similar slogan, “In God We Trust,” spread just as quickly. Congress added it to stamps in 1954 and then to paper money in 1955; in 1956, the phrase became the nation’s first official motto.
As this religious revival swept through American politics, many in the United States began to believe their government was formally and fundamentally religious. In many ways, they’ve believed it ever since.

How Corporate America Invented Christian America - POLITICO Magazine

See also:  A Christian Nation? Since When?

Religion in China: Cracks in the atheist edifice | The Economist

THE coastal city of Wenzhou is sometimes called China’s Jerusalem. Ringed by mountains and far from the capital, Beijing, it has long been a haven for a religion that China’s Communist leaders view with deep unease: Christianity. Most cities of its size, with about 9m people, have no more than a dozen or so visibly Christian buildings. Until recently, in Wenzhou, hundreds of crosses decorated church roofs.

This year, however, more than 230 have been classed as “illegal structures” and removed. Videos posted on the internet show crowds of parishioners trying to form a human shield around their churches. Dozens have been injured. Other films show weeping believers defiantly singing hymns as huge red crosses are hoisted off the buildings. In April one of Wenzhou’s largest churches was completely demolished. Officials are untroubled by the clash between the city’s famously freewheeling capitalism and the Communist Party’s ideology, yet still see religion and its symbols as affronts to the party’s atheism.

Christians in China have long suffered persecutiont. Under Mao Zedong, freedom of belief was enshrined in the new Communist constitution (largely to accommodate Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists in the west of the country). Yet perhaps as many as half a million Christians were harried to death, and tens of thousands more were sent to labour camps. Since the death of Mao in 1976, the party has slowly allowed more religious freedom. Most of the churches in Wenzhou are so-called “Three Self” churches, of which there are about 57,000 round the country. These, in the official jargon, are self-supporting, self-governed and self-propagating (therefore closed to foreign influence). They profess loyalty to China, and are registered with the government. But many of those in Wenzhou had obviously incurred official displeasure all the same; and most of the Christians who survived Maoist persecution, along with many new believers, refuse to join such churches anyway, continuing to meet in unregistered “house churches”, which the party for a long time tried to suppress.

Christianity is hard to control in China, and getting harder all the time. It is spreading rapidly, and infiltrating the party’s own ranks. The line is blurring between house churches and official ones, and Christians are starting to emerge from hiding to play a more active part in society. The Communist Party has to find a new way to deal with all this. There is even talk that the party, the world’s largest explicitly atheist organisation, might follow its sister parties in Vietnam and Cuba and allow members to embrace a dogma other than—even higher than—that of Marx.

Any shift in official thinking on religion could have big ramifications for the way China handles a host of domestic challenges, from separatist unrest among Tibetan Buddhists and Muslim Uighurs in the country’s west to the growth of NGOs and “civil society”—grassroots organisations, often with a religious colouring, which the party treats with suspicion, but which are also spreading fast.

The upsurge in religion in China, especially among the ethnic Han who make up more than 90% of the population, is a general one. From the bullet trains that sweep across the Chinese countryside, passengers can see new churches and temples springing up everywhere. Buddhism, much longer established in China than Christianity, is surging too, as is folk religion; many more Han are making pilgrimages to Buddhist shrines in search of spiritual comfort. All this worries many officials, for whom religion is not only Marx’s “opium of the people” but also, they believe, a dangerous perverter of loyalty away from the party and the state. Christianity, in particular, is associated with 19th-century Western imperial encroachment; and thus the party’s treatment of Christians offers a sharp insight into the way its attitudes are changing.

[,,,]
In recent years the party’s concerns have shifted from people beliefs to the maintenance of stability and the party’s monopoly of power. If working with churches helps achieve these aims, it will do so, even though it still frets about encouraging an alternative source of authority. In 2000 Jiang Zemin, then party chief, and himself a painter of calligraphy for his local Buddhist temples, said in an official speech that religion would probably still be around when concepts of class and state had vanished.

Religion in China: Cracks in the atheist edifice | The Economist

Dougco Schools Will Defend Right To Continue Religious Fundraisers « CBS Denver

The Douglas County School District is accused of allowing religion into the public schools by supporting religious fundraisers, and now the American Humanist Association is taking the district to court.

The lawsuit comes after the group warned the district to stop. The first warning was to SkyView Academy to stop promoting and supporting fundraisers that are backed by religious groups. The second was along the same lines and the group says nothing has changed, which is why they say they are going to court.

The district is aware of the lawsuit but says it’s 100 percent behind their student-driven fundraisers.

“This school district is out of control in its promotion of Christianity,” David Niose with the American Humanist Association said.

Niose is the group’s attorney and says their complaint focuses primarily on just two events. One is Operation Christmas Child because of its affiliation with the Christian nonprofit group Samaritan’s Purse. Last November the AHA threatened to sue SkyView Academy if they participated. The school at that time decided it would be best to cancel the drive, but made it clear they weren’t giving up.
,,,
The complaint also addresses concerns that Highlands Ranch High School supported fundraising efforts for a Christian mission trip to Guatemala.

Dougco Schools Will Defend Right To Continue Religious Fundraisers « CBS Denver

My Father Repented of Christian Spanking Too Late - OnFaith

As an adult, I didn’t speak to my abuser for more than ten years. I spent my late teens and early twenties in intensive group and individual psychotherapy. By my mid-twenties, I’d hit my stride; it seemed that I’d finally found a way to work around the emotional and psychological scars of abuse. But a chance encounter with a secondary trauma caused the flashbacks and nightmares to return — this time, so severely that I couldn’t function personally or professionally. Clawing my way back to normal would cost me six more years.

My Father Repented of Christian Spanking Too Late - OnFaith

9 Truly Evil Things Right-Wing Christians Do | Alternet

Christians may be a super majority in the U.S. They may control the U.S. Congress and, as we all were reminded recently, the Supreme Court. But that hasn’t stopped Bible believers from preparing their children for martyrdom. Web resources abound for church youth leaders who want to make sure their young charges are ready when the lions come for them. Titles include, “Expect to be Persecuted” “Persecution Equals Reward” and “Adventure Game—Persecution of Christians and Paul of Tarsus.”

Stuff Fundies Like is a blog by and for people coming out of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist tradition. Recently one former Baptist told how his high school youth group had been divided into two groups, assigned to play the roles of persecutors and martyrs. In 2012 a youth pastor in Pennsylvania made international news by staging the kidnapping of his young charges to help prepare them for the horrors to come.

The Christian persecution complex is absurd. Modern American Christians are not persecuted or under attack. But for Christians who are truly concerned about hostility toward their faith, I have a bit of advice: Don’t be evil. And don’t let your co-religionists get away with being evil either.

No, really.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus gives his disciples a lot of contradictory advice. Modern day followers pick and choose, but one piece that often gets ignored is this: Be harmless as doves. This advice is not only profoundly moral; it is profoundly self-protective. Far fewer people would be entertaining themselves with fantasies about lions if more Christians took this little nugget seriously. A huge part of the antagonism that even moderate Christians face from outsiders is due to the fact that too many devout believers claim a righteous mandate to say and do things that are truly horrible.

Let me spell it out,,,

9 Truly Evil Things Right-Wing Christians Do | Alternet

Patriarchy in homeschool culture | Defeating the Dragons

I'm attempting to get a better understanding of the Christian Patriarchy ideology and its sub-categories. There is much to read on the subject (of which I am way behind) but I haven't yet been able to put it together in a coherent manner. Y'all will have to bare with me as my posting will run the gamut.
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In this culture, it is the sacred duty of every man to police the actions of every woman. Women are not to be trusted with decision making, let alone gifted the ability to make up their own mind on what they want to wear to their Senior Prom. If a man in this culture even notices a woman sexually, it’s a problem, and she deserves to be confronted and chastised because of it.

There’s two options available to men in these situations: either the girl is simply “silly” and telling her that her dress could cause “impure thoughts” is information she should be grateful for, and she should humbly leave in shame and humiliation– or, she is dressing provocatively on purpose, which makes her a “strange woman” who is “playing the harlot” and she definitely deserves to be confronted and removed. When Clare stood up for herself, that put her firmly into “strange woman playing the harlot” category.

It’s rape culture on steroids. It’s “she was asking for it” dressed up in Bible verses and cutesy Victorian language about knights and fair maidens.

patriarchy in homeschool culture | Defeating the Dragons

Alabama’s chief justice: Buddha didn’t create us so First Amendment only protects Christians

Buddha a god? Nope!  Mohammed a god? Nope! Kind of reminds me of the song "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" by Meatloaf. But in Moore's case, getting basic facts wrong just proves that history is just like how he sees his god and Bible, only relevant when it supports his point of view.

What is so telling, this poo pooing of facts transfers over to how Moore reads the Constitution. If the Constitution doesn't support his own personal bigotry, then he ignores the clear wording of the First Amendment, and says it means something completely different.

One question I would like to ask Moore, which one of the 41,000 plus different denominations of Christianity does the First Amendment protect? How well do you tolerate those "other" Christians? Are they all entitled to the same constitutional rights and privileges as you? (OK that was three questions.)
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Speaking at the Pastor for Life Luncheon, which was sponsored by Pro-Life Mississippi, Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court declared that the First Amendment only applies to Christians because “Buddha didn’t create us, Mohammed didn’t create us, it was the God of the Holy Scriptures” who created us.

“They didn’t bring the Koran over on the pilgrim ship,” he continued. “Let’s get real, let’s go back and learn our history. Let’s stop playing games.”

[Updated 5/5/2014 11PM:  I believe this is were R/S is drawing the conclusion ",,,First Amendment only protects Christians."  As reported, Moore is indirectly alluding to the Revisionist belief that the Founders where Christian and therefore derived their inspiration for the Declaration and Constitution directly from God/Jesus and the Bible.]

He then noted that he loves talking to lawyers, because he is a lawyer who went to “a secular law school,” so he knows that “in the law, [talking about God] just isn’t politically correct.” He claimed that this is why America has “lost its way,” and that he would be publishing a pamphlet “this week, maybe next” that contained copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, thereby proving that all the people “who found this nation — black, white, all people, all religions, all faiths” knew that America was “about God.”

Alabama’s chief justice: Buddha didn’t create us so First Amendment only protects Christians

Christianity’s faith-based freakout: Why atheism makes believers so uncomfortable - Salon.com

Why do so many religious believers want atheists to lie about our atheism?

It seems backward. Believers are always telling atheists that we need religion for morality; that we have to believe because without religion, people would have no reason not to murder and steal and lie. And yet, all too often, they ask us to lie. When atheists come out of the closet and tell the people in our lives that we don’t believe in God, all too often the reaction is to try to shove us back in.

In some cases, they simply want us to keep our mouths shut: when the topic of religion comes up, they want us to tell the lie of omission. But much of the time, they actually ask us to lie outright. They ask us to lie to other family members. They ask us to attend church or other religious services. They sometimes even ask us to perform important religious rituals, like funerals or confirmations, where we’re not just lying to the people around us, but to the god they supposedly believe in.

Why would they do this?

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If believers were sincerely concerned about atheists’ immortal souls, I’d understand why they might argue with us, show us their concerns and fears, even try with all their might to convince us that we’re wrong. But why would they ask us to lie? Why would they ask us to pretend to be religious? And why would they ask us to lie, not only in small ways to our friends and families and communities, but in important rituals to the god they believe in?



Christianity’s faith-based freakout: Why atheism makes believers so uncomfortable - Salon.com

At Weekly Exorcisms, Egypt’s Muslims and Christians Unite Against the Demons | TIME.com

I'm not quite sure what to make of this article. It is your typical debil being blamed for all the bad stuff. People reacting in the stereotypical way, but the interesting aspect of the story is this example of interfaith cooperation in the exorcism service.

The demon that had possessed the elderly Muslim woman was so strong that even an Imam couldn’t get rid of it. So her family opted for a priest. “My mother is possessed by a jinn,” the woman’s daughter said, by way of explaining why she and her Muslim family had decided to attend a recent Thursday night mass last month at Cairo’s St. Sama’an Cathedral. Her mother, who was slumped over a nearby bench, gave no indication of hearing anything. In a few hours she would be yipping and howling along with dozens of other women similarly possessed, but for the moment she just stared into the middle distance and muttered softly to herself.

Tensions between Muslims and Christians have been high in Egypt, ever since a military coup against the country’s first democratically elected Islamist President on 3 July unleashed a spasm of violence that saw churches burned, priests murdered and Christians threatened in hate speeches broadcast across the country. But there is at least one sphere of Egyptian contemporary life where interfaith cooperation perseveres, and that is at weekly exorcisms performed by one of the country’s most celebrated priests, Father Sama’an Ibrahim. He is one of the few priests in Egypt who can preform exorcisms — not even the Coptic Pope can — and his reputation for expelling demons of all kinds extends well beyond his Christian flock. Muslim Imams can do exorcisms as well, explains the woman, who declined to give her name, but her mother’s case required some extra muscle. “We went to a mosque first for healing, but the demons who harm her are more afraid of the Christian priest.”

At Weekly Exorcisms, Egypt’s Muslims and Christians Unite Against the Demons | TIME.com