It's about poverty and the poor even more than it is religion.

With "the poor don't do enough to help themselves" attitude. Canada too? Sickening.

please be satire.

But you never know.

from back in 2000...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2000/02/21/church.html

It's a Unity church, apparently:

http://unityofwinnipeg.com/?page_id=2


Unity is a positive, practical spiritual philosophy that teaches universal Spiritual principles, the principles that underlie all major religions. We do not have rules or dogma that must be followed or believed in order to be a part of Unity.

Unity teaches that each person is a unique expression of God created with sacred worth. As we learn to live from that awareness our lives are transformed. We realize that we no longer need live from fear but from love.

We study spiritual books from all walks of life, knowing that there is Truth in all of them that we can apply in our lives.

We emphasize the creative power of thought in our life experience. We know that we create our world by the thoughts, words and actions we hold, and when we learn to change our thoughts to life-affirming, positive thoughts, we experience a more fulfilling and abundant life.

almost verbatim. It was from somewhere in the South. I think this must be a parody.

maybe southern Canada????

and may be a parody or a hoax. I find it hard to believe there is more than one church so tone deaf in terms of media publicity. Perhaps I'm naive. But I recall very similar wording. It was definitely a red state.

From his Monday night headlines, according to a quick google search.

Here's an old page I found with the headline on its list under Leno's Monday Night Headlines:
http://www.strangebillions.com/zingmar00/

So, it seems legit, just pretty old. Someone has probably changed some details from the real story and spread it around as an internet hoax over the years too.

"Spiritual hunger"?

Give me a break.

Unity isn't a Christian denomination. http://www.unityofwinnipeg.com/

That, of course, doesn't negate the truth of your observation at all.

They are out of step with how most mainline (and definitely fundamentalist and orthodox) denominations define Christianity.

http://unityofwinnipeg.com/?page_id=2

It's one of the reasons I can't really belong to most Christian churches: I'm actually closer Unity's openness to many spiritual resources beyond the Bible, for example.

We study spiritual books from all walks of life, knowing that there is Truth in all of them that we can apply in our lives.

I know from experience that most Christian denominations are completely opposed to that approach. Most denominations are opposed to many aspects of my spirituality that are probably in line with Unity: contemplative spirituality (if Christians are open to that they insist that it remain strictly within a Christian context and not take into consideration Eastern forms...which is their prerogative, but I find it limiting); insights and wisdom from Paganism and other faith traditions; etc. That's why I'm a Unitarian Universalist even though I do see myself as a very theologically liberal Christian, ultimately.

I differ with Unity in that I'm not into the whole "everything-is-thought" thing that they emphasize:

We emphasize the creative power of thought in our life experience. We know that we create our world by the thoughts, words and actions we hold, and when we learn to change our thoughts to life-affirming, positive thoughts, we experience a more fulfilling and abundant life.

Why don't you dig that up? I bet even imgur has some info on that.

... Is "The Ottawa Citizen" one of Canada's winger periodical newspapers? Why isn't there a date at the top of the clipping? And as for what the author (unnamed) calls a "church" in the title of the PS article/announcement, it does NOT appear to be a traditional church. Is called "Unity Truth Centre", not church. Christ is nowhere in it's title. Duh...therefore it is NOT a Christian institution. Nor does this "Unity Truth Centre" espouse Christian values, as evidenced by the information in the body of the article. Author calls the leader of the supossed church a minister in paragraph 2, but then later in the article refers to her as "Ms" Prossen, not "Rev." Prossen. Blah, blah, blah blah, blah.... I agree with you 2ndAFC...er, what? I place this article in file 86.

The cool thing about modern Christianity is how it has transitioned. Where at one time Christians demonstrated their faith by living a Christ-like life, demostrating their faith in Christ through love, compassion, sacrifice, poverty, suffering, and service to their fellow man; modern Americanized Christians operate under an entirely different doctrine based upon modern principles.

Obviously they give lip service to these core biblical ideas, but these are not expressed through actual sacrifice or service to the needy, but rather through cash contributions and service to their church. In this modern interpretation of scripture the path to heaven is secured, one need not worry about that. Once you "accept Christ" that's basically it, and nothing more than this is required. All of those things that Christ commanded his followers do are not so much rules as suggestions. God, in modern Americanized Christianity, wants you to be happy and successful, he wants you to have lots of money, and all he really requires is that you give some money to his mega church, be obedient to the Pastor, show up and make a show of passionate devotion, and teach your children to do the same.

The Christ in the bible is nowhere to be found. They care no more about the commands of Christ than they care about the prohibition to keep the sabath holy.

This fraud is one of the major reasons why American Christian Pastors wield power far beyond merely the wealth at their disposal. The Church is nothing more than a social club. And if you want to get anywhere in local politics you better show up and make a show of devotion, you better do what that pastor says, you better hate who he tells you to hate, because he has the money and the votes to win and lose elections. And it's easy, there's no cost to you. Church is a PARTY, there's bands and music and networking, the riff raff are kept out, the pastor is wearing a thousand dollar suit and no one is telling you to give up your wealth or anything else.

a dateline!!

Congratulations. You would win today's prize for gratuitous flamebait, but Lared beat you to it.

Not a good day for crazed religious fanatics, innit?

but it's so freaking sad.

When checking google to confirm legitimacy, without adjusting the dates of my search, most links seem to date to only 2011. Had to change search parameters to find mentions of the original 2000 article and filter out the many "rediscoveries".