To Christian DU'er's. Take Christ back from these idiots!

After seeing Sister Joan Chittisler with Bill Moyers on NOW, I'm fired up and I'm not even a Christian. I see no reason why mainstream churches and religious leaders can't rise up and defend their church and country from these snake handlers that threaten our nation. These people are shitting on the Constitution and pissing on the Founding Father's graves. It would be amazing to see a mighty religious movement rise up to challenge these modern day Torquemadas. We need more than just the secular Left to protect the country now.

This is the first day that I am back in a fighting mood. We can't allow ourselves to be frozen in terror by these thugs. Hope everybody is starting to feel the same way.

I just want to punch some Fascist heads.

these people have co-opted the entire definition of Christianity as if no one else is out there. Of course in their minds no one else counts unless they can be "saved." I have no problem with their wanting to proselytize. That's their belief. What angers me is their inference that they speak for the entire Christian world.

Churches have no issue with the current administration because their chances of getting funding are greatly increased (faith-based intiatives); they don't worry about everything else, because they figure the worse things are in the world, the more people show up to pray that they get better (and more money appears in the collection plates); plus, the hierarchy of every major religion is salivating over the anti-gay stance

The short version.

I saw a sig line the other day that I liked a lot:

"New Testament in 4 words or less: Don't be cruel."

put in perspective Their credo...

Dear President Bush,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from you and understand why you would propose and support a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. As you said "in the eyes of God marriage is based between a man a woman." I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18: 22 clearly states it to be an abomination. . . End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25: 44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21: 7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanness - Lev. 15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev. 1: 9. The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35: 2. clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination - Lev. 11: 10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there degrees of abomination?

7. Lev. 21: 20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11: 6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19: 19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24: 10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20: 14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, as well, you have a direct line to God so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Mel"

thanks for a great laugh
i had to remove my glasses to wipe the laughter tears away

is your username an attempt to avoid slavery by not letting us know exactly which country you live in?

welcome to DU!! :toast:

for me.

Since I'd been in the paper, everyone told me they'd seen me and I had a few good discussions about what was going on, what they thought of the loss, whether or not they thought there was fraud, what they thought of Kerry for conceeding, etc.

My church isn't down with this crap. My church knows the score. One 70 year old woman from my church asked for a yard sign in the last month after earlier not wanting any advertisement for the candidate, saying that she felt like democracy was at stake.

We are a caring people. I defy anyone to say we are not following Christian values. And yet only one out of every ten or so was a Bush supporter. Most were Kerryites.

I may have to brainstorm with them as to what we can do to counteract the perception that to be a true Christian is to be Republican. (someone teased me about the newspaper picture of me praying, wondering why I didn't know that God was Republican.)

If I thought that were true, I'd be a Druid. No, there's more to Christian values than these one issue folks seem to be able to comprehend. Pro-life includes the post-born as well as the pre-born.

I see someone's been listening to Mike Malloy. :)

Seriously, though, I totally agree with you. I consider myself among the Christian Left and I am against the way the Dominionists (Falwell, Robertson, etc.) have twisted and distorted the message of Christ. They are driving many good people away from Christianity who are appalled by their baseless hatred and vengeance towards their perceived enemies. All in the name of attaining power for their own sakes, rather than for the greater good of humanity.

But not all Christians are this way, just as there are those in Islam and other religions who seek peace, rather than war, and love rather than hate. There are many of us who have long been working to take back this country for everyone and to move it forward for the good of humanity. We won't stop now.

Then he knows a thing or two about snake handling holiness churches and footwashing Baptists.

Atlanta, no less.

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I saw this article cited on another DU thread. Read it, and you will understand what their actual goals are and how they are going about them:

http://www.harpers.org/JesusPlusNothing.html?pg=1

Covenant like Hitler? Cells of believers? Power over the world?
How can you counter this?

fundamentalism is one . . . but I think the number of people who subscribe to this particular approach is over-rated . . .

at the other extreme is Creation Spirituality, as espoused by ousted Catholic priest Matthew Fox (now an Episcopalian, I believe) . . . in a nutshell (from his book Original Blessing):

"What religion must let go of in the West is an exclusively fall/redemption model of spirituality -- a model that has dominated theology, Bible studies, seminary and novitiate training, hagiography, psychology for centuries. It is a dualistic model and a patriarchal one; it begins its theology with sin and original sin, and it generally ends with redemption. Fall/redemption spirituality does not teach believers about the New Creation or creativity, about justice-making and social transformation, or about Eros, play, pleasure, and the God of delight. It fails to teach love of the earth or care of the cosmos, and it is so frightened of passion that it fails to listen to the impassioned please of the anawin, the little ones, of human history. This same fear of passion prevents it from helping lovers to celebrate their experiences as spiritual and mystical. This tradition has not proven friendly to artists or prophets or Native American peoples or women."

(snip)

"In the past three centuries of Western culture and religion, the creation tradition has been almost entirely forgotten as religion. It has been kept alive by artists, poets, scientists, feminists, and political prophets, but not by theologians. Creation spirituality is a tradition; it has a past; it has historical and biblical roots; it boasts a communion of saints. But it is for the most part new to the religious believers of our time. And it is utterly new to our culture which, if it has been touched by religion at all, has been touched by fall/redemption and not creation-centered spirituality."

(snip)

"Because the fall/redemption tradition considers all nature "fallen" and does not seek God in nature but inside the individual soul, it is not only silent toward science but hostile to it. . . To recover a spiritual tradition in which creation and the study of creation matters would be to inaugurate new possibilities between spirituality and science that would shape the paradigms for culture, its institutions, and its people. These paradigms would be powerful in their capacity to transform."

(snip)

"This attitude of arrogance toward the earth cannot continue. Nuclear war would be just the last and most conspicuous sin of ecological devastation. . . We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive."

Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality Presented in Four Paths, Twenty-Six Themees, and Two Questions
by Matthew Fox
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585420670/qid=1100337586/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/103-7700802-8053448

University of Creation Spirituality
http://www.creationspirituality.com/aboutus.html

Friends of Creation Spirituality
http://www.matthewfox.org/sys-tmpl/door/

i'm not a christian. for many years i've considered myself to be a member of the First Church of Free Agency. i still haven't signed on to any one religion and at my age i probably won't.

but i do have respect for the teachings yeshua (jesus).

i have very little respect for many of his so-called followers.

there is a difference between christians and those that I call christianists

CHRISTIANIST (noun) - one who professes to believe in Christ but doesn't believe in the ideas that Christ believed in.

you need to use a term for those who have stolen your religion.

evangelicals is too nice and...angelic!

fundamentalists is good but even islamic fundamentalist radicals have their own name - islamists.

so why not - CHRISTIANISTS

These Bush Christians would have voted against Christ in a general election. FOX news would have crucified him, CNN would have made fun of him and C-SPAN would have ignored him.

Jerry Falwell would hate him and Pat Robertson would have called him an immoral hippie whore loving hippie.

And the DNC would try and distance themselves from his radical agenda (especially the Fish and Loaves part).

And the Koran?

Too much Christianity in the Democratic Party sounds way too exclusionary to me.

however, the point is to counter those who distort Christianity with the true message of Christ. The so-called "Christian" right has claimed the name of "christian" for a message that is anything BUT Christian. True followers of Christ's teachings are the ones best placed to take back the meaning of what it is to be a Christian.

sw

They would be smart to start collecting people to support them before they take on their elders. I'd love to go to a church again. I pulled my kids away from the Catholic church when I realized that the kind of people that it was producing were precisely the kind of people I didn't want my children associating with. I'm sure it's just a local problem. Churches may not have a say on the kind of people that live around the area.

for those that dont believe in any particular religion, universally it seems there had to be an outloud mandate proclaiming a right to moral value. now is the time for all of us, to confront those that say they are going to show us what moral vvalues are. to challenge each and everyone. i have a lot in my area. i would suggest across the nation we challenge ths moral value they hold onto. it is so weak, without foundation, without intelligence, without reality, without scripture as funny as that is

earlier this week how proud I am of my Dad, a very reserved man, for speaking out in his Sunday School class at our church last Sunday when the teacher and a class member brought up politics and that they should all "praise God" for George Bush being elected.

My father told them that not everyone agreed with them and that church was not the place to discuss politics. No one debated him, several thanked him after class, and the teacher personally apologized to my parents.

Even my husband (who votes correctly but abhors political discussions, lol) has suggested that he and I should meet with our minister and raise our concerns to him about politics being brought into the church, that neither political party nor any single demomination owns Christian values. His suggestion took me by surprise.

I was just about ready to look for another church, but my family members are convincing me that we should stand our ground. Besides, our leaving the church would probably be what many people there would like to happen....can't have that. :D

They abhor the blending of state power with church authority because of one fundamental truth: mixing religion with government corrupts both, but it corrupts religion even more.

I abandoned the organized church long ago. I am a Christian, but I am on my own. How can I take anything back when I rejected them long ago?