LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY evil_genius)

Evangelical Leaders Criticize Pat Robertson
By Larry B. Stammer, Times Staff Writer(original article)


Evangelical leaders said Friday that they were embarrassed and incensed by televangelist Pat Robertson's assertion that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who had suffered a massive stroke, was stricken by God as punishment for ceding the Gaza Strip and a portion of the West Bank to Palestinians last summer.

Officials of conservative Christian churches and organizations suggested that Robertson was losing religious and political influence as a result of his remarks on Sharon and other recent controversial comments.

"I'm appalled that Pat Robertson would make such statements. He ought to know better," said Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination.

"The arrogance of the statement shocks me almost as much as the insensitivity of it," Land said in an interview.
( The rest. )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

A "Real Live Preacher" takes a look at "The Book of Daniel" on Salon:

Sinfully bad TV
A real live preacher weighs in on NBC's "The Book of Daniel" and the unholy outrage from the religious right.

By Gordon Atkinson

Jan. 09, 2006 | I wanted so badly to like "The Book of Daniel," NBC's new series about an Episcopalian minister and his rather interesting family. I wanted to like it if only because some of the religious right are soundly condemning it. I usually can't pass up an opportunity to distance myself from those guys.

But I couldn't like it. I just couldn't. Not because it is sacrilegious, but because it is bad. It is very bad. This is a bad and boring show. I stayed with it as long as I could, but when the two bishops were having a torrid affair while the priest with the Mafia connections was calling in favors to find the missing $3.2 million, all the while trying to convince the reverend to hire a Mafia construction company -- something the reverend seems to be seriously considering -- I had to call it a night.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

A time traveler from the civil rights era would have been flabbergasted at Justice Sunday III last night. The third annual rally to proclaim God's support for Bush's judicial nominees, sponsored by the Family Research Council, was held at Greater Exodus Baptist Church, an African-American congregation in downtown Philadelphia. The nationally televised event roared with full-throated gospel and foot-stomping enthusiasm. Martin Luther King Jr. was invoked over and over -- his niece, Alveda King, a frequent presence at religious right confabs, summoned the memory of Rosa Parks and sang a yearning version of "We Shall Overcome."

...

The entire evening had a surreal, upside-down quality, as if history had been caught in a whirlpool and come back all jumbled. Appearing via video, David Barton, a theocratic revisionist historian, invoked the words of Thomas Jefferson to argue that the founders intended for religion and government to be intertwined. ("I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just," he quoted, not bothering to mention that Jefferson was talking about the sin of slavery, not secularism.) A cast of white conservatives, several with past links to racist groups, presented themselves as heirs to the preachers who led the fight against segregation. The moral authority of the black church was invoked against the judges who have most fervently defended civil rights.

Full Article

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

From MedPage:

Abstinence-only education programs are not turning out to be a panacea for the problems inherent in adolescent and premarital sex. Indeed, they may deprive adolescents and young adults of critical sexual health information that could protect them from potentially life-threatening sexually transmitted diseases, researchers here reported in a literature review in the January issue of Journal of Adolescent Health...

Abstinence-only sex education programs have been increasing in popularity, and federal funding for these programs has jumped significantly over the past decade, from $60 million in 1998 to $168 in 2005...

While parents appear supportive of teaching their children both abstinence and ways to protect against STDs and pregnancy, current government policies appear to suggest that there is no room for sexual health information in abstinence-only education. They also noted that many faith-based organizations are receiving increased funding to promote an abstinence-only message.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sesby)

In South Carolina, a neighborhood group is objecting to the presence of a group home for four mentally disabled men. I'm sure it has a lot to do with fear of declining property values, but the group says they're afraid of "violence" -- and what's more, they object to a state law that describes the men as a "natural family."

A quote from the group's leader: "As a Christian and as a father, I strongly object to that," he said. "That’s an attack on your family and all our families. Change that."

I had no idea one could somehow bring homophobia into one's hatred and fear of the different and the weak, but this man has done it. I wish he understood that we're all one blow to the head or three minutes without oxygen away from needing the kind of living situation those men do.

They have so little. How can anyone with a heart try to take it from them -- and get up on a "My family is the ONLY kind of family" high horse while doing so? Inhuman.

Read the rest of the article at http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/13576221.htm.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY tinhuviel)

( Truth Ministry )

It's a constant joy to live in South Carolina.....