LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Excellent LA Times article about the push for Armageddon.

For thousands of years, prophets have predicted the end of the world. Today, various religious groups, using the latest technology, are trying to hasten it.

Their endgame is to speed the promised arrival of a messiah.

For some Christians this means laying the groundwork for Armageddon.

With that goal in mind, mega-church pastors recently met in Inglewood to polish strategies for using global communications and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission: to make every person on Earth aware of Jesus' message. Doing so, they believe, will bring about the end, perhaps within two decades.

In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a far different vision. As mayor of Tehran in 2004, he spent millions on improvements to make the city more welcoming for the return of a Muslim messiah known as the Mahdi, according to a recent report by the American Foreign Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

To the majority of Shiites, the Mahdi was the last of the prophet Muhammad's true heirs, his 12 righteous descendants chosen by God to lead the faithful.

Ahmadinejad hopes to welcome the Mahdi to Tehran within two years.

Conversely, some Jewish groups in Jerusalem hope to clear the path for their own messiah by rebuilding a temple on a site now occupied by one of Islam's holiest shrines.

Artisans have re-created priestly robes of white linen, gem-studded breastplates, silver trumpets and solid-gold menorahs to be used in the Holy Temple — along with two 6½-ton marble cornerstones for the building's foundation.

Then there is Clyde Lott, a Mississippi revivalist preacher and cattle rancher. He is trying to raise a unique herd of red heifers to satisfy an obscure injunction in the Book of Numbers: the sacrifice of a blemish-free red heifer for purification rituals needed to pave the way for the messiah.

So far, only one of his cows has been verified by rabbis as worthy, meaning they failed to turn up even three white or black hairs on the animal's body.

Linking these efforts is a belief that modern technologies and global communications have made it possible to induce completion of God's plan within this generation.

Good article.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

I just checked our stats for dark_christian, and we're at 795 subscribers! That's excellent! Also, I have noted that our subscription is good through August 2008, and for that, I would like to thank those who pitched in to help out.

Headlines like the one I just quoted in the last post remind us that we must keep up this examination. We must continue to learn about the overall Dominionist movement, its language, projects and jargon, and most important, we must do what we can do detoxify it wherever and whenever we find it.

Dominionist-contaminated Christianity is a fear-based faith. They fear women- especially strong and autonomous women. They fear gays. They fear any who do not have identical beliefs to theirs. They fear science. That fear often becomes hatred and paranoia.

The only way to break the fear is with knowledge. Dominionists fear knowledge more than anything, because that dilutes the absolutism that they constantly hammer into their believers. Knowledge is Satan to them. But knowledge can break down the walls, dispel the toxins, and renew the hope upon which Christianity is based.

It is vital that we understand this. Dominionists are prepared to take their 'enemy' -people like us- face-on, but are not prepared for the oblique attack, the soft approach. They are ready to face haters, but not people who actually care about their mental health and spiritual well-being. It is clear that there are some mental health issues to understand, if the stories of the 'walkaways' here are to be believed.

Water is a 'soft' thing, but it can bore holes through stone. Christians here must remember that under the hard shell of hatred and fear is a Christian core, and seek to find and redeem it. Dominionists need to be saved... from themselves.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY 1400scale)

Hello, everyone. Long time lurker, new poster. You all don't need to give me the lowdown; I've been following TheocracyWatch, Talk2Action, ReligiousRightWatch, etc. for over year now, so I know the whole deal.

A while back, I came across something interesting on another message board; a tactical manifesto outlining a method for dealing with the religious right that I think you guys should see.

"Anonymous", as the writer calls him/herself (whichever the case my be) has come up with a pretty radical idea, IMO. This person even specifically requests that the thread be linked to here, so I thought, why not?

http://namagomiexpress.proboards60.com/index.cgi?board=politics&action=display&thread=1147232563

After reading it, a question occurred to me: if "Anonymous" is right, and the religious right DOES succeed in their efforts of "Christianizing" the U.S. (and even going further, seeing as how so many radical religious groups really do seem interested on speeding up Judgment Day), how will their fundamentalist foot soldiers react when the "Rapture" DOESN'T happen, an "Antichrist" DOESN'T use the U.N. as a vehicle for a totalitarian world-state, and Jesus DOESN'T return in the flesh?

Mass disillusionment with their belief systems, maybe?

I think this new and particularly global overreach of the religious right might just mark the beginning of the end for organized religion itself. Maybe permanently.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY mysticknyght)

...it's an interview with Evangelical author Randall Balmer, who is promoting his new book, Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical's Lament.

Evangelical: Religious Right Has Distorted the Faith

President Bush and the Republican Party find strong support among evangelical voters. But in his new book, Thy Kingdom Come, author Randall Balmer says that allegiance is misplaced.

"I don't find much that I recognize as Christian" in the religious right, says Balmer, a professor of religion at Barnard College, Columbia University and contributing editor to Christianity Today.

He says blind allegiance to the Republican Party has distorted the faith of politically active evangelicals, leading them to misguided positions on issues such as abortion and

I like how he takes Evangelicals to task for being "pro-life" with respect to abortion but so silent on the subject of torture.

Another interesting aspect of this particular interview is that the reporter is NPR veteran Linda Wertheimer and not "religion" reporter Barbara Bradley Haggerty. Haggerty received some serious and scathing criticism for some atrocious reporting on Kerry in the 2004 election, as well as extremely biased reporting on "Intelligent Design" in 2005. Her ethics have been questioned because of outside "seminars" in which she's participated.

When all this blew up, NPR glossed over Haggerty's misdeeds, but it appears from her workload (her last story was in March) that she's been benched.

The link has an excerpt from his book, as well. Interesting reading.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY wyldraven)

Excerpted from an email sent by Public Campaign Action Fund Campaign Money Watch

Yesterday, Ralph Reed's corruption was exposed by a Senate Committee report on convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, American Indian casinos, and the web of deceit and scandal in Washington. Reed, as you know, is the former head of the Christian Coalition and current candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia.

In a nearly 400-page report, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee revealed emails in which Abramoff said that Reed was an ideologue "as far as cash goes." In addition, one of the tribal casino leaders said that they needed to hide their payments to Reed: "It can’t get out. He’s Christian Coalition. It wouldn’t look good if they’re receiving money from a casino-operating tribe to oppose gaming. It would be kind of like hypocritical." (see the source below)

“GIMME FIVE” - INVESTIGATION OF TRIBAL
LOBBYING MATTERS - FINAL REPORT BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS (PDF Warning)

Pages 23ff (39ff by PDF numbering) are particularly interesting. I haven't read the entire 373 page report yet.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY nebris)

"The Fundamentalists claim that the United States was founded on "Christian principles." Here's one glaring problem with that."