LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

A couple of times a week, solarbird posts a "Cultural Warfare Update" in her blog. It includes links and transcripts concerning dominionist activism, many from dominionist sources, with an emphasis on GBLT issues.

Here's today's update.

Subjects include:

* Southern Baptist Convention passes resolution urging churches to investigate local schools and try to shut down any GBLT-affirming or tolerant activities there
* Older (2002) article by Rick Santorum: liberals and media made Catholic priests abuse children
* FotF article on the political battle over PBS - includes action item
* Today's Family News in Focus
* Weird CWA article on today's Ten Commandments ruling
* Lobbying groups waiting for next Supreme Court nominee with bated breath
* Article on possible GOP rift over nominees; pro-business wing wants fundamentalist wing to shut up when nominees come up; fundamentalists say they will demand clear position statements on abortion, marriage rights (against both)

I hope you all find this interesting and informative.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ellid)

Looks like the Southern Baptists lost this one...

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4727756

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Yesterday's segment of Talk of the Nation feature Evangelical leaders on the political right and left discussing the politicization of their beliefs and the future of their movement.

Guests:

Barrett Duke, vice president for research with the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission

Randall Balmer, professor of American religious history at Barnard College, Columbia University in N.Y., and an evangelical Christian who is a political liberal

Rev. Rob Schenck, minister of the Evangelical Church Alliance; president of Faith and Action; and a conservative evangelical Christian

Link to audio track on the site.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

CNN reports that the pastor who threw out the Democratic members of his congregation has resigned:

WAYNESVILLE, North Carolina (AP) -- A Baptist preacher accused of running out nine congregants who disagreed with his Republican politics resigned Tuesday, two days after calling the issue "a great misunderstanding."

Speaking from the pulpit during a meeting at East Waynesville Baptist Church, the Rev. Chan Chandler told church members that it would "cause more hurt for me and my family" if he stayed.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This sounds like some sort of hoax, but it's for real.

Yesterday, on the National Day of Prayer, we learned that the East Waynesville Baptist Church in North Carolina essentially kicked out its Democratic members. Nine members were "excommunicated" and 40 other members of the 405 member church resigned in protest.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY dabroots)

A few entries back in dark_christian, a question was asked about which major Christian denominations besides Southern Baptists and Assembly of God make up substantial portions of the Dominionist aspect of Christian fundamentalism in the U.S.

A good source information on many contemporary subjects is en.wikipedia.org.

Here are a few useful links on this subject, more of which you'll find within the linked articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalism#Christian_Views
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Theology

I can't say that any of them especially answer the specific question, but it gives you places to dig further. Look at the links and click on them.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY arxacies)

What are some of the big dominionist denominations? I know the Southern Baptists have their share, and I think Assembly of God. What others?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Here's the NYT's opinion piece on the upcoming Justice Sunday simulcast: (thanks to twistedchick)

The fraudulence of "Justice Sunday" begins but does not end with its sham claims to solidarity with the civil rights movement of that era. "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias," says the flier for tonight's show, "and now it is being used against people of faith." In truth, Bush judicial nominees have been approved in exactly the same numbers as were Clinton second-term nominees. Of the 13 federal appeals courts, 10 already have a majority of Republican appointees. So does the Supreme Court. It's a lie to argue, as Tom DeLay did last week, that such a judiciary is the "left's last legislative body," and that Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, is the poster child for "outrageous" judicial overreach. Our courts are as highly populated by Republicans as the other two branches of government.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY brigidsblest)

Pharisee Nation

by John Dear

Last September, I spoke to some 2,000 students during their annual lecture at a Baptist college in Pennsylvania. After a short prayer service for peace centered on the Beatitudes, I took the stage and got right to the point. “Now let me get this straight,” I said. “Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ which means he does not say, ‘Blessed are the warmakers,’ which means, the warmakers are not blessed, which means warmakers are cursed, which means, if you want to follow the nonviolent Jesus you have to work for peace, which means, we all have to resist this horrific, evil war on the people of Iraq.”

With that, the place exploded, and 500 students stormed out. The rest of them then started chanting, “Bush! Bush! Bush!”

So much for my speech. Not to mention the Beatitudes.

( read more... )

Cross-posted to my own journal. The original article may be found at:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0215-21.htm

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article talks about certain evangelical groups using their aid as an opportunity to prosetylize and try to convert people who were hit by the tsunami.

Philadelphia — As Western humanitarian organizations unleash an armada of relief supplies and workers into Asia's crisis zone, some evangelical Christian groups aim to bring the Gospel to the victims, as well.

Religious groups promise to be a major presence in the massive relief and reconstruction effort. InterAction, the largest alliance of U.S.-based nongovernment organizations, reports that of its 55 member agencies providing tsunami aid, 22 are faith-based.

Most of the religious players, including the Red Cross, the American Jewish World Service, and Lutheran World Relief, have rules against proselytizing, or attempting to convert one to a religion.

But some evangelical groups active in Asia, including the Southern Baptists' International Mission Board, Gospel for Asia, and the Christian and Missionary Alliance, say the Bible always impels them to create converts to the faith.

"This (disaster) is one of the greatest opportunities God has given us to share his love with people," said K.P. Yohannan, president of the Texas-based Gospel for Asia. In an interview, Yohannan said his 14,500 "native missionaries" in India, Sri Lanka and the Andaman Islands are giving survivors Bibles and booklets about "how to find hope in this time through the word of God."

***

Yohannan said Sri Lankan officials are "extremely angry" with Christian missionary work and want to outlaw proselytizing. Some states in southern India have anti-conversion laws that bar "fraudulent manipulation," he said, adding: "I cannot tell you there is a hell awaiting you because it can be interpreted as a fear tactic."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Since this community's name is "Dark" Christianity, I wanted to touch upon just exactly what is meant by 'dark'. It doesn't mean Christianity in general- it is meant to highlight and illuminate a sub-sect of Christian extremists who are now in control of a lot of government offices in the US- including the most powerful ones.

Who are these people? Why should we learn about them? Why are they a threat? Can we counteract their dire desires for the US?

I've found some interesting links and excerpts which might help explain them a little better, so you'll understand which Christians we're talking about when 'dark' is used to describe them. Happy reading!

DisinfoPedia defines Dominionists and Theonomy:

“Dominionism”, as defined by S.R. Shearer, is a “militant post-millennial eschatology (‘doctrine of end times’) which pictures the seizure of earthly (temporal) power by the church as the only means through which the world can be rescued; only after the world has been thus 'rescued' can Christ return to ‘rule and reign.’ (Some dominionists see the seizure of the earth as the result of ‘signs, wonders, and miracles;’ others picture it as the result of military and political conquest; most see it as a combination of both.)”( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The most recent Yurica Report talks about the systematic and deliberate Dominionist takeover of the US military. (Dominionists are extreme hard-right, hard core Christian fundementalists that make the Taliban look like a bunch of sissies.)

This long and very detailed article first discusses the Dominionist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, and how it was accomplished, then goes on with this chilling statement:

The Manifesto of the Dominionist Movement

But are there any other institutions that are either under siege or targets of takeovers by the hard right?

According to the plan proposed by Paul Weyrich, the founder of the Free Congress Foundation, to secure the success of the hard right’s control and domination of the American culture, the subversives must “develop a network of parallel cultural institutions existing side-by-side” with the cultural institutions of America.[16] Eric Heubeck, the author of Mr. Weyrich’s manual wrote: “Our movement will be entirely destructive, and entirely constructive. We will not try to reform the existing institutions. We only intend to weaken them, and eventually destroy them. We will endeavor to knock our opponents off-balance and unsettle them at every opportunity. All of our constructive energies will be dedicated to the creation of our own institutions…” [17]( Long and chilling post snipped for Friends pages )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

While the goal of Dark Christianity is to closely examine the darker and scarier aspects of certain Christian sects and their interaction with both our government and the world at large, I want to make sure that it doesn't become a bastion of intolerance itself. Not all conservative Christians are neocons and want to turn the US into a theonomy or destroy the world for Christ. In fact, quite a few of them are rather unhappy about being seen as such people. And in all fairness, I want to make sure that these folks get some fresh air time.

Baptists tend to be some of the loudest of the Christians, but not all of them have been assimilated by the Neoconservative Borg Collective. It is helpful to remember that before the rise of fundementalism, Baptists of various sorts - along with other Christian sects- were instrumental in making the US the paradise for religious expression that it once was, before its current decline.

That said, I want to introduce you to some Mainstream Baptists who are not your "Landover" sorts, and who have broken away from the Southern Baptist Convention because the SBC's increasing intolerance and narrow-mindedness. This refreshing view includes the treatment of women, the neoconservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, and a Biblical innerancy test that will bring a smile to your face.

Yes, these are conservative and deeply religious people. But their faith emphasizes good works and quiet faith- much on the lines of former President Jimmy Carter, who did not use his faith as a cudgel to hammer out a war, but as a means to improve the world. People tend to forget that- but he is one of my heroes because of it.

So, go take a peek. Read, learn, understand. Get to know these quiet but faithful people. They are not the virulently intolerant foes so often maligned in the press or elsewhere. In fact, these folks might be the key to our country's salvation in more ways than one.

(Yes, I'm quoting articles that were mentioned in earlier posts, but good things are worth going back to- as you can see.)

Sunfell

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The American Prospect online magazine has a couple of articles of interest.

Carter's Crusade talks about how former President Jimmy Carter explains that the Christian Right really isn't "Christian" at all.

Here's a fascinating excerpt:( Read more... )