LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY firepie)

do you guys know this website?

The Coalition on Revival (COR) is a network of evangelical leaders from every major denominational and theological perspective who share a vision for and a commitment to worldwide revival, renewal, and reformation in Church and society. COR's basic mission is to encourage and help the universal Church of Jesus Christ to obey God's Cultural Mandate and the Great Commission. COR's founding director is Dr. Jay Grimstead who also helped found the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, which wrote the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy & the Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics. (Click on the titles to go to the Chicago Documents.)

Check out the "documents" section of the site.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This was to be expected: after the launch of the Christian Alliance for Progress (on the links list at left), the World Net Daily has decided that because they are 'leftist', they're not "Christian" enough.

The Christian Alliance for Progress describes its as "progressive," but its leaders' so-called broad-minded efforts toward tolerance have blinded them to how the Bible instructs us to live.

Finally, the Alliance calls for peace and an end to war, but they cannot understand that the only true peace that man can know comes through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He was not a hippie do-gooder, but rather the Son of the Living God who came to Earth to pave the one way to heaven for mankind. To present Him as anything less is an outrage.

Dr. Ed Hindson, renowned theologian and Liberty University professor, writing in the August issue of National Liberty Journal, stated: "If liberals want to debate these issues on biblical grounds, let them go right ahead. Because they will lose, not only the debate, but also any influence they might hope to have among spiritually minded people. They are correct when they insist we do not speak for them, and they certainly don't speak for us. Their new Alliance for Progress will simply result in one more organization in regress."

To the religious right, one has to adhere to every jot and tittle of the Bible (biblical literalism and legalism), as well as their hypocracies. They claim that abortion violates 'thou shalt not kill', yet advocate killing homosexuals, and support the death penalty. Hey, guys, choose. You can't have it both ways.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Most people believe that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is about homosexuality, and God punishing people for having homosexual sex (or just plain sex, period). Even the word 'sodomy' comes from certain sexual practices thought to have originated in that doomed city.

Well, guess what- here's the verse about why God condemned this place. And sex isn't even mentioned.

"She and her suburbs had pride, an excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not help or encourage the poor or needy. They were arrogant and this was abominable in God's eyes."

Gee, that sounds like some megachurches and certain congregations in this day and age. God busted them for being like the 'prosperity Gospel' and 'Landover Baptist'-types are today: prideful and arrogant. I don't find much about Biblegod to be likeable, but on this point, I can agree with him.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

I found another interesting progressive Christian blog that I think you might enjoy:

Off The Beaten Track

And the Occult Investigator steps in with a scriptural challenge.

"19 Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; 20 do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21 Test everything. Hold on to the good. 22 Avoid every kind of evil."

1 Thessalonians 5:19-22

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

In this post, ginmar talks about the Christian persecution complex, and how it is becoming a bludgeon to spread the beliefs of a minority into the majority mainstream. Warning- Ginmar uses pithy and strong language, but she definitely gets the point across.

You know, for everyone who says that Christians are persecuted, I want you to go read crevette's rant on the subject. A Christian judge has decided that he doesn't like what religion a couple are practicing, so he ordered them to stop. Why? It wasn't a bone of contention in the marriage: the couple are pagans, and while they're divorcing, that wasn't a source of discontent. To them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see the arguments now. But they're sending the kid to Catholic school.

Yeah, Catholic school may be the only option, like Catholic hospitals are the only option for a lot of women.

Pay close attention. That is persecution. When somebody you don't even FUCKING KNOW can step into your life and tell you you have to live by their rules, then, yes, class, THEN YOU ARE BEING PERSECUTED. Do I need to spell it out any more?!( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY multiclassgeek)

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com

I can imagine people (US Neo-Pharisee Dominionists) looking at this and thinking "Heresy!!", but I prefer to think of it as mix of affectionate parody and desire to promote discussion/debate

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Although the church-state situation is grim and getting grimmer (especially if the Senate Republicans trigger the nuclear optionConstitutional option, there are Christians who are still practicing what Jesus preached. Here are a couple of sites where they do:

Jesus on the Family
The Wittenburg Door

I want to see if Barns & Yarns has the latest issue of the magazine- there are some articles in the current issue that look quite interesting: "Why should you spend four years and $100,000 when Jesus will probably return before you graduate?" and "Christian Bookstore Survival Tips: Be careful around the ceramic baby Jesuses. Breaking one is bad karma."

Yep, levelheaded and humorous, too!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

I really like Spong. He tells it like it is. This Daily Kos post talks about Spong's latest comments about the misuse of the Bible by the religious supremacists.

Political pulpit: The Bible as weapon in the culture war

By John Shelby Spong

May 15, 2005

In recent years the Bible has emerged as a major force in the political arena.

For example, devotees of the Scriptures have quoted this sacred source to justify religious support for the war in Iraq. In fundamentalist Christian communities this war is seen as bringing peace to the Middle East and securing Israel's establishment, which they believe are the conditions for the coming of "the rapture" and thus the end of the world.

It is worth noting that part of the code language used by these millenarians is that in the rapture "no child is left behind!"

The Bible regularly is quoted by conservative Christians to argue that what they call "the homosexual lifestyle" is contrary to Scripture. Politically this takes the form of seeking to amend the Constitution to discriminate against our citizens who are gay or lesbian.

In this basic charter nearly every previous attempt at amendment has been to expand freedom. Now these Bible quoters want to reverse that trend, failing to see that if today's majority can amend the Constitution to discriminate, then no one is safe from tomorrow's majority.( Read more... )

I want to highlight something he said in the body of this essay, something that reflects the purpose of this, and many other boards that are starting to turn up online:

Theocracies always turn demonic because they justify everything in the name of God.

Non-religious people and people whose religious tradition is different from the prevailing point of view should be alarmed at these trends, especially when their voices, raised in protest, are dismissed as anti-Christian.

That is why I urge those who like myself are Christians, steeped in this religious tradition that we love, to speak publicly in powerful opposition to this current use of religious power.

Varied religious voices need to remind the leaders of this nation that no single person speaks for and no single perspective captures the ultimate truth of God.

If we do not remind them about this, and if we do not act to halt their steamrolling over our rights, they will take over. They are a minority. We must remember that. But they have systematically climbed into power, using deliberately deceptive means to get good Christians to ride along and fund them, and to disguise their real goals- until now. Their triumphalism has revealed their hand. Are we going to let them walk in and destroy what we've had for 229 years? It's up to us, and others like us, to say, "Wait a minute! Your vision is not mine!" Do we have the courage to stand up to them and their fear and hate? They might listen to fellow Christians before they listen to a Jew or a Pagan. Let's get the word out.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Christopher Hitchens talks about the Religious Right:

Why I'm Rooting Against the Religious Right
Save the Republic from shallow, demagogic sectarians.

BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Thursday, May 5, 2005 12:01 a.m.

I hope and believe that, by identifying itself with "faith" in general and the Ten Commandments in particular, a runaway element in the Republican leadership has made a career-ending mistake. In support of this, let me quote two authorities:

* The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100%. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. . . . Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some god-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY meta4life)

I caught this one on The National Post (Canadian):

Satanists, apocalypse watchers and heavy metal guitarists may have to adjust their demonic numerology after a recently deciphered ancient biblical text revealed that 666 is not the fabled Number of the Beast after all.

A fragment from the oldest surviving copy of the New Testament, dating to the Third century, gives the more mundane 616 as the mark of the Antichrist. (Read More...)

Posted an entry about it on Metaphors For Life's blog today too.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Reading the Alternet comments in the post below led me to DemiOrator's blog. Very interesting reading. People are catching on!

I especially liked this entry:

Word of the Day: Bibliolater

Using the term "fundmentalist Christian" has often irked me a little. In my opinion, a fundamentalist Christian would adhere strictly to (wait for it) the teachings of Jesus Christ. However I think most of the denominations and people refered to as fundamentalist Christians would more accurately be described as Bibliolaters or Biblicists. I'm capitalizing these words to link them to the Christian Bible and not books in general.

From Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary:

Bibliolator: one excessively venerating the Bible literally interpreted.
Biblicism: adherence to the letter of the Bible.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This opinion article from Salon puts the theocrats in their place:

God doesn't take sides
How do I reconcile my faith with that of the spiritual hysterics in the White House? Easy. I don't even try.

By Anne Lamott

April 27, 2005 | I have been on a book tour for a month, and as God is my witness, at every single reading I gave, someone asked how I can "reconcile my Christian faith with that of the radical right." I never quite answered this to my own satisfaction, but would like to try to do so now. And the answer is, "I don't. Why would you even bother?"

The truth is that many of us left-wing Christians with fragile nerves and bad attitudes are becoming ever so slightly tense about the distinct possibility that this country we love is becoming, under the Bush administration, a theocracy. Those of us with public lives are constantly asked, "Don't you think the radical right has appropriated God, and if so, what is your response to that?"

My answer to the first question is no. No one can appropriate God, goodness, the Bible or Jesus. It just seems that way. The people currently in charge of this country have so spiritualized their hysteria that their antics make for much better news coverage than the rest of us. Terri Schiavo ("Has America begun murdering its handicapped?" they thunder, and we say meekly, "Well, um, no"). "Lord of the Flies" rallies against gay marriage. Pro-life violence. And -- my personal favorite -- the frenzied opposition to stem cell research, based on the right's conviction that it is an atrocity to save actual human lives by creating new stem cell lines using frozen embryos slated to be thrown out after couples undergoing IVF conceive or give up.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

jahbulon sent me this link:

How To Fight The Religious Right

Here's an interesting paragraph:

Fundamentalist Christians use the Bible as their sole authority. Anything else is suspect at best - satanic at worst. If you wish to mount a good defense, you must use their own "authoritative" book against them. You might think such a defense would be impossible, but it's not. Remember, Fundamentalists use a made-truth, one of their own creation, and despite their claims to the contrary, the Bible often contradicts their point of view. It happens because most Fundamentalists don't actually read it for themselves. The Bible, therefore, becomes the perfect weapon to use against them.

I've done that more than once myself, and am slowly amassing a small library of theological and historical rebuttals of many of the things they claim as The Truth ™. The irony of the whole thing is that in some of these encounters, it's clear that I know more about the history and internal workings of Christianity than most Christians- including seminary graduates. I always remember that True Believers ™ do not want you to think for yourself- heck, they don't want you to think at all unless it is to promote their particular cause- be it religious, political, or whatever. Any more, though, I don't want to waste time, thought or breath with them, and prefer to walk away. Keeps the blood pressure down.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article has another timely criticism of the Dominionists. In Christ's time, they were called "Pharisees". Christ didn't have a lot of good things to say about them. I would doubt that he'd hold today's Dominionists in high esteem, either.

Pharisee Nation

American Nation Brainwashed

by John Dear

02/17/05 "CommonDreams" - - 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.

I was not at all surprised that George W. Bush was reelected president. As I travel the country speaking out against war, injustice and nuclear weapons, I see many people consciously siding with the culture of war, choosing the path of violence, supporting corporate greed, rampant militarism, and global domination. I see many others swept up in the raging current of patriotism. Since most of these people, beginning with the president, claim to be Christian, I am ashamed and appalled that they support war and systemic injustice, that they do it in the name of God, and that they feign fidelity to the nonviolent Jesus who gave his life resisting institutionalized injustice. ( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

"Don't Let the Car Fool You, My Real Treasure is in Heaven": Bushianity Makes a Mockery of Christ

by Dr. Teresa Whitehurst

A few days ago I saw a brand new PT Cruiser with a bumper sticker that, at first glance, didn't make sense: "Don't Let the Car Fool You, My Real Treasure Is in Heaven". Several classy-looking Christian symbols adorned the vehicle, along with the ubiquitous "We Support Our Troops and President Bush" and "W" window seals.

As I stared at this odd assortment, the meaning dawned on me. Unlike the old bumper sticker that read, "My Other Car is a Mercedes", this one wasn't an exercise in self-deprecating humor: It was bragging to passersby about the driver's money, which isn't too shabby, since a new PT Cruiser starts at $14,000. Bob Sheer writes about this new culture of greed, cleverly disguised as "Christian":

"So why gut the bankruptcy law now? Greed, pure and simple. And, pathetically, this bankers' dream is becoming a reality through the support of Republicans who have decided, as they often do with social issues, to selectively pick and choose when to follow the teachings of the Bible.

"A key sponsor of the bill, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), actively opposes abortion and same-sex marriage on biblical grounds yet believes the Good Book's clear definition and condemnation of usury is irrelevant. The Old Testament, revered by Jews, Muslims and Christians alike, mandates debt forgiveness after seven years, as was pointed out earlier this month by an organization of Christian lawyers in a letter to Grassley. "I can't listen to Christian lawyers," said the senator, "because I would be imposing the Bible on a diverse population." The Bankruptcy Bill: A Tutorial in Greed, Commondreams, 3/15/05 ( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hummingwolf)

Via the slacktivist feed: This is priceless. It really does give a good idea of how some people think (and it's pretty funny too).

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This latest Yurica Report decodes the Biblical phrases in Bush's Inaugural Address.

An excerpt:

Lest anyone believe that the scriptures cited in this essay mean what the dominionists say they mean, I offer the following:

First of all we need to discuss the more commonly understood concepts of the Bible in reference to the words “liberty and free.” St. Paul, in his epistle at Galatians 5:2 defines the religious use of “liberty” as follows:

“Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty with which Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Emphasis author's.) (KJV)

What was the “yoke of bondage,” one might ask especially since a number of the early Christians were slaves. Clearly St. Paul meant something other than the literal meaning of the term. To understand this biblical reference, one has to understand that Christianity was not based upon blind faith. St. Paul used “liberty” as a metaphor. From his perspective, when someone accepted the tenets of Christianity, he or she was stepping out of the bondage of falsity, ignorance, idolatry, and superstition—into the glorious light of Truth. This “truth” was not simply belief in a new god—to the contrary, it was a revolutionary process—a way of not only discovering reality but an insistence that one believe only what is true.

St. Paul elevated reasoning and enlightenment. So profoundly discriminating were the tenets of Christianity, that it required its followers to “prove all things.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21, KJV) The new birth experience then was the epistemological reclamation of man, the very opposite of what happened in the Garden of Eden. Combined with Moses’ rules on how to distinguish between science and pseudoscience,[23] early Christians could in a very real sense step from darkness to light: from superstition to enlightenment. Or to put it another way, they began the intellectual journey that demanded honest self examination, acknowledgement of their wrong beliefs and a change towards knowledge and truth and the relinquishing of falsity and superstition. ( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Jim Wallis talks about 'God's Politics' and values – by which Wallis doesn't mean hate, greed, and war-mongering. (From AlterNet and BuzzFlash)

On God's Side
By , A BuzzFlash Interview
Posted on February 23, 2005, Printed on February 23, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/21327/

... [R]eligion has to be disciplined by democracy. That means you don't enter the public square and say I'm religious so I ought to win. Or God has spoken to me directly and I have the fix for Social Security. You say my faith motivates me. It shapes my convictions or it compels me to act on behalf of the poor, or peace, or whatever. – Jim Wallis, God's Politics

Christianity Today describes Jim Wallis as "an evangelical leader in the faith-based [l]eft and a frequent critic of George W. Bush." Is there any wonder BuzzFlash is drawn to him? Both preacher and down-in-the-trenches social justice activist, Wallis currently is touring the country as a New York Times best-selling author discussing and signing his book, God's Politics. Not surprisingly, Wallis' message of inclusion and involvement is reverberating with Christians who don't like the right wing's "holier than thou" approach to politics, with its narrow and divisive emphasis on abortion and gay marriage. BuzzFlash talked with Jim Wallis about progressive values, God, and good deeds.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Congratulations! You scored 40 correct out of 50! You know more than a minister, priest, or rabbi!

(My score on "The Bible Quiz")

Check it out!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ekajati)

Features > February 9, 2005
Blind Faith
By Bill Moyers



One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress.

For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. The offspring of ideology and theology are not always bad but they are always blind. And that is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

( Read more... )