LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY thedemonprist)

This is Time Magazine's newest cover story: The Top 25 Evangelicals in America Interesting (and chilling) reading about some of the movers and shakers of Dominionism and their future short- and long-term plans. ( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This Christianity Today article reveals that Evangelicals are as sinful- or moreso- as the rest of us.

Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most "Christians" regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.

The findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization and The Barna Group are simply shocking. "Gallup and Barna," laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, "hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general."1 Divorce is more common among "born-again" Christians than in the general American population. Only 6 percent of evangelicals tithe. White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race. Josh McDowell has pointed out that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their nonevangelical peers.

Alan Wolfe, famous contemporary scholar and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, has just published a penetrating study of American religious life. Evangelicals figure prominently in his book. His evaluation? Today's evangelicalism, Wolfe says, exhibits "so strong a desire to copy the culture of hotel chains and popular music that it loses what religious distinctiveness it once had."2 Wolfe argues, "The truth is there is increasingly little difference between an essentially secular activity like the popular entertainment industry and the bring-'em-in-at-any-cost efforts of evangelical megachurches."3

In other words, Evangelicals, in spite of their high-flown and loudly touted ideals and religion, are just as human as everyone else. And that last sentence has confirmed my secret belief that most people go to those mega-churches for entertainment, not spiritual succour. I mean, some of these places have rock bands and multimedia screens (karaoke hymns?), and the sanctuaries look more like a movie house than a church. Now I understand why.

It is not surprising that George Barna concludes, "Every day, the church is becoming more like the world it allegedly seeks to change."4 We have very little time, he believes, to reverse these trends. African Christian and famous missions scholar Professor Lamin Sanneh told Christianity Today recently that "the cultural captivity of Christianity in the West is nearly complete, and with the religion tamed, it is open season on the West's Christian heritage. I worry about a West without a moral center facing a politically resurgent Islam."5

See the rest of the article at the site listed above. It's interesting reading, and something that you can point your more hypocritical Evangelical friends to when they start being holier-than-thou. According to the stats mentioned in the article, Evangelicals and Born Again Christians are no better than the rest of us. And where divorce is concerned- especially in the South, they are actually worse. There you have it- they're human, too.

Sunfell

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Dr. Dobson, who started a real mess with his SpongeBob debacle, digs himself even deeper as he attempts to set the record straight.

The video, which millions of children will soon see, features nearly 100 favorite cartoon characters that kids will instantly recognize, including not only SpongeBob, but also Barney the Dinosaur, the Muppets, Dora the Explorer, Bob the Builder, Winnie the Pooh, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Jimmy Neutron and Big Bird. The video itself is innocent enough and does not mention anything overtly sexual. Rather, it features the children’s cartoon characters singing and dancing along to the popular disco hit "We Are Family."

But while the video is harmless on its own, I believe the agenda behind it is sinister. My brief comments at the FRC gathering were intended to express concern not about SpongeBob or Big Bird or any of their other cartoon friends, but about the way in which those childhood symbols are apparently being hijacked to promote an agenda that involves teaching homosexual propaganda to children. Nevertheless, the media jumped on the story by claiming that I had accused SpongeBob of being "gay." Some suggested that I had confused the organization that had created the video with a similarly named gay-rights group. In both cases, the press was dead wrong, and I welcome this opportunity to help them get their facts straight.

I want to be clear: the We Are Family Foundation — the organization that sponsored the video featuring SpongeBob and the other characters was, until this flap occurred, making available a variety of explicitly pro-homosexual materials on its Web site. It has since endeavored to hide that fact (more on this later), but my concerns are as legitimate today as they were when I first expressed them in January.

Ah, that 'sinister agenda'. And what 'agenda' might that be? The idea that there might be alternate ways of looking at things, and that tolerance can be taught. Apparently, that is the 'homosexual agenda'.

Some of the ripostes he talks about are rather interesting:

Well, this is the story behind the SpongeBob issue that outraged the media. There was a New York Times reporter at the banquet who wrote an article based on my comments. His factual representation was not entirely inaccurate, but it was written in such a way as to imply that it was SpongeBob whom I was attacking. From there, the story rapidly escalated. You won’t believe the way I was described by major news organizations. Here are a few examples:

* MSNBC.com posted a commentary on the matter which read in part, "[T]here is a frightening number of so-called Christians who can be best described as creepy, rigid, arrogant, cruel, know-it-all, pompous, obnoxious and treacherous — better known by the acronym C.R.A.C.K.P.O.T."

* James Carville offered these words of wisdom on "CNN": "You know what I think? I think these people have sponge brains."

* The Los Angeles Times was among the many who mocked my remarks by distorting the truth: "SpongeBob holds hands with his starfish pal Patrick, and likes to watch the imaginary television show ‘The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.’ Evidence enough, to Dobson at any rate, that the guy’s a menace."

* "MSNBC’s" Keith Olbermann, one of the most hostile of the commentators, characterized my account of the situation as the goofiest story of the day. He cited a lawyer for the We Are Family Foundation who said that critics of this effort "need medication." Olbermann then added, "We here found it hard to argue with him." It might not surprise you that when one of my listeners wrote Mr. Olbermann a polite but pointed email in response to his comments, he replied by saying that emails such as hers would be "treated with the lack of respect they deserve." He went on to chastise her, and wrote, "…you might ask yourself if your actions are any different than someone in a cult." And some people still wonder why Americans no longer trust the mainstream media!

It appears that Dr. Dobson and his associates dwell in a parallel universe. Their perceptions of things are notably different than that of the mainstream. And they're defensive, intolerant, and fear-filled, and hostile to all outsiders. Nothing that anyone in the mainstream media says or does is satisfactory to them. Perhaps the best thing to do is to remember this.

Sunfell

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

I just found a very interesting religious blog. It's called Bartholomew's Notes on Religion. He has lots of great links to other religous blogs.

If you run into an interesting religious blog that has a tie-in (pro or con) with the main purpose of this blog, please share it!

Sunfell