LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Soldiers of Christ: inside America's biggest megachurch: full Harpers article.

Feeling the Hate with the religious broadcasters: Full Harpers article.

Luring Teenagers to Religion: tactics used by various religons to get young people to join.

Microsoft severs ties with Ralph Reed, who was a member of the Christian Coalition. Guess the blowback from the WA gay rights bill got their attention.

Hope that everyone has a pleasant holiday.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY meta4life)

God, I hope this isn't inappropriate...

Anyway, I'm currently researching and writing an article (series!) on the influences of the ultra-religious right wing on modern American culture. What I've got so far is both byzantine and dismaying -- and I know I've only scratched the surface.

I've got lots of quotes and sources for other areas, but where I'm lacking is material that links Dobson, Perkins, Falwell et. al. to religious intolerance. I've got Robertson's stupidity from just this month, but what I really need is stuff that links other popular leaders of this movement to religious hate statements, or the equivalent.

Can anyone help me? You can leave your links in the Comments, if I don't get whacked for an inappropriate post (I hope not -- this community is the best-informed I know for this kind of thing).

Thanks loads!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

There is an ongoing forum about Spiritual Progressives that has a great many interesting topics under the 'religion' category. One of them asks if we should treat Right Wing Religion as an addiction. It's a fascinating discussion.

An excerpt:

"Treat Right Wing Religion as an Addiction"
Religion Professor Says

(Kansas City, MO) In his latest national monthly column, Dr. Robert N. Minor, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas, charges that much of the religious right wing is addicted to their religion. "Dealing with the right-wing's religious/political lifestyle and its evangelistic agenda," says Minor, "is like dealing with an alcoholic or hard drug user."

"Like all addictions, when right-wing religion dominates one's life obsessively, it tells people how to feel rather than getting in touch with their real problems," says Minor. "It also prevents the addicts from understanding the harm they are doing to those around them."

Minor advises readers in his "Minor Details" column that "no matter how hard this might be to accept, strategies that try to embrace, excuse, or move toward the religious right-wing are the actions of enablers." Enabling is a common response by family members to addicts that reinforces their addiction.

"While addicts are expected to be in denial about their addiction, creating a mythological view of the world to maintain it and 'protecting their stash,'" Minor said in an interview about his column, "enablers are the ones making excuses, arguing with the addict, covering up for their addiction, and refusing to do the unpopular, confrontational work of intervention."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY deridetenebras)

I stayed on with this church for a nearly a year, growing ever more leery of what I was hearing. Finally, one Sunday, I attended an Assembly of God church service. The space was like an airplane hanger. It was decorated in stale browns with pink sashes and white flowers. There was a giant TV screen above the alter and a man screaming at us and people talking in `tongues' and crying and yelling out. The whole thing reminded me of the old videos of those huge Nuremberg Nazi rally's in the late 30s. At one point the man launched into an attack on the USSR, unions and Democrats; organizations and governments working against the will of God.

I distinctly remember feeling ill at that point and I remember a voice telling me to leave. To get out quick. I finally left. By the time I got to my car I had a fever. I pulled over several times to vomit before I got home. I was in bed for several days with an unbelievable fever and, right or wrong, I took that as a sign from God that I was to stay far a way from the Fundamentalist Christians.

But I forever found them fascinating. Later, I went back and talked to them. I was actually told in one conversation that Hitler was correct to kill the homosexuals and Catholics. A society must rid itself of those that threaten its moral standing. I was also told that the poor deserved their situation because they were clearly non-believers. Everyone, it seemed, was to be hated for one reason or another. When I warned my high school biology teacher that one day, these occultists would be in power in our nation and would disallow the evolution she was teaching and would want to put gays into gas chambers...she said no way. It could never happen. Never in America.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY anarchys_savior)

I heard quite a bit of completely illogical crap at my ex-church. I just wanted to share the hilarity.

The sunday school teacher gets the award for stupidest, most racist comment I've ever heard. He was talking about Snoop Dog(when he had those commercials where he said "wait just a minizzle!") and had this to say about such slang talk(adding -izzle to things). "That's foolishness. No one that uses that kind of foolishness will make it into Heaven." I said something about how it's predominant in African American culture, it's slang and not evil, and he just repeated himself, which leads me to believe he thinks there won't be blacks in Heaven.

In the same lesson, he said, "Anyone who votes for someone that gives rights to gays will burn in Hell." He said Bill Cliton was hellbent and all his supporters were too, because Bill was such a big pro-homo. I wanted to correct him, but I was much too furious.

The most telling though, was when another "youth teacher" told a new convert to "read the book of Leviticus first. It tells you how to live your life."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The blog Balloon Juice (I love that name!) has their own take on the Dominionists little problem with persecution and the upcoming "Justice Sunday" broadcast:

Vote Republican Or You Hate the Baby Jesus

This is so patently offensive that I don't have adequate words to describe how truly wrong this is:

As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees. Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."

If you don't share our politics, you hate the baby Jesus.

If you don't share our politics, you hate religious people.

If you don't share our politics, you are evil.

Congrats, Republicans. Our leaders have now taken the traditional rhetorical demonization of our opposition and elevated it to heavenly heights. I assume my friends on the right are going to spend the week-end attacking me for being a 'religious bigot' because I rightly point out the inappropriateness of this behavior. The usual suspects are front and center:

Some of the nation's most influential evangelical Protestants are participating in the teleconference in Louisville, including Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Chuck Colson, the born-again Watergate figure and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

But why are you reading me? I hate religious people because I respect the role of religion in people's lives, but don't want religious texts or leaders dictating our domestic and foreign policy. And I really don't want them using God and religion as a weapon for petty partisan gain.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY arxacies)

Now, you may think this one is easy, but it's harder than it looks.

Results posted this time tommorrow.

Good luck.

"Intolerance is a beautiful thing..."


"You will pay the price for your lack of vision."


"If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed."


"I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good"

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The Cold Embrace is an essay that shows in chilling detail how many Dominionists think. It focuses on Randall Terry, one of the most virulent and violent of them all. Here are some significant quotes from Terry:

"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you... I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good... Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."

***

"When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we'll execute you. I mean every word of it. ... I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed.

"You say, 'This is extreme!' Yeah, you're right. But imagine God Almighty sending people to hell just because they didn't follow His son? That's extreme. That's intolerance. Imagine Jesus saying that all other religions are false. Christianity claims to be the only way."( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY anarchys_savior)

I'd post a link to the article, but I just saw it on TV. I just wanted to show how incredibly strange and disturbing some people can be.

In Georgia(where I live), White County more specifically, there is a group of teens trying to get a GSA in their school. I saw it on the news today on TV. What was really shocking was that there was a protest group that drove all the way from Kansas(I think) to protest. That's pretty far(White County's in the middle of Georgia) to protest a GSA in school. The saddest part came when they showed the protestors. A woman was holding a sign that said "Thank God for 9/11!" That's messed up. Then the woman was like, "Those kids in school aren't learning about their Lord and Savior. They think that God loves everyone and that no matter what you do, you can go to Heaven." Not a word-for-word quote(except the bolded part; I clearly remember that), but you get the (hate-filled, ignorant) message. Isn't that sad?

x-posted to gsa_lj