LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY stormwardenace)

Stop me if this has already been posted, but a link I found may prove useful in acquiring literature that can be used against the dominionists.

http://the-end.com/

He is giving away two books on the subject of Doomsday...so, who wants to run the Vegas odds that he is right (he isn't).

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY stormwardenace)

http://www.larrykilgore.com/ (BEWARE, MAY DRAIN IQ POINTS).

Okay, this is an idiot who clearly belongs on Encyclopedia Dramatica. Definite Dominionist ties, with groups like Repent America and Minutemen United endorsing him for Governor. Below is an email I sent to him on the site.

To whom it may concern,

I must say, Mr. Kilgore, I am most impressed with the laughter you have provided me. The jokes you have on your site about reconstructionism and the need to end Texas' welfare, prison system, and all other important functions. Yours is a satire worthy of being compared to Landover Baptist itself! You literally sounded like some out-of-touch dominionists from South Carolina who seek to turn it into a theocracy!

Keep this up, and I can see a bright future for you, good sir. I can see you as the next George Carlin, Robin Williams, or Dave Chapelle. First, you will have to expand a bit on your repertoire, maybe an appearance on the Daily Show or the Colbert Report will be in order.

By all means, keep up the good work!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY mysticknyght)

Trojan has a new teevee commercial and Amanda is upset, rightly so, that CBS and Fox won't run the ad. It's kinda neat, since most of us men are pigs anyway:

The problem with the ad as far as the networks are concerned? It doesn't emphasize disease prevention enough. If the focus of a contraceptive ad is pregnancy prevention, all the fundigelicals get lit up.

( more )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY pretentioustfu)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gayrights/story/0,,2038057,00.html

( Article behind the cut )

. . . I have no words for this. This seems to be a dominionist takeover of an entire nation AND a sign of resurgent dominionism in a formerly non-dominionist (post Vatican II anyway) church.

Many of you are familiar with New Life Church in Colorado Springs--the dominionist congregation that has been closely connected with the televangelist industry (via the National Religious Broadcasters), the promotion of "Joel's Army" theology (as described in Harper's "Soldiers of Christ" article), the US Air Force Academy prosyletisation and religious coercion scandals--and, most recently, the outing, expulsion, and attempted "degaying" of its founder Ted Haggard. (In under-reported news, apparently New Life Church may have attempted damage control for months before Haggard was publically outed.)

Less familiar, but still noteworthy, are the links between New Life Church, dominionist juntas in Guatemala, and the person most responsible for popularising "Joel's Army stuff in the Assemblies; New Life itself has links to the Assemblies (via the Royal Rangers and some other groups), including members of the "dream team" selected to "de-gay" Haggard.

And apparently the Haggard scandal--much like the televangelist sex scandals of the 80's involving a number of Assemblies-linked preachers--is having some fairly major repercussions. According to television station KMGH in Denver, people have left the church in droves to the point that layoffs are occuring with nursery and pastoral staff.
( Article text follows )
A drop of ten percent in income is nothing to sneeze at--this is a sign that people may well be starting to walk away from the group (or at least are no longer giving money to support them) after 22 years of almost exponential growth. Don't be surprised to start seeing reports from walkaways from New Life, either--in fact, the televangelist scandals were some of the incidents that inspired one of the first rounds of "second-gen walkaways" from the Assemblies and other coercive groups. (The televangelist scandals also helped to hobble the dominionists politically, at least for a brief time before they regrouped.)

I will also be surprised if there aren't more walkaways in future--in fact, a Denver Post article indicates the church may be in the beginnings of a purge, with several members of the staff being identified as "struggling with unrelated sin issues" (generally this is code-speak for staff beginning to question the dogma of the church). Reportedly none of those identified were laid off, but I would not be surprised if some of those folks eventually come out against the group.

Further indications of a possible walking-away in progress are documented in the Colorado Springs Gazette, where the layoffs are attributed to both dropoffs in donations and "overstaffing"--the latter is in fact a rather strong indication that the church may actually be *losing* members, or at least certainly not gaining any new ones. (The same article also notes that fully a third of the income raised by the church went to salaries of pastors--all of which were above $50,000/yr, and most of which were in the triple digits. There also may be some very interesting cooking of the books going on--per the report from the Gazette, funds raised were $14.4 million in 2003 to $24.4 million in 2005--with expenditures being $13.3 million in 2003 to $23.4 million in 2005 (meaning every year, the church managed to earn a million dollars in profit). Based on this, the fact they are having to lay off workers is especially telling.)

(This will be posted to DailyKos and Talk2Action later this weekend, but getting this out now)

A trial is presently underway in a case of a Tennessee 8-year-old who appears to be the latest sad case of what I have referred to as "death by chastening rod"--cases where kids are literally beaten to death by dominionist groups which have a strong belief in "deliverance ministry". Sites like Stop The Rod have been bringing a lot of awareness to this, but sadly these cases continue and--all too often--the abuse is not discovered until the kid ends up dead or maimed.

Details behind the cut. Warning to walkaways, victims of child abuse, and especially victims of "deliverance ministry" linked abuse--the below is likely to be triggering.

( Articles follow )

Doing a bit of backgrounder research, I found that Remnant Fellowship is apparently a neopentecostal dominionist group founded by Gwen Shamblin--who is most (in)famous for promoting fad "Bible-based" diet programs (specifically the "deliverance ministry"-based "Weigh Down Workshop"). Not only is the group one of the most blatantly dominionist and overtly "Joel's Army" groups I have ever seen, but explicitly states that no other Christian denominations are actually Christian; "Weigh Down Workshop" is essentially a fad diet combined with a heavy emphasis on "name it and claim it" and "deliverance ministry".

In fact, the church has an entire webpage dedicated to damage control and spin. The reason for *this* is because damned near every single group that does any sort of research at all on coercive religious groups has noted the org is in essence a Bible-based cult, among them: Rick Ross Institute, Religion News Blog (which notes specifically the spiritually abusive components as well as its criticism of its apologetics; reportedly walkaways from Remnant Fellowship are deemed the "demon seed" (showing it practices "serpent seed" theology) and ex-members are shunned, reportedly the church has attempted SLAPP-style lawsuits against critics (in *exactly* the same fashion as Scientology and Amway have tried to shut down vocal critics by suing them into the poorhouse) and may have engaged in frank vote fraud in local elections), SpiritWatch (the target of the SLAPP by Remnant Fellowship), FACTnet (of note, a person reporting on a Remnant/Weigh Down seminar notes one of the specific seminars is called "Strongholds"--this is a dominion theology term (specifically in claiming that pretty much doing ANYTHING not vetted by the name-it-and-claim-it leader "opens doorways and strongholds for Satan in your life")), and others. In fact, even sites for people wishing to investigate weightloss programs warn that Weigh Down is operated as a recruitmnt front for Remnant Fellowship.

There is also an active walkaway community for Weigh Down/Remnant Fellowship walkaways and survivors, and there is a real risk that this could be one of the few churches actually taken down due to religiously motivated child abuse--court evidence to be presented includes an interview between cult founder Gwen Shamblin and the mother of the murdered child on the effectiveness of "chastening techniques" and which indicates Shamblin herself specifically told the parents of the poor child how to literally beat the hell out of him.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY pretentioustfu)

The Prairie Muffin Manifesto

Blargh. It's seriously holding up the ideal that the best women have no interests outside of home and husband and children, NO PERSONALITY OF THEIR OWN, are ideal targets for abuse, and are basically worthless, yet should revel in this worthlessness as a greater worth. Yay for Newspeak. And the scary thing? These people are serious. O_O

( Snark and potentially triggering excerpts behind the cut )

Ugh. 

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY firepie)

Chris Hedges did a great speech on dominionism on Uprising! on Pacifica Radio this morning (04/03/06). It's not up on the website yet, but it should be there shortly, and you can listen from the site, download or podcast it. The link to the site is: www.uprisingradio.org - just keep checking back until they have it updated (usually within a day).