The Religous Right

Prep, did you READ any of my post at all? That's exactly what I said! I KNOW most Christians don't believe the things the televangelists say, that was my point. Since when does asking questions qualify me as a "Christian basher"? I have posted many times about my long association with Christianity, my beliefs are a direct result of my own personal experience with churches, of which the vast majority was very wonderful. My specific interest in this thread was whether those HERE who identified themselves as Christians followed the beliefs of the televangelists I saw quoted on this flier I received, I thought I did a fair job of explaining that.

To say, "To classify us all by the actions of a few is painting us all with a broad prush stroke and is pretty narrow minded for someone who claims to be open minded. So get off your high horses and stop spewing this garbage about stuff that you don't know about. What you read in papers and hear on the news is not the truth. Get in church and see for yourself what real Christians are."- is to clearly demonstrate that you have not read anything I've said and must think I've never seen the inside of a church. Stuff I don't know about? Please! I study in great detail, and have for quite a few years, I think I'm as well qualified as anyone to have an opinion. Once again, I'm NOT saying Christians are bad or wrong, perhaps sometimes too easily led. This opinion is based on seeing very large numbers of people sending money to these shady preachers and voting for politicians who spout such garbage. "The actions of a few"? Well, sorry, but somewhere near half of this country voted for bush, primarily in favor of his views on "family values" according to polls. I think it's good to reconcile our thinking with reality. Sorry if you don't like facts, you can ignore them if you like, that's what most people do.

For the record, those men ALL have huge followings, so it's absurd and unrealistsic to believe that no one but the fringe support their efforts. If you personally do not, that's great, but your opinion does not counterbalance the huge movement of the religious right. They exist, they are real and they are a powerful legislative force. To deny reality will not move anyone closer to fixing the problem. I am so far from being a Christian basher! I am, however a hypocrite-basher, and proudly so. If you will read carefully, it is those who look down their nose at others while being sinners themselves that I always find intolerable. I've said plainly, I DON'T judge their spirituality, but I DO judge their use of their political power, as it affects my life and the movement of my country away from freedom for all.

Excellent post Jana.
I do want to make a clarification. While the Puritans came here to escape oppression back in England. They did not give freedom of religion to the people in their colony. Roger Williams was literally expelled from the colony for being a Bapist and he went on to establish his own colony. Many were declared witches and warlocks. If they admitted they were then they were drowned. If they refused to admit to being a witch or warlock, they were drowned for refusing to tell the truth. So all accused were punished.

So the neocons go back to the Puritans all right both the good and the bad and especially the bad. Interestingly though, the United Church of Christ the church that traces its history back toward the Puritans is the most liberal mainline church in America. Through the years the fundie and the "my way or the high way" groups have leaft that denomination.

I'm sure my views will come as a surprise to no one. I give my respect to those who are sincere. I think that Billy Graham is sincere. I may not agree with much of what he preaches, but I respect the man's convictions. He's about the only one in the media limelight that does have my respect. Pat Robertson? He lost any admiration I might have had for him when he claimed that God told him to run for president. I used to have respect for Oral Roberts, but he lost it when he said that God would strike him dead if he didn't collect $1 million in contributions. Jimmy Swaggart has a ministry based on poor theology and mocking those who don't follow him. After his scandal, anyone who still donates money to him deserves to be parted from his money. Jim and Tammy Faye? Do I even need to explain the problem there? Such so-called religious leaders have (or had) millions of followers believing they have a direct pipeline to God, and that scares me. We all know how I feel about Fred Phelps (no, I can't bring myself to call him 'Reverend'), but the good thing about him is that he has few followers outside of his family. When evangelists start to preach the message that we are all children of God, made in His image, and as such are deserving of love and respect, I might listen. The current trend of evangelists is to spout condemnation against anyone who doesn't believe exactly as they do. What I think interesting is that if these men had lived in the time of Jesus, they would never have followed such a rebellious rabbi like Jesus, that thorn in the side of religious conservatives. Jesus spoke against false prophets who would spread their poison in His name. I cannot help but think that His prediction has come to pass.

Prepstud put things quite well. What's the old song lyric, "I second that emotion"?

As "republican as I am", its only recently I've committed to going to church, for a whole host of reasons that nobody would care to hear about today. As far as the names mentioned at the beginning of the thread, sometimes televangelists represent religion about as well as the Backstreet Boys represented true musical talent.

DMW mentioned the one person that, among those with a national or world-wide footprint, best exemplify (to me) a humble man trying to follow the path of God: Billy Graham. I was never able to attend any of his crusades but have watched all of him I can on TV and he, as much as anyone close to me, has inspired me in a spiritual way to try and be a better human being.

I'm not stirring up an arugment with MZ or anyone, but any thread in here that has any possible relationship to anything religious goes from silence to bashing, quite often, in about 2.3 seconds. Maybe I've said something along the way that I didn't mean to come off as bashing and I should apologize for it, I dont' know. In the heat of writing a reply it's easy to floor the pedal. Maybe that's a lesson for left/right and religious/non-religious to remember.

That's all I have time for today, talk at you later.

Steve

Why oh why do the jerks get the airtime?

frankly, I don't care what those people have to say, or those quotes on the first page. I don't have to agree with them - no-one does. The fact that what they've said those things means that it's probably not wise to listen to their opinions.

Also, it seems people called Pat are angry. I will not name my child Pat -

my son will be called Horatio. My daughter, Prudence


just kidding! I'm not that cruel

Well, I just needed to nitpick you. It's all in their writings.

They did have some Greco-Roman institutions, though. Slavery, for example.

BTW, there wasn't a single Greek government. LOL

The thing about it is that the fringe people in any group usually end up being the ones seen the most because they are the ones who are easy to target. Why? For a number of reasons...they are usually the most vocal, they usually pull stupid stunts to get publicity, they do extreme acts in the name of their cause (whether it be anti abortion, anti gay, anti war, anti whatever). It just gets me mad that there are all sorts of posts on here against Christians, but none in support of us. There are a few lines in a few posts saying that people know that we are not all like the televangelists and the way out wackos, but everyone seems to categorize us like all the fundies. Well the thing about it is that even not all the fundies agree with the fundies. I'm embarassed by the actions of some of them. I'm a Republican, but I didn't vote for Bush. I feel it's time for a change. While I think that America needs some morals, I also know that there is a big gray area and that not everything is as black and white like all these lobbying groups want things to be.

Has anyone read this month's GQ? There is a scary article about how the group Christian Exodus has chosen my state, South Carolina, as the state in which they want their members to all move to to create a Christian haven. They think that they can influence legislators and create what will amount to a state theocracy.
Yes, SC is conservative, but to make it a "theocracy" scares me.
So you see, even as a Republican Christian, I don't agree with "them."

All I ask for is some equal time here. Not everyone has to agree with me on theological matters. I don't expect you to. I don't bash all the liberals, so why is there this utter hatred towards those of us who may have more conservative views. I've got friends IRL who are far more liberal than I am, but we get along and we can discuss all sorts of topics in a rational way. On here, it's always like, "Christians are stupid. Republicans are wrong. They hate everyone." I can tell you that's not the case with 98% of us. You've only seen the fringe. I could make the same statements about gay people from what I've seen on tv--the portrayal of most gay people is that everyone is a big flaming queen, or cross dressing leather freaks, but because I have gay friends who totally are not that way, I know differently. I know gay people who are white collar professionals, who play sports, who unless they told you they are gay, you'd just wonder why they didn't have a girl hanging on their arm. So since I don't gay bash on here, I just ask the same respect of the Christians.

Prep. I'm at a loss. I posted a topic specifically asking people who identify themselves as Christians to give their opinions. I haven't been attacking anyone's posts, I let it go to page three I think beofre I even chimed back in. I wanted to know how Christians feel about the way the religion is being presented by the tv evangelists. As a person who loves the teachings of Christ, I personally am offended. I wondered if anyone else felt that way, further, I wanted to know how THEY (Christians) felt about government getting into religous theocracy. It's a fair question, not derrogatory and certainly equal time! This is now my third post to the same effect on this one thread, please stop accusing me of posting with an attitude I don't have.

You've got three threads going that are pretty anti-right wing, Jana. I don't have any anti-liberal, anti-agnostic threads going. It looks like I, the Christian Republican is more open minded. I don't agree with the Pat Robertson, James Dobson types. I don't think that they should be lobbying Washington. I don't think that Fred Phelps is a minister--he's a farce, hardly derserving of the title "reverend." He's bastardized the title. Jerry Falwell lives in an idealistic world where everyone and everything is perfect, but that's not how things really are. He needs to spend a day in the inner city and see that not everyone is like him--that people have drug habits, people struggle with poverty, people have broken homes, people have hurts--and the real Christians are the ones working in the trenches fighting those battles, helping those people, healing the hurting, ministering to the downtrodden. Those of us who have been given a lot are commanded to give back to those less fortunate. Even in my town I see churches who think of themselves as a sanctuary for the saints, not a haven for the sinners. My former church is one of those places...if you have ever committed any kind of sin, you're not welcome and it's made clear. However, my current church is totally the opposite. It's a place of hope--hope for those who have made mistakes, hope for those with needs. That's what a real Christian is...not one who always condemns, but one who raises up others.

Prep, Being silent certainly doesn't make you more open minded, sorry you feel it does.

I never said I wasn't "anti-right wing", I said I wasn't "anti-Christian". Those two are not synonymous, which was my point. "Right wing" refers to a political camp merged with a twisted conceptualisation of Christianity. Christians are wonderful people who follow a belief system based on a group of moral ideals. It is aimed at providing a path to enlightenment FOR THEIR OWN LIVES! I still believe that these are the majority of Christians out there in the real world, and I suspect many of them do not like what is being done in the media by people professing to be Christian, then spewing out messages of hatred that make people think badly of what Christianity really is.

But "anti right-wing"? Hell yeah, and I don't share the opinion that silence equals open mindedness, nor did any person in history who ever got anything done. For that matter, I'm not very open-minded about discrimination, nor do I plan to "investigate the other side", some things are just too obvious not to understand!

If you think you are defending Christianity, you're wasting your breath, there is no need, I like Christianity. If you are defending the right-wing movement, I feel sorry for you. You are as free to state your opinions as anyone else, likewise anyone else is free to respond.

Well I'm sorry you're just to blind to see the truth.

what a flawless victory for the art of reasoned debate. well done indeed.

WTF?

You don't like me separtaing Christianity from right-wingers, do you? It's convenient to have a movement behind you for battle, isn't it? You know good and well that you can't have it both ways. You are the perfect example of what I'm talking about. You don't really believe in the things they proclaim, but you defend them anyway- let's just say I call 'em like I see 'em,

??????????

S

Are you kidding? Her makeup was totally offensive!