Important to understand that there’s also a form of civil war going on within the Church in the US between the more liberal churches, which this pastor represents, and the conservative, evangelical churches, which Mike Johnson represents.
Can confirm.
In my town, a lot of the churches are more about peace and love and helping the community. They fly lgbtq+ flags. Their biggest outdoor events involve feeding homeless, or cleaning the parks.
They absolutely hate these mega church types, and often get lumped into the shit.
That sounds a lot more Christ-like (feed the hungry, give as much as you can to the poor etc) than whatever mutation the evangelicals are worshipping.
The Episcopalians do it right. They allowed gay ministers well over a decade ago.
Jesus also instructed us on how to properly beat our slaves
< nitpick >I could be operating with incomplete information, but I don’t think that was technically Jesus, I’m pretty sure that was in Exodus, which was much earlier.< / nitpick >
Far more than just Exodus
https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-slavery/
And yeah my mistake, it was NT but not Jesus. Southern states used all of these verses to justify chattal slavery in the US.
That being said, Jesus referenced slavery all of the time without condemning it (in fact I think he tells slave masters to treat their slaves well. That’s not ok). He used slaves and slavery as allegories in his parables, etc.
Jesus himself said that he came to fulfill the old law and that not a word of it will change (in so many words). He explicitly supports Old Testament law, and therefore supports slavery and the rules surrounding beating them. If he didn’t, he could have very easily had said so.
He tacitly approved of it. And I couldn’t care less about “the times”. Slavery is bad, period. No matter what/where it’s taking place.
There’s a church near me that flies a pride flag. Now, I’m not Christian (or LGBTQ) so I wouldn’t go to pray there, but I was happy to see it. Too many places of worship make the news for how hateful they are. It’s nice to see one advertising how inclusive they are.
Again, I’m not Christian and thus not an expert on Jesus, but from what I know his message was a pretty good one. Help the poor, the sick, and anyone else who needs assistance. If more churches actually followed Jesus instead of screaming that the Bible says you should buy more guns, assault immigrants, hate people different from you, and worship Trump while giving the pastor as much money as possible, then maybe they would be in better shape.
Viva Christo Rey
Important to note that the sides are in like a 5:1 ratio and Johnson is on the larger side.
Also the liberal churches are far older and are shrinking; denominations and mega-churches who act like Johnson’s are growing.
Young people see it all as a bunch of bs, except the radical ones, which drives religion to greater and greater insanity.
It’s also a simple matter of funding.
The megachurches preaching prosperity gospel, cramming 10,000 people into a building, and hoarding their wealth (most don’t pay apportionments to a larger denomination that is used to fund service projects) find it easier to keep the doors open than the little churches that focus on compassion and community service.
Righteous Gemstones vibes
So if theres a break between the churches… again. How long till we get some christian anarchist type beheading random pastors or some other John Brown type shit.
The divide falls between small churches that help their community, and large churches that help themselves…
It just dawned on me that evangelicals are the evangélicos in South America. Let me tell you, South America being 90% Catholic, we see evangelicals as crazy fanatics. If someone told me that an evangélico was part of the government in the country I grew up with, most people would immediately dismiss whatever they have to say about people going to hell or whatever.
I guess the only difference with this guy is that he’s wielding too much power, which makes him dangerous. But other than that, anything he has to say will be met with “sure, sure, old man, praise the lord whatever, go pray somewhere far away from me.”
You know, watching religion decline in the west largely as a result of the more fanatical like Johnson, I kinda hope their side wins so we can be done with it. There are few things that are more of a cancer on society (globally as well) than religion and the dogmatic approach to the world that it espouses.
The Devil having found no traction with drug addicts, thieves & prostitutes, and perl programmers has decided to use Christian leaders.
It would be believable if the first groups didn’t entirely compose last one.
I agree that the devil would go after perl programmers, as sloth is a sin.
Something something who doesn’t remember Black Perl?
And that Pontius Pilate wrote only in Lingua::Romana::Perligata
People called Javascriptum they go the house?
then python programmers came and literally made a hash out of everything
same with the drug addicts
| Linux kernel 6.6.6 released
Coincidence?! I think not
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Matthew 7:15-20
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
“I’ll take ‘Metaphor Translations’ for $100, Alex.”
What is made up bullshit?
To define “fruit,” reference Galatians 5:22-23 - “… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
If I believed in God or the Devil, I’d find claim that he’s controlled by the Devil more believable than Johnson’s claim that he’s working for God.
Though these days I associate “Christianity” more with hate than with love.
Welcome to the club. Hateful is 90% of the Christianity queer people experience.
While I am mightily amused to see the God Squad fighting amongst themselves…
You should read the op-ed. It’s actually very good
Mike Johnson worships himself, like a lot of ignorant people who call themselves Christians right now… calls himself Moses and so on, because he’s full of pride… and yeah, that is the same as worshipping Satan, or “being controlled by the Devil” or however else you want to say it…
His behavior seems consistent with someone who has delusions of grandeur. I’m not sure a religious explanation is necessary or verifiable.
I think when a Christian minister is making a statement about a guy who is VERY vocal about how his every action is influenced by his being a Christian, then a Christian denounciation feels adequate.
I’m not sure
that’s great news… your inability to comprehend descriptions that sound religious to you is uninteresting…
This just in: superstitious con artists engage in slapfight.
Film at 11.
Mike Johnson controlled by the Devil…so the Devil IS the reason we can’t have a nice government to meet our needs.
As an Atheist, I think it is awful that Mike Johnson works with the Devil.
I don’t know if this weird little man is controlled by the xtian devil, but I do know that like so many of today’s cons/GOP, he is one creepy weirdo. A party filled with creepy weirdos.
Imagine thinking your god (note the lack of a capital g the provincial xtians love to use) gives you a right to poke around in others’ lives.
Xtians? Are we serious? Good grief lol
I can’t tell what that means ?
Think of it as how the shorthand version of CHRISTmas is Xmas and it make a tad more sense albeit still a rather unnecessary abbreviation in this situation.
I mean, strictly speaking, are not all abbreviations unnecessary? Sticking-my-tongue-out
ASCIIAmerican Standard Code for Information Interchange symbol face.It serves a purpose to be concise within professional circles but you do have to be more descriptive with the general public sometimes. Nobody gonna know what CYP2D6 means unless you explain it.
(It’s a liver enzyme that metabolizes various things)
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I’m just going to say yes.
I just want to pause here and say that this kind of thing, much like basically any bumper sticker ever, is stupid as fuck and I hate it. Whether it’s my dumb fucking cousin saying “Killary” or equally annoying mouth breathers talking about “Drumpf.” Like, I’m as atheist as the day is long, and holy shit does it make the parent comment annoying to read. Your super great “hillary lied, people died” bumper sticker, the “honk if Trump should go to jail,” just all of it. It sucks, I hate it, it’s the laziest form of persuasion (spoilers, it’s persuading no one, it’s just pissing off the people you want to convince.) Oh you didn’t capitalize the ‘g’? Well fuck it’s me the pope, let’s peace out and go get tacos this Jesus thing was dumb anyway.
He supports the Antichrist, of course he is evil.
Just in case you are unaware the entire concept of the anti-christ was supposed to be Nero. The last book of the Bible was very controversial partially because of this reason. Other stuff you can argue about but to me at least this is a proven false prophecy and really should not be part of Christianity. However, I am a non-believer so maybe you shouldn’t follow my advice.
This is just an op-ed piece that links to another op-ed piece.
Seriously.
Does anyone know if there are any political communities that don’t consider op-ed pieces to be news? For example, a community that has strict rules that news must be free of journalistic bias and only cite news that factually happened with no agenda?
Because that would be cool.
free of journalistic bias and only cite news that factually happened with no agenda
Does such news even exist anymore?
I mean, Reuters. AP News, BBC, PBS news… there plenty of non biased news sources that don’t tel you have to fee about what they’re shoveling.
Ground News may be what you are looking for. On top of claiming to you the story straight, they show you stats of whether it’s getting more press on the left or right. They have a bunch of stats in their paid tiers, I think.
I don’t know the reputation of the people behind it, and I don’t use it heavily, but I like to hit their site/app from time to TMNT.
“Controlled by the devil” - that’s silly. I think the real debate is whether he’s controlled by Godzilla or Mothra.
But we can be sure he’s not controlled by Gamera because Gamera is a friend to all children. (and he’s really neat)
Mitch is full of turtle meat.
Those old Godzilla documentaries have higher production values than the bible dramatizations I saw as a kid.
Christians have had years to see that Trump is not what they’d call a “godly” person. It baffles me how segments of the population who claim to uphold Christian ethics can so overwhelmingly support him, but of course by definition they are not objective or logical people.
What makes you think he doesn’t support Christian ethics? I strongly associate his behavior and words with the Christianity I grew up with. He is vengeful, bigoted, childish, treats everyone he sees as weaker with contempt, prideful, and demands loyalty to himself over all other considerations. What part of that isnt things associated with a follower of Christ?
It’s the difference between their professed beliefs and their actual behavior. One could deduce that they like Trump because he’s like them. If people claiming to be devout Christians actually understood and followed the principles Jesus preached they’d be amazing people, but sadly it’s quite rare.
First off there was no historical Jesus. Just a fridge by James the Just and Paul delusions of a celestial being.
Secondly even if there were a historical Jesus we have no access to his words. Up until Mark there are only three sayings attributed to Jesus
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Give preachers money, said by a preacher (Paul). Which he says was related to him we don’t know directly by someone or if he just thought it or if he was lying.
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Don’t divorce. The same. We don’t know where the idea came from
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And the words of the last supper which they way they are written hint that it was just a dream. And like the other two.
The first time we start hearing actual (supposed) Jesus teachings is in Mark, written +40 years after the supposed events. If you follow the Chronology the NT already had 17 books written. 17 books and everything Jesus taught can fit in one run-on sentence. And in Mark we see every ethical teaching copied from early popular Jewish and Greek works. With one exception. No where do we see the violent anti-blasphemy rules outside of Mark. The only thing the Jesus of the Bible taught is to murder the non-believer.
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The devil has seen better days. You would expect a devil controlled human to be some sorta uber-human ultimate fighter. Zipping around the battlefield, single handedly committing whole outrages. Not some schmuck in a suit who got his job because of political stalemate.
I mean the devil is literally the great deceiver. in all biblical portrayals the only thing devil does is lie essentially. the lies sow doubts and people lose their faith.
what you’re describing is more along the lines of demons. and they’re technically easier to deal with because it’s so obvious.
I’m not religious but the devil really is a clever construct in Christianity, and highlights the best “feature”: salvation is based on faith and faith alone and everyone can be saved.
it is so much more effective at brainwashing than materialistic control
The devil never lies in the Bible. In the garden of Eden story (yes retrocon) he is the only one telling the truth. In Job he got something wrong but didn’t lie.
In any case there is no god so you can move on with your life.
