Tag: Baptist

Billy Graham, Religious Huckster; Amid His Kindred

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Billy Graham, Donald Trump, Faux News, Rupert Murdoch, Sarah Palin

Worth 1,000 words: The awful state of American evangelical Christianity after Billy Graham
By Fred Clark

This is a picture taken this week at the celebration Franklin Graham held for the 95th birthday of his father, Billy Graham. It is also a parable, a metaphor, an astonishingly revealing snapshot of the sorry state of evangelical Christianity in America in 2013.

Seated in the middle there is Billy Graham, the world-famous evangelist who was, for more than 50 years, the face of white evangelical Christianity in America and the second-most influential Baptist pastor of the 20th century.

At 95, Graham is frail and in ill health. His image and his legacy have been usurped as political tools used by his son Franklin Graham, who seems desperate to be a political player and kingmaker. Not content with living off the interest of his father’s legacy, Franklin has been burning through the capital.

Just look at how Franklin has exploited his father here. The famous preacher is silent now, a voiceless prop called upon to lend a sheen of respectability to the likes of Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News lackeys.

To his credit, Billy Graham looks uncomfortable being dragged out to offer his apparent blessing to a gaggle of dishonest strangers and charlatans that includes two racist billionaires. The scowl on the old preacher’s face may reveal his recognition that this is what has become of his legacy — that everything he did and worked for has led only to this, to the empowerment of lying hucksters and the politics of resentful privilege. Perhaps he’s even realizing that something like this was bound to happen — that the intensely otherworldly focus of his lifelong ministry meant that it couldn’t plant deep roots in earthly soil.

But just look at that horrifying photograph. Soak it in.

This is evangelical Christianity in America in 2013.

White. Rich. Right-wing. Dishonest. Predatory. Outwardly pious, inwardly corrupt.

It’s all about political tribalism. Jesus simply isn’t in the picture.

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Slimy Baptist Predator Preys on Vulnerable Teenage Girl | Jesus, the Sex Fiends Creepy Wingman

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Baptist predator, Religious Sex Abuse, Religious Sex Crimes

Jack Schaap, Indiana Pastor, Claimed Jesus Wanted Him To Have Sex With Teenage Girl

By Meredith Bennett-Smith

Jack Schaap Pastor Teenage Sex
A disgraced Indiana megachurch leader who seduced his teenage parishioner evidently told her Jesus wanted them to have sex.

As part of the government’s sentencing memorandum, federal prosecutors this week released incriminating letters between Jack Schaap, the former pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Ind., and his teen victim.

“In our ‘fantasy talk,’ you have affectionately spoken of being ‘my wife,’” Schaap wrote in one letter, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “That is exactly what Christ desires for us. He wants to marry us + become eternal lovers!”

WATCH Schaap’s sermon in the video below

Schaap, 55, was fired by his church in July, according to the Associated Press. He eventually pleaded guilty to the federal charge of taking a minor across state lines with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

The scandal has shocked the Hammond church’s 15,000 members, who elected Schaap their pastor in 2001. The father of two was described as a “magnetic” and “charismatic” preacher, according to CBS. He was also married to the daughter of the church’s former pastor.

The inappropriate relationship between Schaap and the 17-year-old, however, was discovered when a church deacon saw on Schaap’s cellphone a picture of Schaap and the teenager kissing. According to court documents the relationship began when the victim was one week shy of her 17th birthday.

“I’m surprised that this happened,” former church member Cherise Williams told Fox Chicago affiliate WFLD 32 back in July. “The pastor made an error – obviously made a mistake … He was a charismatic leader, and he helped a lot of people in their struggles. Obviously there’s still a fondness there for him. The one thing we want to be sure we bring is reconciliation to him and his wife.”

While the Times of Northwest Indiana reports that multiple letters of support have been sent to Schaap’s sentencing judge, U.S. District Court Judge Rudy Lozano, the victim told the court that the relationship has left her reeling.

“He told me to confide in him, to trust him, and he made me feel safe and comfortable around him as a man of God,” she wrote in a letter to the court, according to the Sun-Times. “(Schaap) preyed on that trust and my vulnerability.”

Prosecutors said Schaap “groomed” the girl before becoming intimate with her, counseling her and texting with her frequently — 662 times in one month, according to phone records.

Sentencing in the case was schedule for Thursday.

WATCH Former First Baptist Church pastor Jack Schaap preaching an energetic sermon incorporating hunting implements at his church’s 2010 Youth Conference.

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Republican Taliban | Satan Behind Big Bang, Evolution and Embryology

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Creepy Creationists, Religious Crazies, Religious Credulity, Religious Cretins, Right Wing, Right Wing Clown Car, Right Wing Crazies, Right Wing Culture Wars, Right Wing Extremism

Science Committee Member Broun: Evolution, Embryology, Big Bang Are ‘Lies From the Pit of Hell’
The GOP puts young earth creationists in charge of science

Speaking in front of a wall of dead deer heads, here’s Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun explaining that evolution, embryology, and the Big Bang are all lies straight from the pit of hell.

From Rep. Paul Broun’s (R-GA) remarks at the Liberty Baptist Church Sportsman’s Banquet on September 27, 2012, in Hartwell, Georgia:

BROUN: God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior. You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the Earth’s but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.

And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that’s the reason as your congressman I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.

Rep. Broun, like Missouri caveman Todd Akin, serves on the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

I’ll let that sink in for a second.

Paul Broun, Todd Akin — these are the people that the Republican Party puts in charge of science at the highest level of the government. Extreme right wing fundamentalists and young earth creationists who believe science is a tool of Satan.

(h/t: Benjy Sarlin.)

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American Taliban | Christian Fascist Calls For Extermination of Heretics

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in American Taliban, Christian Fascism, Religious Genocide

NC Pastor: Pen In ‘All The Lesbians And Queers’ With An Electrified Fence, Wait For Them To ‘Die Out’

The Pastor’s leper colony-esque proposal came in response to the president’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, which he said ‘anybody with any sense’ would be against. Worley explained that the idea of two men kissing makes him ‘pukin’ sick,’ so he developed a proposal to ‘get rid of all the lesbians and queers’:

WORLEY: I figured a way out — a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers. But I couldn’t get it passed through Congress. Build a great big large fence, 150 or 100 miles long. Put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals. Have that fence electrified so they can’t get out. Feed ‘em, and– And you know what? In a few years they’ll die out. You know why? They can’t reproduce.

Updated: Video clip of the comments

He claims to be a man of God, but I have serious questions about which God.

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Christian Sadist Sean Harris | Christianity Is Child Abuse

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Christian Sadists

Take a stand against child abuse

Most of you know the story about the NC pastor who encourages  parents to punch kids who show “effeminate” behavior and to crack their wrists and “butch” girls should be “reined in”.

American Atheist reports a protest against pastor Sean Harris tomorrow, May 6 in Fayetteville, NC.

Fayetteville, N.C. Police are expecting 500-600 people to attend our protest of the local pastor who told his congregation to ‘beat their gay kids.’ *shudder*

Are YOU too busy to take a stand against this monster? RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/events/305729822834613/

Are you too far away to attend? You can still help by sharing this and temporarily setting your facebook timeline cover photo to THIS picture:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/rockbeyondbelief/files/2012/05/2Sean-Harris-Berean-Baptist-punch-your-gay-kids-protest-profile-wide-851×3501.jpg

He is of course retracting what he had stated, but we know that he is just trying to save face in the media while still clinging to his bigoted beliefs. These people must be shown that we will not accept child abuse and discrimination in any way, shape or form.

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Catholic Fascist Freak Rick Santorum | Pukes Over Separation of Church and State | Vomits On American Constitution

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Catholic Crusaders, Catholic Fascist Rick Santorum

Santorum: JFK’s Speech on Separation of Church and State Makes Me Want to Puke

Catholic Fascist Freak Rick Santorum | Pukes Over Separation of Church and State | Vomits On American Constitution
As Rick Santorum’s star continues to rise, his rhetoric just keeps getting more and more extreme. Today on ABC News, Santorum said that John F. Kennedy’s famous 1960 speech on the separation of church and state makes him want to puke.

And in Santorum’s opinion, every American should feel just as nauseated as he does.

GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum said today that watching John F. Kennedy’s speech to the Baptist ministers in Houston in 1960 made him want to “throw up.”

“To say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?” Santorum said.

“That makes me throw up and it should make every American who is seen from the president, someone who is now trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you, not that you can’t come to the public square and argue against it, but now we’re going to turn around and say we’re going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square,” he said. …

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country,” said Santorum. “This is the First Amendment. The First Amendment says the free exercise of religion. That means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square. Kennedy for the first time articulated the vision saying, no, ‘faith is not allowed in the public square. I will keep it separate.’ Go on and read the speech ‘I will have nothing to do with faith. I won’t consult with people of faith.’ It was an absolutist doctrine that was foreign at the time of 1960,” he said.

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