Why Little Will Change At the UMC General Conference

As some of you may know, the United Methodist Church is holding their quadrennial General Conference in Portland, Oregon this week. As has been the case for the past several General Conference’s (GC), a major topic is the full inclusion of LGBT people (or as the conservatives call us, “the self-avowed practicing homosexuals”) in the life of the church. My prediction is that little will change in regard to those issues.

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Satan’s demons of hell have destroyed…God’s Gentle Loving People

I’m starting a new series of short posts just to call out of the xtian craziness that I see. I’ll try to avoid stupid stuff from ill-informed and people poorly taught by their religious leaders, but I will make it a special point to call out those who are religious leaders. And probably happy to have the distinction of being the first post in the series is Pastor Dave.

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Why the Christian Church May Never Crawl Out of Its Hole

In the western world, churches, in particular Christian churches, are showing a general decline in attendance and membership. There’s much hand wringing within those denominations most affected; reports are being prepared, and great plans are being made to try to stem the tide, but I am not yet convinced the people in these organizations have the self-awareness to overcome the trend. The Facebook response to a recent article I posted in a conservative United Methodist discussion group really brought this home for me, and helped me congeal my thoughts on this subject.

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The Literal Inerrant Bible

As the teacher of an Adult Sunday School for a few years now, I’ve had to do a lot of study, and while I’m not biblical scholar, there is one things I am absolutely certain about…the Bible is not literal nor is it inerrant. There, I said it. It doesn’t mean I don’t respect the Bible as Holy Canon, but it could not be applied to our lives today were it to be taken literally. A video by Mike Huckabee makes that point.

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Robert Jeffress – Foul Pharisee

Perhaps nothing is more troubling to me at this time in my life than the insertion of religion into politics. Mega-Church pastors become political pundits, and it never comes to a good end. Thomas Jefferson himself wrote in 1813, “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.” Robert Jeffres suddenly decides he’s a border security expert, and that whole thing about “suffer the children to come unto me,” well, that’s just for white protestant children. So, meet Robert Jeffress, foul Pharisee and our Douche of the Day.

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The 22nd Street Santas

It’s been called Miracle on 22nd Street. A gay couple started getting hundreds of letters addressed to Santa Claus at their address on 22nd Street in New York City. They’ve been unable to figure how it was their address that got circulated as Santa’s address, but the miracle of it grew. While many so-called Christian organizations spent millions of dollars to defeat gay marriage initiatives and support themselves…FRC, AFA, Christian Family Coalition of Florida, Catholic Diocese of Minnesota, Bill Donahue of Catholic League who pays himself $400k per year, just to name a few…these two guys enlisted the help of friends and co-workers and went to work answering letters and helping children.

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Scaring People to Christianity

Easter Sunday afternoon me and Lay went to his parent’s farm down in Ruskin to hide Easter eggs and eat. At one point, I was running to a nearby Walgreens to pickup a couple of items. I was stopped at the traffic waiting to turn in and noticed a young man on the corner holding a large sign and his Bible. I felt sorry for him, because the picture was one of an angry God, and I have trouble with that image, but it’s an image held by too many on the religious right.

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The Madness of Genuine Respect for all People

The fine christians (Dr. Gary Cass) at the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission have their knickers all twisted because Bishop Gene Robinson had the nerve to pray to God to help us get past mere tolerance and to a place of genuine respect for all people. Obviously, according to these demented idiots, we can have none of that. I mean really, what would Jesus think if we went around actually respecting one another.

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Tivo and Focus On The Family

The Family was no different. This bothered me a bit, so I went to the Tivo website, got a number for their corporate headquarters and called. A very nice person named Alyson called me back, and we had a nice discussion about the situation. i followed up my conversation with the following letter.

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Family Values Huckabee Squashes Charges His Son Killed a Dog

It seems that Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee has a little bit of a Michael Vick problem. He’s apparently worked to cover up the fact that his then 18 year old son and another teenager got fired from working at a Boy Scout Camp back in 1998. Seems they caught a stray dog, hung it, slit its throat, and stoned it for good measure.

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