Scary Out There in Republican Land

I respect and would defend everyone’s right to pick the candidate they believe best represents their interests. With that said, I have to tell I’ve moved past being worried to being disgusted at the way some people are deciding on who to vote for, and I am especially looking at Trump’s supporters.

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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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Big Talk About Terrorists

Suddenly, everyone’s a warrior in the war against terror. That is of course only the terrorists attacks that 1. Don’t involve white male American terrorists, and/or 2. Aren’t likely to actually happen in the first place. Take inspiration for the protection of the homeland from some Facebook posts from early this morning. Here you’ll see the batshittery we’ve devolved into in this country. It started with this fairly incoherent post, which I mostly just ignored after assuming the person who wrote it was either high, drunk, or both.

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Evangelical Ugliness Directed at the Pope

Unless you live under a rock, you know the Pope visited the US last week. There was much hope that this Pope might further soften the exclusive tone of Catholic doctrine as espoused by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and while never moving to change doctrine, he did give several speeches indicating that he believed the Church’s emphasis needs to move away from culture war issues to caring for the poor and taking care of our planet. This, of course, set the hair on fire of many of America’s evangelical wing. When Ratzinger was Pope, they had a friend in Rome, but now the two branches of Christianity seem to be, once again, going their separate ways.

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