The site for ranting and reporting by John Masters
Religion is a frequent topic on this blog, and should not be confused with Christianity.
A relative finished up high school at Carmel Christian Academy this past weekend. I attended without knowing they had the Benham Brothers as the graduation speakers. I considered walking out, but my other sister was right to remind me it was my nephew’s day, not mine. So I decided to make the best of it, and see what they had to say.
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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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This is a short conclusion to Bishop Lowry’s series. He claims, “signs of new life all around.” This is his clinging to the belief that it will be the orthodox church (his definition of orthodoxy) that survives and thrives, all evidence to the contrary.
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United Methodist Bishop, J. Michael Lowry of the Central Texas Conference, recently addressed a gathering of the United Methodist Scholars for Christian Orthodoxy Conference at Armstrong Chapel United Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has put his address, “In a Mirror Dimly”: The Future of the United Methodist Church”© on his website (http://www.bishopmikelowry.com/) as a four part posting. This is part 3.
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United Methodist Bishop, J. Michael Lowry of the Central Texas Conference, recently addressed a gathering of the United Methodist Scholars for Christian Orthodoxy Conference at Armstrong Chapel United Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has put his address, “In a Mirror Dimly”: The Future of the United Methodist Church”© on his website as a four part posting. This is Part 2 of a four part series.
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United Methodist Bishop, J. Michael Lowry of the Central Texas Conference, recently addressed a gathering of the United Methodist Scholars for Christian Orthodoxy Conference at Armstrong Chapel United Methodist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has put his address, “In a Mirror Dimly”: The Future of the United Methodist Church”© on his website as a four part posting. This is my response to those articles.
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I’ve talked before about a conservative United Methodist page I follow. I recently posted a Facebook meme merely because I found the sentiment somewhat heartwarming and thoughtful, but boy did I get taken to the woodshed. A few of them just flew into a rage that I should dare call on conservative United Methodists to express kindness…well, at least of the variety they seem to believe the Dalai Lama expresses.
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So, by now everyone knows that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died over the weekend. As is usual, everyone is rushing to the airwaves to talk about what a nice and brilliant person he was. Of course I don’t know him personally, but certainly his public personae were not so nice, and I don’t think his legal reasoning, considered by many to be smart and original (pun intended), was all that brilliant. It was merely partisan and theocratic. Scalia was not really interested in the original intent of the framers. He was interested in creating a facade of intellectualism around his rulings. His genius was not in a new form of thought around the Constitution, but in a way to package his rulings so that people thought they had a grand origin.
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Recently, a person posted on a conservative Methodist Facebook page about the words used at a Communion Service he had recently attended. Apparently, this set him into a real tizzy, because the Officiant didn’t follow the exact words of the Liturgy from the Hymnal. And you wouldn’t believe the discussion that followed. I don’t think, in all my 50+ years as a Methodist I can ever remember a Communion service where, amongst all the words said, the Officiant didn’t stumble over, mispronounce or add to or leave out some words. But to hear some of the people on the Facebook page, you’d think he’d committed heresy for a slight change.
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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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So, Rafael “Ted” Cruz wants to be President of the United States. That should scare the crap out of any sane person. Ted and his supposed pastor father (I say “supposed” because there is scant evidence of his ever pastoring a church) subscribe to a very dark end-times religious doctrine referred to as Dominionism, and the two of them have decreed that Ted is ordained by God to lead the Government. There is a reason none of the people like him who know him, and there is a very good reason people who find themselves in his presence get a sense of creepiness. But he’s way more than just an unattractive, vindictive demagogue…he’s a downright scary person with a set of religious beliefs that make the most radical Muslim clerics look tame.
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