IMHO: 25 yrs ago U.S. churches helped maintain a compassionate, caring, responsible electorate

[lindysalsagal]

25 years ago the gop wouldn't have made fun of a speaker's spouse getting attacked in their home.

But the church (many anyway) now is in the politics busiiness, and they're as blood-thirsty as the worst politicians.

Religion has morphed into hate cult, in many respects.

And if you belong to a church that hasn't, I have a question: Has your church put out a banner on the road denouncing fascism and hatred?

[Turbineguy]

1. Those churches have lost people to evangelicals

who love to see a good beating.

[GenXer47]

2. there seems to be zero enforcement

of the ban on churches preaching politics. They are supposed to lose their tax exemption if they do so.

[keep_left]

3. And 40 years ago, the Catholic Church (or at least a large part of it) was organizing...

...against Reagan's disastrous Central America policies that turned the region into a charnel house. How times have changed. Now reactionaries in the Church are fighting a rear-guard action against modernity itself. The best-known (and possibly best-funded) Catholic media organization is not NCR or Commonweal, but EWTN. Unfortunately, it will probably take decades to dismantle the Religious Right's cultural and political influence.

[Genki Hikari]

9. SOME Catholics were against it

Few of them were in the hierarchy of clergy.

Not to mention that a whole bunch of their clergy, top to bottom, were also fine with what was happening in Central America during that same time period. Especially in the upper ranks.

But what else can one expect after the most power-mad church in the world? This is the same outfit that was okay with Hitler. Mussolini. Pinochet. And just about every other dictator in Latin America. The same outfit that gave cover and comfort to the murderous thugs who carried out the Dirty War in Argentina--and some of that cover came from the current, supposedly "liberal" pope when he was merely a priest. That's not even getting into the way they behaved for hundreds of years before that--the support of murdering Cathars, the Crusades and on down through all of their hateful bloody history.

And don't get me started on their child rape problem.

They're about the worst example of compassion that one could come up with.

[keep_left]

16. Well, you're certainly right about the hierarchy. I should have mentioned...

...that I was speaking mostly about the laity in the Church. However, there definitely were clergy (even at high levels) who opposed US adventurism in Central America, but they were few and far between. They also tended to get in hot water with their superiors who were almost always reactionaries.

[keithbvadu2]

4. Politics and religion use each other to gain power and wealth.

Political Christians are the new norm vs Christians of faith.

There are a few outliers like Jimmy Carter but they are losing ground.

[Genki Hikari]

10. The religion has been political

Since they hooked up with Constantine.

I don't know why anyone is surprised that they still are, given their long history of it.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

5. Mega churches are like Fox news

entertaining with lights and glitz but most are as vapid and corrupt as the righteous gemstones and as shallow and narrow as Fox news.

Both have grown like mushrooms our of the pure shit of hate this country has produced.

[LAS14]

6. My church hasn't put out a banner, but it has put out rainbow colored adirondack chairs. nt

[LAS14]

7. Come on, folks! Demonstrate the Democratic principle of not stereoptyping. Not all...

... churches are the same by a very long shot. DU needs to get its act together on this issue.

[Genki Hikari]

11. The only stereotyping I see

Is the automatic presumption that christians = automatically good, and any of them who act badly--well, blame that on those "bad" people being fakers.

Well, if they're fake, then what religion are they? And why would they pretend to be a member of another religion? Do you seriously think it's to make you look bad? Why would anyone do that?

I hope you realize how insane people sound when they toss about that "fake" thing, willy-nilly.

Don't even get me started on how it implies that not-christians are the only ones who could be so immoral as to do or say the things these fundagelics do and say.

Talk about stereotyping!

[Celerity]

14. +100

[LAS14]

24. You're not responding to my point. Did you miss the "not all?" nt

[Genki Hikari]

8. LOL

No, they didn't.

SECULAR SOCIETY held that reveling in people being attacked in their own homes was a bad thing.

Meanwhile, it was over 25 years ago that plenty of churches were supporting people being shot at and killed if the person was a doctor providing abortions, or staff at an abortion clinic.

25 years ago, abortion provider Dr David Granell was shot at in his own home, but the assailant missed him. Plenty of churches were fine with the attempt on his life. Only a year later, a shooter didn't miss when he aimed at another abortion provider, Dr Barnett Slepian, and killed him. Those same churches celebrated it.

There's never been much compassion coming from that quarter. You want compassion, go talk to a Buddhist. Or an atheist. You're more likely to find it there.

[LAS14]

25. Or the Lutherans, or Episcopalians or UCC or...... nt

[Tanuki]

12. My congregation is open and affirming. Sometimes we have banners.

We are a member congregation of this coalition: (It's part of the Gamaliel network, which some of you may know from Barack Obama's days as a community organizer)
https://noahtn.org/

"....About Nashville Organized for Action and Hope (NOAH)

NOAH is an anti-racist faith-based coalition that is multiracial, multigenerational, and interfaith comprised of congregations, community organizations, and labor unions that work to amplify the power of ordinary people. NOAH does not endorse political candidates, but gets them to endorse our issues agenda and pledge to work with NOAH if they are elected.
...

Our Pillars

Affordable Housing

Click HERE to learn more about the problems, solutions, goals, etc of the Affordable Housing Task Force!

Education

Click HERE to learn more about the problems, solutions, goals, etc. of the Education Task Force!

Criminal Justice

Click HERE to learn more about the problems, solutions, goals, etc. of the Criminal Justice Task Force!

Economic Equity & Jobs

Click HERE to learn more about the problems, solutions, goals, etc. of the Economic Equity Task Force!

[Hekate]

13. Unitarian Universalists: "Hate Has No Home Here"

[Maru Kitteh]

15. The older I get the more I've come to see all religion as an erosive menace at best.

Historically, it's been a nightmare, but people seem to need some kind of external set of rules, some kind of external force to govern their behaviors. And it seems they are happy to surrender every manner of self-governance to achieve it. This leads to a long line of opportunists who are all too willing to provide that structure, direction and fawning approval - if you could just put them in your will please and send 10% of your paycheck and did we mention the orphans that need our religion?

Yeah, no.

[LAS14]

26. The use of "all" simply betrays your ignorance of the facts. nt

[pecosbob]

17. Not since Newt and the Moral Majority

[Sky Jewels]

18. Most churches have always been tools for the patriarchy to

maintain power. Religion’s stupid stories have male (fictional) characters in the lead roles (God/Yahweh/Allah, Jesus, Moses, Mohammad, etc.). For centuries churches mainly have been used to enable the grifting rings to keep the few (mainly men) in power so they can continue to exploit and oppress the many (mainly women). Caring and compassionate? Umm, no.

A few of them, like the Unitarians, are okay. But they’re the exceptions.

[a kennedy]

19. Driving through a neighborhood saw some political signs, but at a couple of homes

there were signs that said “I love my church”. WTH???

[lindysalsagal]

21. Ok, THAT's weird.

Last edited Wed Nov 2, 2022, 11:18 AM - Edit history (1)

Those signs are missing the point: People are always expected to support the clergy, rather than religion helping people.

[scarletlib]

20. I think it goes back to the Clinton administration beginning in the 90's.

Jerry Falwell, the Moral Majority etc created a cottage industry of hate regarding the Clintons. They churned out lie after lie. Promoted books and videos full of lies and accused Bill and Hillary of everything including murder and drug running.

[LAS14]

27. The Clintons were both church-going Christians their whole lives. nt

[scarletlib]

30. That's true. Reagan openly courted them.

However, I may be wrong but, the real demonization of the Democrats started in Clinton admin. They called them murderers, drug dealers, sexual deviants etc.
The republicans under Newt Gingrich started radicalizing their party and Rush Limbaugh was going nationwide.

[GoCubsGo]

28. Fartwell and his ilk actually go back to Brain-dead Ronnie's time.

Like Fartwell, Pat Robertson, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and other conartists became big in the mid-1980s. Granted, Tammy Faye managed to redeem herself.

[Act_of_Reparation]

22. The Church I belonged to was too busy sexually abusing children and raving about abstinence...

...to have much time left over for maintaining a compassionate, caring, responsible electorate.

Even the most cursory, haphazard review of the history of religion should show that it hasn't "morphed" into anything. This is always what it has been.

[lindysalsagal]

23. It's a common story, that so many refuse to see or stop.

[onetexan]

29. I've been listening to Rachel M's Ultra - re: a nazi supporting catholic priest

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/rachel-maddow-presents-ultra/transcript-brooklyn-boys-n1299419
"Gallagher: One of the front pages in January of 1940 was of young men carrying, what seemed to me, to be huge rifles, and it indicated that they tried to overthrow the government of the United States. And when I looked more closely at the headline, it said that they were followers of a Catholic priest from Detroit.

Maddow: A group of armed, American men led by a Catholic Priest with a plot to overthrow the government of the United States, forgotten about and filed away in a stack of old newspapers."

The christofascism we're seeing now is nothing new. It's just metastacized to be much larger & more dangerous.
In recent years i've come to believe that organized religion is a buncha nonsense. All of them. They're all being used as tools to control/sway simple minded people. Religion clouds minds and reason and makes automatons of people who otherwise would be decent people to commit atrocities.