My husband made an interesting comment on Bachman's funding

[glinda]

when he traveled along between Princeton and Cambridge he said he saw a lot of huge new maga-churches with real odd names. He said "that is where she gets her money". Am sure that between those and the Chamber of Horrors and outside dirty money, that might explain it.

[Scruffy1]

1. Yep, they are political arms of the Republican Party

Some even bussed in members to see Palin last summer. In a real democracy they would lose their tax exemption, but of course we live in a bankana Republic, where the Fox News Network is the preferred channel of propaganda. The only hope I see is that their membership is skewed toward blue hairs who will soon be dead. I never thought I'd live long enough to see the Ministry of Jesus Christ turn into a celebration of greed and selfishness. But then these preachers are most concerned with dollars and nothing raises money like fear and hate.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. I grew up as a mainstream Lutheran preacher's kid, so I know something

about how traditional denominations start new churches.

To put it simply, they start small, meeting in someone's house or a storefront or another church's social hall until they can afford their own building, which is sometimes the building of another church that has outgrown its original building.

It takes YEARS to build up a congregation. That's why there is something fishy about the megachurches springing up from nothing out in the exurbs. It would make a great story for some investigative reporter to trace the financing of these outfits, although it might be nearly impossible, because unlike mainstream churches, which are governed by a board (council, elders, vestry, depending on the denomination) elected from among the members and publish their financial statements in the church newsletter, many of these megachurches are run as one-man dictatorships.

[glinda]

9. I agree. It would be an interesting project.

[DFLforever]

3. That was very observant and insightful of him.

I spent a few days at a lake cabin my son rented this summer in Wright County and I noticed the churches I passed weren't Lutheran or Catholic or Methodist but instead tended to have weird names.

Also a lot of campaign support there for Bachmann among new churches lacking a traditional sense of social responsibility or commitment to the greater community - to put it in simple secular terms.

[glinda]

4. Were they huge and new? I think they should be investigated.

[DFLforever]

6. Not especially, as I recall.

Nor glamorous in any way. But not tiny or inconspicuous either.
But then I was driving along two-lane county roads.

Do the megas have feeder churches?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. A lot of them have the name "...Community Church."

Any church that claims to be non-denominational, as if that's a virtue, is really saying that there's no oversight for the activities of the people in church.

[DFLforever]

7. I can't remember specific names.

But I noticed that none of them carried denominational status.

[glinda]

8. Yes. That is what my husband noticed. He said there were so many and they were

newish and large. He said lots of money went into them and what surprised him were the number of them. He would know and understand demographics as his father was a minister and he grew up amidst much information on placement of Churches, finances, population and Church issues in general. Husband said he thought the main focus, in her support system, were those Churches.