Category: Cringe-inaity

Mental Illness Versus Religious Performance

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When the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he’s not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?

– “When The President Talks To God”,           Bright Eyes

“When his family heard this they went out to restrain him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind’”. Ever since Jesus began his ministry, religious fervor has been mistaken for mental illness. Physicians in the 19th Century ascribed many cases of mental illness to religious “excitement”. Nowadays, psychiatrists simply prescribe pills. Even so, psychologists struggle to find the dividing line. The Scientific American suggests even mental health professionals must frequently rely on conclusions based on observable behaviors.

In the Miracle of the Swine narrative mentioned in all three Synoptics, Jesus calls forth a “legion” of demons from a Gerasene man living among the tombs. Psychiatrists would diagnose the man’s pattern of self-mutilation as suggesting schizophrenia spectrum. Christians, on the hand solidly place this as demon possession, with the “legion” of demons crying out, saying, “What business do you have with us, Son of God?”

“You talk to God, you’re religious. God talks to you, you’re psychotic.” So goes the old saying. But not if you’re religious. Or at least a charismatic Christian, following a tele-preacher who acts as a conduit for the “Spirit of God”.  Especially those COVID-19 denying faith-healers whose Anointed Word from God has killed many of their own flocks, by claiming the people of God “have dominion and authority over COVID-19”. Including self-proclaimed “prophetess” Kat (Jesus-loves-dessert-in Heaven) Kerr who broke Satan’s lie that Biden had become president, by laughing it off in the Spirit.  She’s the same nut job, among other wacky prophecies, dispatched “1000 Special Ops Angels” to ensure Trump would get reelected. It’s just a smidgen of her spiritual looneyness that JoeMyGod takes a deep dive into.. And evangelicals – for which faith detached from reason plays well – keep nodding their heads in approval.

Søren Kierkegaard was spot on when he observed that “in paganism the theater was worship – in Christendom the churches have generally become the theater.” The best televangelists are accomplished thespians, knowing they are the lead performers acting in a religious theater.  It doesn’t matter what pours forth from the performer’s mouth – however toxic – so long as it keeps God’s people entertained. Is it performance art, or mental illness?

Ever since the Moral Majority days, an evangelicalism founded on racism has spilled over its self-righteous banks to put a voodoo curse on Others they don’t like.  In a recent pro-Trump rally, the crowd cheered as a “prophet” declared that the “Angel of Death” is coming for named Democrat politicians by the end of the year. Kill the Gays! Kill the Abortionists! Now the dam is bursting into society at large: Kill the Librarians! Kill the School Board! Kill Election Officials. Kill the FBI!  Kill the George Floyds!  Kill George Soros globalists!  Or whatever Demon-Du-Jour St. Tucker of Carlson anathematized the evening before. These are the divine commands they are receiving loud and clear now. Of course, it’s rarely been translated into criminal action – excepting Jan. 6th – but the imprecatory rhetoric is rampant throughout an evangelicalism bent on smiting its perceived enemies.

It gets deadly serious when the National Leader hears divine voices. People by and large adjust to presidents who formulate policy by personal gut feeling, or just plain lie about their inner motivations in executing it as they see fit. What about a foreign leader with claims to righteousness and to revenge, and who hears the audible voice of God?  Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, the Ayatollah, Putin?  Surely they were demon-possessed – or at least delusional. What about an American president?  

George W. Bush, for example. “I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... And I did.” Bush was not elected; he was ordained to carry out God’s commands, taking the leap from seeking to obey God’s will to embodying it as earthly redeemer. Bush claimed his anointed position obviated accountability to any mere mortal. “I’m the Commander – see, I don’t need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the President”. Those close to Bush were spooked by his “sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do”. As Gary Wills noted, “the conviction that we might benefit by removing Saddam is not the same as believing that God wills it – except in George Bush’s mind.” Cal Thomas ascribed Bush’s dangerous arrogance to individuated religious feelings, which “supplant objective truth and make the individual a high priest unto himself.”  Meanwhile, estimates of total fatalities in his contrived Shock and Awe against Iraq vary between 800,000 and 1.3 million.   

I could go on and on about Presidents who were utterly unqualified, or otherwise psychologically and spiritually impaired. But cut to the short and say Donald Trump wins the prize. “Against his staff’s warnings about dictator Kim Jong-un, Trump boasted their personal “love letters” assured international peace. Despite that North Korea continued unabated at delivering a nuclear missile to “hit and wipe out” the American mainland. “Only I know”. Donald Trump didn’t ask Americans to place their trust in each other or in God, but rather in himself alone. I Alone Can Fix It. According to Trump’s psychologist niece, the former President is mentally ill with an attention-seeking Messiah complex.  Theologian  Diana Butler Bass agrees. “The King of Israel? The second coming of God? He thinks he’s Jesus. That’s where we are.”  His dangerous attempts to hold on to power after he lost the 2020 election almost convinced his cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. It had the opposite effect on millions of his “Let’s Go Brandon” followers, with many expressing their willingness to die for him. It becomes a shared psychosis, arousing a “similar pathology in the population that creates a ‘lock and key’ relationship”.

Oh, I can’t tell if he is a crook or a religious fanatic,” declares one of Sinclair Lewis’ characters in his political novel, It Can’t Happen Here. The man is listening to the nomination of presidential candidate Buzz Windrip. Supported by both fundamentalist Christians and large corporate interests, the cunning Windrip ultimately wins the election, and proceeds to transform America into a dictatorship. Is Trump an attention-seeking, Bible-fumbling performance artist, or is he certifiably insane? Either way, it appears our country is life imitating art at the whims of another wrong hero. One, like the deranged “precious bodily fluids” character in Dr. Strangelove, who has his finger on the nuclear button. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. (Ps. 118:9). Sadly, Trump will keep his crowds entertained until the final curtain falls – directly on top of all of us.

Behold, A Man In Whom Is No Guile.

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Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. Matt. 3:2

You’d have to live under a rock to miss the contenders for Georgia senator. The incumbent Democrat, Rev. Raphael Warnock is pitted against Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker. It’s that season when the airwaves are rotten with campaign ads, and here in Georgia it’s no exception. Walker has made it a toxic race where his are primarily attack ads – very few concentrate on his own accomplishments.

That should not come as a surprise, given Walker has no political experience. More to the point, however, is that there is little virtuous to say about him. Other than he was a popular football star, if that counts. On the football field, he was a superhero. On his private playing field, by published accounts, he was a violent serial philanderer, domestic abuser, and deadbeat dad. Asked if he has ever spoken to any of the mothers of his children, his answer was “why do I need to?” Oh, I forgot to mention he professes to be a staunch “family values” Bible-believing Christian.

And Walker is a habitual liar. “He’s lied so much that we don’t know what’s true”, his own campaign staff admitted. A fictitiously-inflated business record, outright fabrications about being an FBI agent, claims that he graduated from college in the top 1% of his class – when he never obtained a degree. You know, just mere trifles anyone might not remember about their past. Oh, and that he failed to mention he pointed a gun to his former wife’s head and threatened to kill her. Or, that he kept secret – even to his own campaign –three undisclosed children born out of wedlock with various women on the side. There might have been more – but he reportedly paid another girlfriend (or more?) to have an abortion. Walker claimed he had no idea who this woman could be, a denial which was undercut by further reporting that she also had a child with him.

One might suppose all that would put the kibosh on pro-lifers’ support. But predictably, “Family Values” evangelicals merely doubled down.  “Walker’s Christian Fans Unfazed By Abortion Revelations”, a Politico article announces. This follows on a “prayer warriors for Herschel” campaign stop at First Baptist of Atlanta, where the preacher invoked God’s blessing for him to win. “So, we thank you that we can support our fellow conqueror, our brother, our friend, the one that we are praying for today.”.

In fact, the revelations of his private life spurred a vote of confidence by record-setting influx of donations, as most evangelicals dismissed the allegations as October surprise hit-jobs. Including Walker himself, who swore he didn’t do any of it. “They want you to confess to something you have no clue about.” And yet, without confessing these as these hidden sins and repenting, he pronounced himself forgiven “by the grace of God.” It’s somewhat akin to the story in Genesis 18 where Sarah lied and said, “I did not laugh.” “Yes, you did laugh”, the divine visitor replied. You put on a show for other people, cleverly thinking “no one’s gonna know.” But God knows. It nevertheless doesn’t matter to Walker. He pulls out some pages from O.J. Simpson’s book, If I Did It, to say, “And if I knew about it, I would be honest and talk about it, but I know nothing about that.” He then deflects to that old saw that “I’ve been born again”, so I have protection against everything.

“The left will do whatever they can to win this seat,” Walker said. “And I told you when I got in this race I’m gonna win this seat.” Funny how projection works. “I always hoped the influence was such that whether we were out in public or on the field,” long-time Dallas Cowboys coach and evangelical Christian Tom Landry once said.” We conducted ourselves in such a way to show Christian traits.”  Landry never allowed winning override his personal dignity and Christian virtue.  Sadly, our current world is bereft of men and women of similar honor. Who are hailed are those with dubious character, those utterly unqualified as leaders, or otherwise psychologically and spiritually impaired.

You might think this is a hit piece on Herschel Walker. He’s merely a bit player in the ongoing Christian Nationalist wet dream. And with a career of severe head injuries, is an ill man to be pitied and cared for. The real villains in this story are the evangelical leaders/grifters unable to accept the Truth and who foist him up as a Jesus-level hero. You know, those who condemn the sins of those on the “opposing” team. And yet turn a hypocritical eye away from their own. I recall Jesus saying many things against people for whom nothing matters more than raw power.

Frankly, I’m voting for Raphael Warnock on his record and Christian ethic.  If power-hungry evangelicals are willing to overlook their own candidate’s  total lack of a personal moral code for the sake of controlling the Senate, shame on them. They may win this election, because he’d be elected by Christians regardless of what Jesus said. But they are stone-cold losers. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Too Big To Fail

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“I think everyone should be upset about this and, again, Joe Biden is off the rails,” spouted Christian spite-witch Marjorie Taylor Greene. Biden should be impeached after the decision to forgive student loans, she huffed. Her outrage reflects the attitude of many evangelicals: “It seems outrageous to me that any President has the power or authority to cancel legal contracts with the stroke of a pen,” a representative commenter replied to a Christian Post article.

In contrast, evangelicals didn’t complain about the CARES Act PPP, the SBA-guaranteed small business loan program.. In fact, some 50% of churches with more than 200 members applied for a “loan”, with “evangelical leaders tied to President Donald Trump and megachurches tied to scandals pulling in some of the largest payouts”. COVID-19 was a financial bonanza for evangelicals. And they all knew it, replete with secret phone calls from the White House, being “walked through how to obtain emergency funding from the government. Participants in the calls prayed together and thanked officials for ‘blessing’ them with the opportunity to receive millions in taxpayer dollars, even without being tax-exempt or meeting requirements necessary for non-religious organizations.”

Joyce Meyer Ministries, was approved for a $5 million to $10 million loan; Robert Jeffress’ First Baptist Dallas, a loan between $2 million and $5 million; Willow Creek church, between $5 million and $10 million. Despite the intent of PPP to save jobs, the church decided instead to keep the money and cut 92 staff positions. James Dobson’s Family Institute was forgiven $668,549. Mike Bickel of IHOP got $2.5 million. The Crouch dynasty Trinity Broadcasting helped itself to $3.3 million. The American Family Association, a designated hate group, managed to pull $2 million. Steve Furtick wangled $3.6 million, even though his church ended 2019 with a cash surplus of $26 million. Jimmy Swaggart got $2.6 million. Even convicted felon Jim Bakker got into the act, receiving some $400K. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s all exposed – some 400 evangelical ministries and churches – and in the open on the Trinity Foundation website. What happens afterwards – what they do with the money – is locked behind IRS rules protecting churches from transparency in some very opaque finances.

Funny how all these good Christian folks, greedily sucking at the government tit, had no second thought about helping themselves to hard-earned public taxpayer money. And many of them ran some very impressive balance sheets. Along with stashed personal wealth galore. Like the late multi-millionaire and anti-vaccine televangelist Marcus Lamb’s Daystar Network, which took $3.9-million, and turned it around to buy him a multimillion corporate jet. It took an outcry generated by an investigative journalist for Lamb to cough the PPP funds back up. Not like they suffered to meet payroll like struggling mom-and-pop small businesses. Or, the black-owned businesses, which received a paltry 1.9% of loans.  The design was politically maneuvered as a set-up to reward loyal Trump soldiers for their godly obesisance.

And so we return to Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose own business had loans worth $183,504 forgiven. “At the stroke of the pen”, her government indebtedness was expunged. No hypocrisy there, nosiree bob. And these are shofar-blowing zealots for the Lord who adore the Old Testament, reveling in God’s command to murder all the gays.  Yet none of these ram’s horn blowing capitalists ever mention the Israelite Year of Jubilee, which came every 50th year, being a year full of releasing people from their debts, releasing all slaves, and returning property to who owned it (Leviticus 25:1-13).

The hypocrisy is palpable. It should outrage any American taxpayer. Especially a Christian, who disagrees with financially supporting a church or ministry “too big to fail” he/she otherwise shuns as heretical or sham. Meanwhile, thousands of former college students are struggling through an uneasy job market, inflation, and tuition loan repayments. One only needs point to the bait-and-switch Trump University, where “the billionaire had made enough money for himself. Now, he would put his famous brain to work for the little guy“. God cares for the little guy. For glutinous Trump and Taylor Greene, the little guy just gets in the way of the trough. Jesus instead says the little guy is too small to fail my love.

Let’s blow a shofar for student loan forgiveness! 

Saying The Silent Part Out Loud

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We are constantly reminded of the holiness of televangelists – by themselves. Like Kenneth Copeland, whose spiritual purity would be sullied if he took a commercial flight in “a long tube with a bunch of demons”.  Whenever I board a plane and head back to the cheap seats, all I see is a bunch of entitled white people in first class – just the demographic Copeland would feel comfortable with. But because this man of God is creeped out to be around normal (lesser) humans, he needs his own private business jet – together with a hangar full of holy spare airplanes.  And how about the divine extortion scheme run by Paula Cain, where she informed her members to sign over their January paychecks to her. Or bad things would happen to them.

“The nondenominational megachurch has made it easier for charlatans, or those who simply seek autonomy, to shelter themselves from accountability”, according to Ministry Watch. Nobody has been watching these scam-vangelists for so long that they have convinced themselves of their invincibility. And so they grow bolder in explaining how it really works.

“I’m not worth your McDonald’s money? I’m not worth your Red Lobster money?” A pastor was haranguing his “broke” congregation because they did not buy him the luxury watch he wanted. “You know I asked for one last year. And here it is all the way in August and I still ain’t got it”, he scolded.  At least he is a truth-teller in admitting that the prosperity church is nothing more than a counting house. The greed no longer hides behind Jesus’ robes.

Likewise, the Christian Extremist Right feels secure enough now to show their cards. It’s been alluded to, hinted at, or implied – but finally now, they confirm it. According to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, “we were a nation founded upon, not the words of our founders, but the words of God because he wrote the Constitution.”  Now they have made the jump to decree that the words of the Constitution are “God breathed” – dictated word-for-word in Kynge Jaymes Englyshe, free from error and infallible in all respects. The Holy Spirit controlled the anointed Founding Fathers, just like with the verbally, plenary inspired Bible. Odd then, that the Constitution sounds more like a product of Freemasonry that nowhere mentions the word “God”. Funny, if it is inerrant, as Scripture supposedly was, I don’t recall the Bible having to be amended 27 times. Truth is incontrovertible; it doesn’t evolve. Nevertheless, our Constitution has been now officially decreed a further Word of God.

Holy War must be waged by a divinely-anointed Leader. While the Constitution makes provision for a President, it says nothing about his (her) divinity. Yet Right-wing pastor/MAGA cultist Shane Vaughn declares that “Donald Trump carries the prophetic seal of the calling of God: Donald Trump is the messiah of America.” Vaughn is no outlier; he reflects core covenants of the Christian Right. For many, Trump is the second coming of God. Jesus our Savior gave his life for America, and Trump our Chosen One – the new man of sorrows – sacrifices his own every day for us. A billboard in Georgia proclaimed For Unto Us A Son Is Given  , taking the text from Isaiah 9:6 and applying it to the heaven-sent Trump in bold letters. We no longer have to read between the lines – they are being open and honest about an autocratic Christian States of Amerika.

I occasionally have this nightmare that the Christianity practiced around me is normal while I am the dystopian one. God blesses the greedy; God loves a holy hunger for worldly power and domination. Evangelicals are finally saying the silent part out loud. The truth is out, but it doesn’t look like the Truth I know.  That Truth left the building some time ago.

God’s As$hole

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No. I’m not referring to G-d, who is ineffable and utterly holy, bless His holy name. We humans are created in his image. But God is Creator, not a created being but spirit. And God doesn’t possess an anus, any more than He has other human anatomy, like a belly button.

In his controversial book, Naked Lunch, 60’s beat author William Burroughs told a story about a man’s asshole taking over speaking for him. It talked constantly, day and night in a “sound you could smell”. The man got fed up, futilely telling his ass to shut up. “It is you who will shut up in the end, not me”, the anus responded. “Because we don’t need you around here anymore. I can talk and eat and shit”.  The brain could no longer give orders anymore, and eventually died. I make the connection; the analogy is apt for today’s evangelicalism. Lots of celebrity evangelical “leaders” talking out their ass. And the body is dying.

The Apostle Paul applies a “body” metaphor to the church in 1 Cor. 12, noting that “the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty”.  Except today, “the decay from the top of the evangelical pyramid has left a stench so thick it’s hard to take American Christians seriously.” The Best And Brightest Voices of Evangelicalism™ are God’s as$hole, commandeering the entire body. It’s a target-rich environment. My Gosh, there such an engorged rectum in the body of American evangelicalism, its hard to mention only but a few.

Like the late Bernhard Ebbers,  CEO of WorldCom, who served 12 years of a 25-year prison sentence following a $11 billion “accounting discrepancy”, which was actually widespread fraud perpetrated by  dodgy accounting methods. It was the largest corporate fraud case in American history. Some 20,000 employees lost their jobs and shareholders lost about $180bn. Ebbers reportedly had told members of his Baptist congregation, “more than anything else, I hope that my witness for Jesus Christ will not be jeopardized”. The congregation gave the unrepentant Christian a standing ovation. WTF?

Another example: Nebraska State Sen. Mike Groene. He seems nice. The senator is a dedicated evangelical churchman. Meanwhile, his laptop was discovered with some 50 clandestine photos he took of a young female staffer. You know, innocent close-ups of her body parts, to which he took the time to edit and add titles. One was labeled “legs.” Another was labeled “rear tight.”  Asshole is as asshole does.

When asked, “do you think you did anything wrong?”, Groene replied, “I don’t believe so. I apologized. I did not apologize because I thought I did something wrong. I just apologized, because in their view, I had offended them.” Groene apparently escaped criminal prosecution by resigning his legislative office. He then went full-on persecution mode.  ‘I was like Jesus Christ’.  WTF? His wishes for the real victim: “he hopes [she] loses her job in the Legislature”.  

And finally, another Toxic Christian, Alex Jones. “He is a God-fearing Christian…and right now he needs our support,” said fellow professing Christian, Roger Stone. Jones, who comes from a Christian fundamentalist background, runs the wacked-out hate network InfoWars – what he terms a “Christian ‘self-help’ platform”. His perpetuation of lies that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax wound up– at least for now – in a $4.1 million judgment to the parents of a shooting victim. He was blind-sided in court, after swearing he had no pertinent emails – not even using email. Unknown to him, his attorneys goofed by forwarding voluminous phone records to the plaintiffs, exposing his perjury. Meanwhile, Jones filed bankruptcy against his own company, having devised a secured debt against it by another company under his control. Many legal experts see it as a veiled attempt to seal off his assets.

“The sound you could smell”.  I could go on and on about asshole Christians. But I couldn’t stand the stench.

When the Buck Stops

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As the leader of his powerful Western democracy, he had been elected on a sizeable margin. His governing style was described as flamboyant, opportunistic and populist. A thrice-married man and serial adulterer, he was a larger-than-life personality – a celebrity in his own right. Rules didn’t apply to him because when you’re a star, you can do whatever you please. He was a groper, and defended other sexual harassers loyal to him. He was a showman who could be humorous, entertaining or intimidating and bullying. His audacity to say whatever came into his mind was hailed as a sign of honesty and guts. His supporters praised his combativeness projecting the image of swift, decisive action.  His detractors accused him of lying, cronyism, bigotry, and amorality. He tore up international agreements negotiated in good faith. During COVID, his response to the pandemic “ranks among the worst public health failures in the country’s history” with many thousands of avoidable deaths. And yet, he flaunted lockdown restrictions.  He was by no means a religious person, but mouthed enough of the right words to win over the religious crowd. He led a charmed life, always coming out on top in fights that would doom another politician. Then came a day when he was out of office. Still, he tried to cling to power, and remained the center of political attention.

Lies? Yes, too many to count. But the core of the matter was “the abuse of power that preceded them.” He made crony appointments based on personal loyalty rather than suitability for the job. He was indifferent to allegations of sexual harassment in his staff, because his only concern was shoring up his own position. His administration had “no public interest, no moral principle or governing priority that could ever trump one man’s appetite for power and his personal vanity”. One article said his party “should hang its head in shame for foisting on us a man so wholly unfit for office that he had to be dragged from it kicking and screaming and threatening to burn everything to the ground.”

Who is this man, Donald Trump? Yes, but here I’ve referred to Boris Johnson. “The Tory party subordinated its history, its judgment and its political identity in service of one man’s monstrous ego,” The Guardian commented. Steve Benen of MSNBC put into the American perspective. British conservatives, confronted with a scandal-plagued leader, concluded they could no longer tolerate the constant stream of disgraces and indignities… [t]hey concluded that their leader’s record of dishonesty and misconduct was something they could no longer even try to defend.”

“They call him Britain Trump,” the former President ineloquently once said of his British peer. The knives are out now for BoJo. With the J6 Committee’s probing and forthcoming Justice Department referrals, we can only hope the comparison remains consistent. Except that BoJo’s downfall was being a clownish fluffer.  Trump’s downfall was in spite of him being a criminal blowhard. At least in his case, hopefully the buck will stop in jail…

I’m No Christian Nationalist (But I Play One On TV)

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That’s Robert Jeffress. He would have us believe he is simply a patriot. But his First Baptist of Dallas is a prime example of a Christian church using sacred space for the worship of the nation rather than God. Like its Freedom Sunday, where the whole service was a Pageant of Christian Nationalism, replete with military color guard and salute to our Armed Forces amidst a flag-waving congregation.

“The New York Times has libeled me by characterizing me as a Christian Nationalist”, complains Ralph Drollinger, who runs a ministry to Capitol Hill. If it looks like a duck… yet Jeffress refuses to come out of the closet. And Drollinger claims Christian Nationalism is a fallacy. But not all Christian Nationalists hide their true intent behind clerical robes. “So if Christian nationalism is something to be scared of, they’re lying to you,” declares Marjorie Taylor Greene. “Let’s demonize patriotism by calling it nationalism and associating that with Hitler. Ah, now let’s call it white nationalism,” sardonically said Rod Martin, one of the founders of the Conservative Baptist Network. “Then we’ll call it Christian nationalist so we’ll make it sound like you are the ayatollah. It is all designed to demonize you.” You see, the modern day Christian Taliban is a myth. If Christian Nationalism quacks like Hitler or the ayatollah…

“Listen long enough to any… left-wing group and you’ll believe [the secular] history of America…That version of history… ,” Jeffress preached, “is a complete myth!… America was founded predominantly… by Christians who wanted to build this foundation, this Christian nation, on the foundation of God’s will,” according to Jeffress. And so, the non-Christian Nationalist delivered a powerful rival liturgy to the Gospel story. The operative word is predominantly. There were fervent proto-evangelicals among the Founding Fathers, but there also were non-orthodox Deists and Unitarians, and a very large faction of non-religious influenced by the Enlightenment.

“It’s not in the Constitution!” Charlie Kirk was spouting his own brand of bullshit, this time ranting that “we should have church and state mixed together. Our Founding Fathers believed in that.”  They also agreed on the Constitution’s wording, but somehow left out any reference to “God”.  Jefferson didn’t create “separation between church and state” out of thin air. It didn’t start in 1802 with Jefferson’s Danbury letter. Take for example, the 1797 Barbary Treaty of Peace and Friendship:  “As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…” It goes back further, to the Constitution of Virginia of 1776, which stated that “all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.” As if to make the right more definite, the final draft was changed from the toleration of free exercise of religion to its entitlement. 

America was not founded as a Christian nation. It was a nation of many Christians of all stripes – including repressed Roman Catholics, with several states at the time of the Constitution requiring a Protestant religious test oath to take office. And yes, there was a sizeable Jewish population in America during the American Revolutionary War, with many communities of free-born men, having been settled as early as the 1650s. “The Founders of this nation explicitly included Islam in their vision of the future of the republic”, according to a Library of Congress official. She cites as evidence the words of William Lancaster, a delegate to the North Carolina Convention, who on July 30, 1788, makes the following declaration: “But let us remember that we form a government for millions not yet in existence…. In the course of four or five hundred years, I do not know how it will work. This is most certain, that Papists may occupy that chair, and Mahometans may take it. I see nothing against it.”

“The storming of the Capitol cannot be understood outside the heresy of Christian nationalism peddled by the likes of Josh Hawley, Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Eric Metaxas, and the blasphemies of the Jericho March”, writes Christianity Today’s Tish Warren. We’re only beginning to see the repercussions of church-state domination that the Founding Fathers were determined to avoid. Even after 130 years, the Puritans, extreme Calvinists who wanted religious liberty for themselves – but not others (Arminians, Jesuits and Quakers in particular) – cast a long shadow of intolerance. Regardless of the nice, ambiguous words they say, evangelicals/Christian Nationalists are trying to coerce a religious dystopia onto modern society. It didn’t work then and was discredited. What makes any rational think it will work now? Especially when their Christian Nationalist lies are so transparent to a majority of Americas who don’t want their dreadful God being imposed on them.

Donald Trump assumes the legacy of Jack Hyles

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This post is about Jack Hyles, and it isn’t. It’s about all us within evangelical Christianity. I think it makes more sense to present the story in reverse order:

Jack Schaap just got out of Federal prison, where he did nine years of hard time for sexually abusing an underage girl. Schapp was lead pastor in one of America’s biggest churches. I went to Hammond, Indiana to his 15,000-member church in a Scooby Doo van with a bunch of laid-back Wheaton grad students just to observe an evening service. At the time, I didn’t know much about IFB (Independent Fundamentalist Baptist) churches, but learned all I needed from that evening. It was still when his father-in-law and predecessor Jack Hyles was pastor. We were advised to dress well – and although we left our tattered jeans at home, we stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the suits and ties, and ankle-length dresses. We were seated right in front of the “Preacher Boys”, apparently their version of spiritual apprenticeship. We learned later that the favored pet among them was Dave Hyles – the pastor kid. Brother Hyles harangued the congregation for half an hour or so, occasionally alluding to the Bible – and calling out people by name he reckoned weren’t paying close enough attention. Then came time for the “appeal” and mass baptism. One after another entered the alligator pit – but only after long-haired hippie types were shorn of their locks. It was surreal. Hyles died in 2001, rebuking sinners till the end while refusing to confess his own.

Schaap repeatedly used his authority as pastor and personal “counselor” to groom the minor – repeatedly initiating sex in his office, during a church youth conference, and at a secluded cabin. The court denied his two attempts to reduce his sentence, noting that he demonstrated little remorse in “trying to cover up and eradicate evidence”.  Neither did it go over well when his attorneys maintained the 16 year-old victim was just a slut. The church joined in shredding her reputation, submitting over one hundred letters asking for clemency – effusive in praise of their pastor-felon, yet not a word of compassion for the young girl. “You hurt my entire family,” she wrote. “We all trusted you. We went to church for our entire lives. Now, I am in counseling to deal with the constant anger, sadness, guilt, and shame that I feel.” So Jack did his time, albeit losing some good conduct reduction when reportedly caught with his hand fondling a woman’s crotch. His plans following release are not known. But with many still willing to “lift him up back on his feet”, I assume he will be restored to a pulpit somewhere.

A corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. It didn’t start with Schaap. The senior Hyles was a long-time adulterer until his death. Hyles the junior – still living and ministering faithfully within the IFB bubble – was an alleged serial rapist, reportedly being hustled off by his influential father to from one church to another in the wake of recurring scandals.  In 2020, reports emerged of screenshots a woman in her 20’s took purporting to show the 67 year-old – balding and pudgy – man bragging about his penis and wanting to masturbate online with her. “I’m the boss; I can do whatever I want”, he allegedly wrote. IFB churches may be conducive to this depravity, but they are not unique to it. As one victim stated, the experience made her “understand that these people exist everywhere,”

Like his father-in-law who demanded “100% Hyles” obedience and issued denials while rumors were swirling around him, Schaap exercised command control over his congregation. They absolved themselves from accountability to anyone but God. It’s not a rare occurrence among many within the evangelical cult. All of us nurture our own gardens of rotten fruit, and I point these out not to heap scorn, but to emphasize a truism of evangelicalism, with which Trumpism shares many cultic elements:

  • A strong authoritarian Leader unaccountable to anyone.
    • Invincibility of the Leader as “anointed”, who is never wrong..
    • Leader espouses morality, but does not live it inwardly.
    • Belief in the Leader’s word, regardless of reality.
    • Unquestioned loyalty to the authoritarian Spiritual Father.
    • A strong us-versus-them mentality.

Once during a sermon, Jack Hyles held up a cup embossed with skull and cross-bones, and clearly marked “Poison”. He called over a deacon and asked him to drink it. He gulped it down without hesitation. “People keep wondering why the evangelical church has been one of the staunchest supporters of Donald Trump”, asks Karen Spears Zacharias . She answers her own question: “Why not? Donald Trump is the legacy of Jack Hyles’s life and ministry.”

Why not? Because they are all personality cults. And dangerous. Because they gladly get drunk on kool-aid brought forth from an evil tree.

How the Corinthians Would Handle Sexual Sin Today

~ phroneticchristian ~ Leave a comment

Biblical archaeologists have uncovered a valuable and unique early church manuscript – the church replying to Paul’s letters addressed to the Corinthians:

From: First Church of Corinth

To: Paul, Missionary and Evangelist

Dearest Paul,

We are eternally grateful for your work in founding this church, and thank you for the letters you have sent to encourage us in the faith. We have reviewed them carefully to best to incorporate your recommendations into our program of excellence here at First Church of Corinth.

You allude to an instance of incestuous behaviour being permitted in the church. As senior pastor, I and the elders conducted an internal investigation into the matter. The facts are somewhat different than you set out. The young man in question comes from a prominent family upon whom our church depends financially. We determine that he, like Lot, was seduced and manipulated into sexually immorality by feminine trickery. Having been deceived into sin by an aggressively licentious woman, we quickly restored him into full fellowship. As for this shameless woman, you will be happy to note that we have severed relations and obtained a restraining order against her.

Clearly, you did not have all the facts at your disposal, and the discrepancy is not entirely your fault. Some disgruntled former members have been spreading malicious rumours with the intent of destroying the unity of our body. Many member “concerns” are simply unfounded, and since long ago, we have required our members to sign binding confidentiality agreements to protect our reputation from damaging or disparaging gossip. We are suing these contentious individuals to prevent any disclosures under their contractual obligations.

In the future, direct your communications only to me as senior pastor. I, as owner of the Vision and my select leadership team will fine-tune your letters and pass them on to the congregation as deemed appropriate. As you sail along to other mission fields, be assured that this ship will see its mission fully realized under my leadership and control.

Senior Pastor/CEO