Session Notes

CNN Belief Blog.

The article in Relevant magazine, entitled “(Almost) Everyone’s Doing It,” cited several studies examining the sexual activity of single Christians. One of the biggest surprises was a December 2009 study, conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, which included information on sexual activity.

While the study’s primary report did not explore religion, some additional analysis focusing on sexual activity and religious identification yielded this result: 80 percent of unmarried evangelical young adults (18 to 29) said that they have had sex – slightly less than 88 percent of unmarried adults, according to the teen pregnancy prevention organization.

Ok, contrary to the wide eyed wonder all over this one, none of this is exactly news. Actually it’s so well known as to be banal — and the stats are even worse in the more fundamentalist Evangelical states. But, few of said Evangelicals have the guts to ask the following question — much less two of them in one article:

Yet the article also asks a question that rarely comes up in discussions about abstinence movement. Relevant notes that in biblical times, people married earlier. The average age for marriage has been increasing in the U.S for the last 40 years.

Today, it’s not unusual to meet a Christian who is single at 30 – or 40 or 50, for that matter. So what do you tell them? Keep waiting?

Too bad none of them had the guts to answer it though…

Huffington Post

Barna blames pastors for those oddly contradictory findings. Everyone hears, “Jesus is the answer. Embrace him. Say this little Sinner’s Prayer and keep coming back. It doesn’t work. People end up bored, burned out and empty,” he said. “They look at church and wonder, ‘Jesus died for this?”‘



The consequence, Barna said, is that, for every subgroup of religion, race, gender, age and region of the country, the important markers of religious connection are fracturing.

It’s so about time Barna returned to this subject!

What he’s really saying is that the whole,”Get saved. Get holy. Get busy.” story we’ve been fed for years isn’t selling anymore then the, “New calling God has for you to work in nursery – what was your name anyway?” routine worked. That people are tired of becoming an institutional support crew as a substitute for real community and have completely had it with formulaic religion and doctrine.

That’s the amazing and oh-so-welcome piece of this.

Unfortunately, there’s also a darker underbelly… The sad reality is that more and more are just giving up the search for it (or the longing to create it) and are settling for what the author is calling, “Designer,” but what is actually a complete freak-show of much greater levels of control and use/abuse.

The daily beast

That too is my view: that the GOP, deep down, is behaving as a religious movement, not as a political party, and a radical religious movement at that. Lofgren sees the “Prosperity Gospel” as a divine blessing for personal enrichment and minimal taxation (yes, that kind of Gospel is compatible with Rand, just not compatible with the actual Gospels); for military power (with a major emphasis on the punitive, interventionist God of the Old Testament); and for radical change and contempt for existing institutions (as a product of End-Times thinking, intensified after 9/11).

That’s how I explain the current GOP. It can only think in doctrines, because the alternative is living in a complicated, global, modern world they both do not understand and also despise. Taxes are therefore always bad. Government is never good. Foreign enemies must be pre-emptively attacked. Islam is not a religion. Climate change is an elite conspiracy to impoverish America. Terror suspects are terrorists. When Americans torture, it is not torture. When Christians murder, they are not Christians. And if you change your mind on any of these issues, you are a liberal, an apostate, and will be attacked.

Religion has replaced all of this, reordered it, and imbued the entire political-economic-religious package with zeal. And the zealous never compromise. They don’t even listen. Think of Michele Bachmann’s wide-eyed, Stepford stare as she waits for a questioner to finish before providing another pre-cooked doctrinal nugget. My fear – and it has building for a decade and a half, because I’ve seen this movement up-close from within and also on the front lines of the marriage wars – is that once one party becomes a church with unchangeable doctrines, and once it has supplanted respect for institutions and civility with the radical pursuit of timeless doctrines and hatred of governing institutions, then our democracy is in grave danger.

Ok, just for a min, ignore that Richard Dawkins is all over this like ugly on an ape. Ignore Sullivan himself and his attitudes as well. Just think about the message…

He’s right.

I spent my early childhood years mostly on the dark continent watching every imaginable form of political chaos and genocide take place. And I learned something: Democracy will not work everywhere. Democracy will only work where a population places greater allegiance in concepts like the rule of law, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, humanist care for the common good, reason, logic and all of the above are elevated over concepts like family and religion or ideology.

When a political party cheers for the death of a sick or foolish person who is ill because it fits their ideology, we’re already there.

De Spectaculis.

Even if the death penalty were morally legitimate (and I think it isn’t), and even if we could be justifiably confident that every one of those 234 executed prisoners was actually guilty of the crimes for which they were sentenced (and I think we can’t), it would still be grotesque to react to those executions with cheers and applause, as the audience did at this week’s Republican debate. Surely a mood of solemnity and regret would be more appropriate. These Republicans howling and hooting over executions are the kind who formerly reveled in seeing Christians thrown to the lions. The fact that they now have the effrontery to call themselves Christians only adds insult to injury (literally).

There are some videos that are so stark, some messages so telling and some heart attitudes so chillingly cold they tell their own story to any who has eyes to see such that no other comment is necessary.

Swedish Pirate Party

Laws are not made because they are righteous. Laws are made because they advance somebody’s political career.

(It should be noted that these are words that don’t come from a rock-throwing masked guy, but from a professional politician in suit and tie.)

And this one:

I sometimes hear people claim that laws exist to be followed. These people are the most dangerous people who exist in a society. Tyranny is never upheld through law; it is upheld through thousands of bureaucrats that follow the letter of the law just because they believe in rules and law.

And then this one as well:

A society where people regard rules as general guidelines is a lot healthier for its neighbors and citizens alike than a society where laws and rules are enforced blindly and swiftly.

A little embarrassing that the Pirate Party seems to have a greater grasp of the – yes, pre-cross no less – teachings of Jesus then the church and the two North American nations that purportedly follow such…

Compliments of the inestimable wisdom of Bill Maher… Yes, he’s his usual profane self, he completely fails to grasp what Jesus was up to with The Sermon on the Mount and, he is still so very worth listening to.

Rather interesting that you can get a better grasp of the heart of Jesus out of an avowed pothead and atheist then you can out of your average pulpit on Sunday morning…

via huffingtonpost.com.

Jesus unambiguously preached mercy and forgiveness. These are supposed to be cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punitive punishment over rehabilitation, and the governmental use of torture. Jesus exhorted humans to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent. And yet Evangelicals are the group of Americans most supportive of easy-access weaponry, little-to-no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, not to mention the violent military invasion of various countries around the world. Jesus was very clear that the pursuit of wealth was inimical to the Kingdom of God, that the rich are to be condemned, and that to be a follower of Him means to give ones money to the poor. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of corporate greed and capitalistic excess, and they are the most opposed to institutional help for the nations poor — especially poor children. They hate anything that smacks of “socialism” even though that is essentially what their Savior preached. They despise food stamp programs, subsidies for schools, hospitals, job training — anything that might dare to help out those in need. Even though helping out those in need was exactly what Jesus urged humans to do. In short, Evangelicals are that segment of America which is the most pro-militaristic, pro-gun, and pro-corporate, while simultaneously claiming to be most ardent lovers of the Prince of Peace.

While I can’t completely buy some of this (Jesus never condemned the rich simply for riches for example), the point is very well taken. Christianity has not been about the teachings of Jesus for a VERY long time. The trouble is, it has become about Conservative/Republican ideology to such a thorough degree the adherents of such actually think it is the teachings of Jesus. And, then it jaded the rest to such a degree that they have swung to such opposite and polarized positions that pretty much everyone hates Him. What used to be the territory of a few radicals:

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.”
— Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not a Christian

well, now, it’s half of the internet. The result? No one is listening to the complexity of a message of freedom and socialism, personal productivity and group accountability and unconditional love that never compromises truth. And, no one is noticing that Jesus considered every society to be fundamentally screwed up and was unquestionably at war with ALL of the systems of this world.

via StarTribune.com.

"Father, thank you for this time we can share on Sunday morning with new friends," prayed Chris Fletcher, an emergency medical technician, part-time bartender and seminary student who has led this service every Sunday morning at Dunnigan’s Pub & Grub since last summer. "We’re getting to know you, and getting to know each other better."

Spending Sunday mornings in a bar sounds like an activity for those running from God. For this small group in a watering hole in Twin Harbors, about 160 miles northeast of Minneapolis, it’s about chasing God. It’s one unconventional place of worship around the country fostered by an evangelical movement known as "the emerging church."

"I feel closer to God here than I do at a conventional church," said Nelson, 56, a lifelong churchgoer who until recently could be found every Sunday morning in the pews at First Baptist Church nearby. "Jesus said we’re supposed to be a light to the world. What better place to do that than at a bar?"

Someone else to add to my list of heros!!!

Anne Rice Quits Christianity, Says Followers Not True to Christ.

Novelist Anne Rice, famous for her darkly seductive works such as Interview with the Vampire and The Witching Hour, announced this week via her Facebook page that she has decided to “quit” Christianity because of how the religion is increasingly being used to push anti-gay, anti-feminist and anti-science views.

Her publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, has confirmed that this posting and subsequent comments were indeed written by Rice and not an impostor.

Novelist Rejects Christianity, Remains “Committed to Christ”
On Wednesday, Rice wrote the following on her Facebook page:

“For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.”

She followed this with:

“As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.”

Explaining herself further, Rice’s latest offering on her Facebook page emphasizes that her faith remains as strong as ever, but that it is the affiliation with some of the religion’s followers that has prompted her to redefine herself:

“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.”

All I can say is, Man, have I ever thought that myself!!!!!!!

Isn’t it strange how secular society seems to get the Gospel so much better then the Church does??? We seem to only get this:

So much that the rest of society seems to be down on their knees screaming: