Saw this on FB this morning and found it worth quoting here:
Somber warning from a Pastor about the intentions of Evangelical "conservative" christians in American politics.
Pastor John Pavlovitz: “I’ve been a pastor in the church for over two decades, much of that in predominantly white churches in the American South.
I’ve spent countless hours in church staff meetings and men’s Bible studies and youth pastor conferences.
I’ve stayed connected on social media with thousands of people still there in those churches. I read what they share and post and amplify and I know how they think and what they believe.
I need you to understand something and I say it without any hyperbole: white Evangelicals need to be stopped, now.
If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.
This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish.
I watched it all unfold from the inside:
I was at a North Carolina megachurch when Obama was elected and I saw the shift take place firsthand. I saw the fear slowly being ratcheted up and the agenda become solidified and the prejudices leveraged.
I was speaking regularly at the Billy Graham headquarters when Fox News reporters and Republicans like Sarah Palin started walking the halls with frequency.
I saw the messages at pastor’s conferences grow more incendiary and urgent, and heard the supremacist dog whistles become louder and more frequent.
While many decent people around this nation celebrated the progress of a black president and the many civil and human rights victories and gradually let down their guard—the white Conservative church set off the alarms and prepared for a holy war.
Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.
These are not followers of Jesus despite the trappings and window dressing. They are Jesus-less extremists: blind zealots for nothing but power. They have been conditioned by decades of polluted theology and FoxNews alternative facts to see diversity as a threat, to see progress as attacks on America, and to interpret more people being treated with dignity as oppression of white people.
Trust me when I tell you that we won’t recover from the theocracy Evangelicals are constructing once it is established. If we fail in 2022, they will have a political power that will render every election null and void, and we will never have a voice again in our lifetimes.
Women will lose autonomy over their own bodies.
LGBTQ people will have the rights to marry and adopt taken away.
People of color will be fully squeezed out of the electoral process.
Immigrants will be denied access to opportunity and refuge here.
These are not creative projections. They are precisely what Evangelicals have repeatedly stated as their intentions, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to having a rubber stamp.
We can still stop it, though.
We just need a unity and coordination that transcends theirs.
We need a sustained, passionate, dedicated defense of humanity that rivals their relentless assaults on it.
I hear many people say they’re terrified, but being terrified alone doesn’t do anything but help these people.
Be terrified and get angry.
Be terrified and get busy.
Be terrified and go to work.
Be terrified and fight like hell.
I wish more decent people in America remembered they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them, and we need to. We just need to stop lamenting how much damage they are doing and start doing something to oppose them.
We’ve seen this play out throughout history and we know how it ends. We know what unchecked religious extremist is capable of and we know the cost of the silence and inaction of good people. We also know what people are capable of when they refuse to accept fascism and white supremacy cloaked in the Bible and wrapped in the flag, when they fight for something inherently good together.
As someone who knows just how much these Christians have lost the plot of their faith tradition, believe me when I tell you that they cannot be allowed to steer this nation. It will not end well for the disparate people who call it home or who one day wish to.
Love and equity and diversity are in the balance.
It’s time we made a choice.
It may be the last one we get.”
Pastor John Pavlovitz
This is legit. My dad’s talked about the detrimental effect of religion and government mixing for at least a decade. You always see nutters blaming things on taking god out of wherever and god given rights and blah blah blah, and they tie it to every aspect of their being so much that they lose any sort of individuality. It’s directly tied to every opinion they have, every stance they take, how they’re entertained, who they interact with,w who they celebrate, who they look down upon, successes and failures, and who they vote for…. just whole hog indoctrination.
I used to enjoy going to church, serving the community, hanging with mostly pretty upstanding citizens and bigots and zealots have taken that away from me. If you’re reading the Bible and coming away with any other message but to be a decent person, then you’re doing it wrong.
That is sad, Dewie. I too have known churches with many good people.
I sometimes think about that Bible story in Matthew 21:12-13:
"Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’"
He was pissed! Imagine what he would feel today. Probably would have apoplexy. Beyond sensing there is mystery in the universe which feels spiritual to me, I'm not religious myself, but I know people of faith who are true to their beliefs and use their faith for the good, which I respect. But their numbers are shrinking. Phony, hateful, racist Christians abound.
You’re a smart man.
I have an enormous amount of faith in something greater than myself but I have no faith in organized religion.
My preference is God, Jesus, no building, Jesus preached without a building all the time and of course I could be mistaken but I don’t think he charged a lot to attend his sermons.
LOL, no, I don't think Jesus would be a televangelist raking in the bucks!
The so-called "christians" get wound up when you remind them that Jesus was a dark skinned Jewish guy from Palestine who loved and cared for everyone.
Scoffs. My Painting on black velvet says otherwise!!!!! Its hung right next to the other King, Elvis.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Saw this on FB this morning and found it worth quoting here:
Somber warning from a Pastor about the intentions of Evangelical "conservative" christians in American politics.
Pastor John Pavlovitz: “I’ve been a pastor in the church for over two decades, much of that in predominantly white churches in the American South.
I’ve spent countless hours in church staff meetings and men’s Bible studies and youth pastor conferences.
I’ve stayed connected on social media with thousands of people still there in those churches. I read what they share and post and amplify and I know how they think and what they believe.
I need you to understand something and I say it without any hyperbole: white Evangelicals need to be stopped, now.
If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.
This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish.
I watched it all unfold from the inside:
I was at a North Carolina megachurch when Obama was elected and I saw the shift take place firsthand. I saw the fear slowly being ratcheted up and the agenda become solidified and the prejudices leveraged.
I was speaking regularly at the Billy Graham headquarters when Fox News reporters and Republicans like Sarah Palin started walking the halls with frequency.
I saw the messages at pastor’s conferences grow more incendiary and urgent, and heard the supremacist dog whistles become louder and more frequent.
While many decent people around this nation celebrated the progress of a black president and the many civil and human rights victories and gradually let down their guard—the white Conservative church set off the alarms and prepared for a holy war.
Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.
These are not followers of Jesus despite the trappings and window dressing. They are Jesus-less extremists: blind zealots for nothing but power. They have been conditioned by decades of polluted theology and FoxNews alternative facts to see diversity as a threat, to see progress as attacks on America, and to interpret more people being treated with dignity as oppression of white people.
Trust me when I tell you that we won’t recover from the theocracy Evangelicals are constructing once it is established. If we fail in 2022, they will have a political power that will render every election null and void, and we will never have a voice again in our lifetimes.
Women will lose autonomy over their own bodies.
LGBTQ people will have the rights to marry and adopt taken away.
People of color will be fully squeezed out of the electoral process.
Immigrants will be denied access to opportunity and refuge here.
These are not creative projections. They are precisely what Evangelicals have repeatedly stated as their intentions, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to having a rubber stamp.
We can still stop it, though.
We just need a unity and coordination that transcends theirs.
We need a sustained, passionate, dedicated defense of humanity that rivals their relentless assaults on it.
I hear many people say they’re terrified, but being terrified alone doesn’t do anything but help these people.
Be terrified and get angry.
Be terrified and get busy.
Be terrified and go to work.
Be terrified and fight like hell.
I wish more decent people in America remembered they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them, and we need to. We just need to stop lamenting how much damage they are doing and start doing something to oppose them.
We’ve seen this play out throughout history and we know how it ends. We know what unchecked religious extremist is capable of and we know the cost of the silence and inaction of good people. We also know what people are capable of when they refuse to accept fascism and white supremacy cloaked in the Bible and wrapped in the flag, when they fight for something inherently good together.
As someone who knows just how much these Christians have lost the plot of their faith tradition, believe me when I tell you that they cannot be allowed to steer this nation. It will not end well for the disparate people who call it home or who one day wish to.
Love and equity and diversity are in the balance.
It’s time we made a choice.
It may be the last one we get.”
Pastor John Pavlovitz
This is legit. My dad’s talked about the detrimental effect of religion and government mixing for at least a decade. You always see nutters blaming things on taking god out of wherever and god given rights and blah blah blah, and they tie it to every aspect of their being so much that they lose any sort of individuality. It’s directly tied to every opinion they have, every stance they take, how they’re entertained, who they interact with,w who they celebrate, who they look down upon, successes and failures, and who they vote for…. just whole hog indoctrination.
I used to enjoy going to church, serving the community, hanging with mostly pretty upstanding citizens and bigots and zealots have taken that away from me. If you’re reading the Bible and coming away with any other message but to be a decent person, then you’re doing it wrong.
That is sad, Dewie. I too have known churches with many good people.
I sometimes think about that Bible story in Matthew 21:12-13:
"Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’"
He was pissed! Imagine what he would feel today. Probably would have apoplexy. Beyond sensing there is mystery in the universe which feels spiritual to me, I'm not religious myself, but I know people of faith who are true to their beliefs and use their faith for the good, which I respect. But their numbers are shrinking. Phony, hateful, racist Christians abound.
You’re a smart man.
I have an enormous amount of faith in something greater than myself but I have no faith in organized religion.
My preference is God, Jesus, no building, Jesus preached without a building all the time and of course I could be mistaken but I don’t think he charged a lot to attend his sermons.
LOL, no, I don't think Jesus would be a televangelist raking in the bucks!
The so-called "christians" get wound up when you remind them that Jesus was a dark skinned Jewish guy from Palestine who loved and cared for everyone.
Scoffs. My Painting on black velvet says otherwise!!!!! Its hung right next to the other King, Elvis.
Double scoffs. My black velvet Jesus hangs next to Elvis, the naked lady in scat man crothers’s bedroom in the shining and this beauty, inclusive of admiring visitation.
Saw this on FB this morning and found it worth quoting here:
Somber warning from a Pastor about the intentions of Evangelical "conservative" christians in American politics.
Pastor John Pavlovitz: “I’ve been a pastor in the church for over two decades, much of that in predominantly white churches in the American South.
I’ve spent countless hours in church staff meetings and men’s Bible studies and youth pastor conferences.
I’ve stayed connected on social media with thousands of people still there in those churches. I read what they share and post and amplify and I know how they think and what they believe.
I need you to understand something and I say it without any hyperbole: white Evangelicals need to be stopped, now.
If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.
This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish.
I watched it all unfold from the inside:
I was at a North Carolina megachurch when Obama was elected and I saw the shift take place firsthand. I saw the fear slowly being ratcheted up and the agenda become solidified and the prejudices leveraged.
I was speaking regularly at the Billy Graham headquarters when Fox News reporters and Republicans like Sarah Palin started walking the halls with frequency.
I saw the messages at pastor’s conferences grow more incendiary and urgent, and heard the supremacist dog whistles become louder and more frequent.
While many decent people around this nation celebrated the progress of a black president and the many civil and human rights victories and gradually let down their guard—the white Conservative church set off the alarms and prepared for a holy war.
Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.
These are not followers of Jesus despite the trappings and window dressing. They are Jesus-less extremists: blind zealots for nothing but power. They have been conditioned by decades of polluted theology and FoxNews alternative facts to see diversity as a threat, to see progress as attacks on America, and to interpret more people being treated with dignity as oppression of white people.
Trust me when I tell you that we won’t recover from the theocracy Evangelicals are constructing once it is established. If we fail in 2022, they will have a political power that will render every election null and void, and we will never have a voice again in our lifetimes.
Women will lose autonomy over their own bodies.
LGBTQ people will have the rights to marry and adopt taken away.
People of color will be fully squeezed out of the electoral process.
Immigrants will be denied access to opportunity and refuge here.
These are not creative projections. They are precisely what Evangelicals have repeatedly stated as their intentions, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to having a rubber stamp.
We can still stop it, though.
We just need a unity and coordination that transcends theirs.
We need a sustained, passionate, dedicated defense of humanity that rivals their relentless assaults on it.
I hear many people say they’re terrified, but being terrified alone doesn’t do anything but help these people.
Be terrified and get angry.
Be terrified and get busy.
Be terrified and go to work.
Be terrified and fight like hell.
I wish more decent people in America remembered they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them, and we need to. We just need to stop lamenting how much damage they are doing and start doing something to oppose them.
We’ve seen this play out throughout history and we know how it ends. We know what unchecked religious extremist is capable of and we know the cost of the silence and inaction of good people. We also know what people are capable of when they refuse to accept fascism and white supremacy cloaked in the Bible and wrapped in the flag, when they fight for something inherently good together.
As someone who knows just how much these Christians have lost the plot of their faith tradition, believe me when I tell you that they cannot be allowed to steer this nation. It will not end well for the disparate people who call it home or who one day wish to.
Love and equity and diversity are in the balance.
It’s time we made a choice.
It may be the last one we get.”
Pastor John Pavlovitz
This is legit. My dad’s talked about the detrimental effect of religion and government mixing for at least a decade. You always see nutters blaming things on taking god out of wherever and god given rights and blah blah blah, and they tie it to every aspect of their being so much that they lose any sort of individuality. It’s directly tied to every opinion they have, every stance they take, how they’re entertained, who they interact with,w who they celebrate, who they look down upon, successes and failures, and who they vote for…. just whole hog indoctrination.
I used to enjoy going to church, serving the community, hanging with mostly pretty upstanding citizens and bigots and zealots have taken that away from me. If you’re reading the Bible and coming away with any other message but to be a decent person, then you’re doing it wrong.
That is sad, Dewie. I too have known churches with many good people.
I sometimes think about that Bible story in Matthew 21:12-13:
"Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’"
He was pissed! Imagine what he would feel today. Probably would have apoplexy. Beyond sensing there is mystery in the universe which feels spiritual to me, I'm not religious myself, but I know people of faith who are true to their beliefs and use their faith for the good, which I respect. But their numbers are shrinking. Phony, hateful, racist Christians abound.
You’re a smart man.
I have an enormous amount of faith in something greater than myself but I have no faith in organized religion.
My preference is God, Jesus, no building, Jesus preached without a building all the time and of course I could be mistaken but I don’t think he charged a lot to attend his sermons.
LOL, no, I don't think Jesus would be a televangelist raking in the bucks!
The so-called "christians" get wound up when you remind them that Jesus was a dark skinned Jewish guy from Palestine who loved and cared for everyone.
Exactly, likely something like this:
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,886
Saw this on FB this morning and found it worth quoting here:
Somber warning from a Pastor about the intentions of Evangelical "conservative" christians in American politics.
Pastor John Pavlovitz: “I’ve been a pastor in the church for over two decades, much of that in predominantly white churches in the American South.
I’ve spent countless hours in church staff meetings and men’s Bible studies and youth pastor conferences.
I’ve stayed connected on social media with thousands of people still there in those churches. I read what they share and post and amplify and I know how they think and what they believe.
I need you to understand something and I say it without any hyperbole: white Evangelicals need to be stopped, now.
If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.
This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish.
I watched it all unfold from the inside:
I was at a North Carolina megachurch when Obama was elected and I saw the shift take place firsthand. I saw the fear slowly being ratcheted up and the agenda become solidified and the prejudices leveraged.
I was speaking regularly at the Billy Graham headquarters when Fox News reporters and Republicans like Sarah Palin started walking the halls with frequency.
I saw the messages at pastor’s conferences grow more incendiary and urgent, and heard the supremacist dog whistles become louder and more frequent.
While many decent people around this nation celebrated the progress of a black president and the many civil and human rights victories and gradually let down their guard—the white Conservative church set off the alarms and prepared for a holy war.
Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.
These are not followers of Jesus despite the trappings and window dressing. They are Jesus-less extremists: blind zealots for nothing but power. They have been conditioned by decades of polluted theology and FoxNews alternative facts to see diversity as a threat, to see progress as attacks on America, and to interpret more people being treated with dignity as oppression of white people.
Trust me when I tell you that we won’t recover from the theocracy Evangelicals are constructing once it is established. If we fail in 2022, they will have a political power that will render every election null and void, and we will never have a voice again in our lifetimes.
Women will lose autonomy over their own bodies.
LGBTQ people will have the rights to marry and adopt taken away.
People of color will be fully squeezed out of the electoral process.
Immigrants will be denied access to opportunity and refuge here.
These are not creative projections. They are precisely what Evangelicals have repeatedly stated as their intentions, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to having a rubber stamp.
We can still stop it, though.
We just need a unity and coordination that transcends theirs.
We need a sustained, passionate, dedicated defense of humanity that rivals their relentless assaults on it.
I hear many people say they’re terrified, but being terrified alone doesn’t do anything but help these people.
Be terrified and get angry.
Be terrified and get busy.
Be terrified and go to work.
Be terrified and fight like hell.
I wish more decent people in America remembered they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them, and we need to. We just need to stop lamenting how much damage they are doing and start doing something to oppose them.
We’ve seen this play out throughout history and we know how it ends. We know what unchecked religious extremist is capable of and we know the cost of the silence and inaction of good people. We also know what people are capable of when they refuse to accept fascism and white supremacy cloaked in the Bible and wrapped in the flag, when they fight for something inherently good together.
As someone who knows just how much these Christians have lost the plot of their faith tradition, believe me when I tell you that they cannot be allowed to steer this nation. It will not end well for the disparate people who call it home or who one day wish to.
Love and equity and diversity are in the balance.
It’s time we made a choice.
It may be the last one we get.”
Pastor John Pavlovitz
This is legit. My dad’s talked about the detrimental effect of religion and government mixing for at least a decade. You always see nutters blaming things on taking god out of wherever and god given rights and blah blah blah, and they tie it to every aspect of their being so much that they lose any sort of individuality. It’s directly tied to every opinion they have, every stance they take, how they’re entertained, who they interact with,w who they celebrate, who they look down upon, successes and failures, and who they vote for…. just whole hog indoctrination.
I used to enjoy going to church, serving the community, hanging with mostly pretty upstanding citizens and bigots and zealots have taken that away from me. If you’re reading the Bible and coming away with any other message but to be a decent person, then you’re doing it wrong.
That is sad, Dewie. I too have known churches with many good people.
I sometimes think about that Bible story in Matthew 21:12-13:
"Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’"
He was pissed! Imagine what he would feel today. Probably would have apoplexy. Beyond sensing there is mystery in the universe which feels spiritual to me, I'm not religious myself, but I know people of faith who are true to their beliefs and use their faith for the good, which I respect. But their numbers are shrinking. Phony, hateful, racist Christians abound.
You’re a smart man.
I have an enormous amount of faith in something greater than myself but I have no faith in organized religion.
My preference is God, Jesus, no building, Jesus preached without a building all the time and of course I could be mistaken but I don’t think he charged a lot to attend his sermons.
LOL, no, I don't think Jesus would be a televangelist raking in the bucks!
The so-called "christians" get wound up when you remind them that Jesus was a dark skinned Jewish guy from Palestine who loved and cared for everyone.
Exactly, likely something like this:
painting at this Lutheran church I've attended aa meetings at.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,760
Saw this on FB this morning and found it worth quoting here:
Somber warning from a Pastor about the intentions of Evangelical "conservative" christians in American politics.
Pastor John Pavlovitz: “I’ve been a pastor in the church for over two decades, much of that in predominantly white churches in the American South.
I’ve spent countless hours in church staff meetings and men’s Bible studies and youth pastor conferences.
I’ve stayed connected on social media with thousands of people still there in those churches. I read what they share and post and amplify and I know how they think and what they believe.
I need you to understand something and I say it without any hyperbole: white Evangelicals need to be stopped, now.
If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.
This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish.
I watched it all unfold from the inside:
I was at a North Carolina megachurch when Obama was elected and I saw the shift take place firsthand. I saw the fear slowly being ratcheted up and the agenda become solidified and the prejudices leveraged.
I was speaking regularly at the Billy Graham headquarters when Fox News reporters and Republicans like Sarah Palin started walking the halls with frequency.
I saw the messages at pastor’s conferences grow more incendiary and urgent, and heard the supremacist dog whistles become louder and more frequent.
While many decent people around this nation celebrated the progress of a black president and the many civil and human rights victories and gradually let down their guard—the white Conservative church set off the alarms and prepared for a holy war.
Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.
These are not followers of Jesus despite the trappings and window dressing. They are Jesus-less extremists: blind zealots for nothing but power. They have been conditioned by decades of polluted theology and FoxNews alternative facts to see diversity as a threat, to see progress as attacks on America, and to interpret more people being treated with dignity as oppression of white people.
Trust me when I tell you that we won’t recover from the theocracy Evangelicals are constructing once it is established. If we fail in 2022, they will have a political power that will render every election null and void, and we will never have a voice again in our lifetimes.
Women will lose autonomy over their own bodies.
LGBTQ people will have the rights to marry and adopt taken away.
People of color will be fully squeezed out of the electoral process.
Immigrants will be denied access to opportunity and refuge here.
These are not creative projections. They are precisely what Evangelicals have repeatedly stated as their intentions, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to having a rubber stamp.
We can still stop it, though.
We just need a unity and coordination that transcends theirs.
We need a sustained, passionate, dedicated defense of humanity that rivals their relentless assaults on it.
I hear many people say they’re terrified, but being terrified alone doesn’t do anything but help these people.
Be terrified and get angry.
Be terrified and get busy.
Be terrified and go to work.
Be terrified and fight like hell.
I wish more decent people in America remembered they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them, and we need to. We just need to stop lamenting how much damage they are doing and start doing something to oppose them.
We’ve seen this play out throughout history and we know how it ends. We know what unchecked religious extremist is capable of and we know the cost of the silence and inaction of good people. We also know what people are capable of when they refuse to accept fascism and white supremacy cloaked in the Bible and wrapped in the flag, when they fight for something inherently good together.
As someone who knows just how much these Christians have lost the plot of their faith tradition, believe me when I tell you that they cannot be allowed to steer this nation. It will not end well for the disparate people who call it home or who one day wish to.
Love and equity and diversity are in the balance.
It’s time we made a choice.
It may be the last one we get.”
Pastor John Pavlovitz
This is legit. My dad’s talked about the detrimental effect of religion and government mixing for at least a decade. You always see nutters blaming things on taking god out of wherever and god given rights and blah blah blah, and they tie it to every aspect of their being so much that they lose any sort of individuality. It’s directly tied to every opinion they have, every stance they take, how they’re entertained, who they interact with,w who they celebrate, who they look down upon, successes and failures, and who they vote for…. just whole hog indoctrination.
I used to enjoy going to church, serving the community, hanging with mostly pretty upstanding citizens and bigots and zealots have taken that away from me. If you’re reading the Bible and coming away with any other message but to be a decent person, then you’re doing it wrong.
That is sad, Dewie. I too have known churches with many good people.
I sometimes think about that Bible story in Matthew 21:12-13:
"Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’"
He was pissed! Imagine what he would feel today. Probably would have apoplexy. Beyond sensing there is mystery in the universe which feels spiritual to me, I'm not religious myself, but I know people of faith who are true to their beliefs and use their faith for the good, which I respect. But their numbers are shrinking. Phony, hateful, racist Christians abound.
You’re a smart man.
I have an enormous amount of faith in something greater than myself but I have no faith in organized religion.
My preference is God, Jesus, no building, Jesus preached without a building all the time and of course I could be mistaken but I don’t think he charged a lot to attend his sermons.
LOL, no, I don't think Jesus would be a televangelist raking in the bucks!
The so-called "christians" get wound up when you remind them that Jesus was a dark skinned Jewish guy from Palestine who loved and cared for everyone.
Exactly, likely something like this:
painting at this Lutheran church I've attended aa meetings at.
feels right to me.
Yeah, I remember seeing that painting (probably posted by you here at some time). Very cool. I like both!
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Saw this on FB this morning and found it worth quoting here:
Somber warning from a Pastor about the intentions of Evangelical "conservative" christians in American politics.
Pastor John Pavlovitz: “I’ve been a pastor in the church for over two decades, much of that in predominantly white churches in the American South.
I’ve spent countless hours in church staff meetings and men’s Bible studies and youth pastor conferences.
I’ve stayed connected on social media with thousands of people still there in those churches. I read what they share and post and amplify and I know how they think and what they believe.
I need you to understand something and I say it without any hyperbole: white Evangelicals need to be stopped, now.
If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.
This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish.
I watched it all unfold from the inside:
I was at a North Carolina megachurch when Obama was elected and I saw the shift take place firsthand. I saw the fear slowly being ratcheted up and the agenda become solidified and the prejudices leveraged.
I was speaking regularly at the Billy Graham headquarters when Fox News reporters and Republicans like Sarah Palin started walking the halls with frequency.
I saw the messages at pastor’s conferences grow more incendiary and urgent, and heard the supremacist dog whistles become louder and more frequent.
While many decent people around this nation celebrated the progress of a black president and the many civil and human rights victories and gradually let down their guard—the white Conservative church set off the alarms and prepared for a holy war.
Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.
These are not followers of Jesus despite the trappings and window dressing. They are Jesus-less extremists: blind zealots for nothing but power. They have been conditioned by decades of polluted theology and FoxNews alternative facts to see diversity as a threat, to see progress as attacks on America, and to interpret more people being treated with dignity as oppression of white people.
Trust me when I tell you that we won’t recover from the theocracy Evangelicals are constructing once it is established. If we fail in 2022, they will have a political power that will render every election null and void, and we will never have a voice again in our lifetimes.
Women will lose autonomy over their own bodies.
LGBTQ people will have the rights to marry and adopt taken away.
People of color will be fully squeezed out of the electoral process.
Immigrants will be denied access to opportunity and refuge here.
These are not creative projections. They are precisely what Evangelicals have repeatedly stated as their intentions, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to having a rubber stamp.
We can still stop it, though.
We just need a unity and coordination that transcends theirs.
We need a sustained, passionate, dedicated defense of humanity that rivals their relentless assaults on it.
I hear many people say they’re terrified, but being terrified alone doesn’t do anything but help these people.
Be terrified and get angry.
Be terrified and get busy.
Be terrified and go to work.
Be terrified and fight like hell.
I wish more decent people in America remembered they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them, and we need to. We just need to stop lamenting how much damage they are doing and start doing something to oppose them.
We’ve seen this play out throughout history and we know how it ends. We know what unchecked religious extremist is capable of and we know the cost of the silence and inaction of good people. We also know what people are capable of when they refuse to accept fascism and white supremacy cloaked in the Bible and wrapped in the flag, when they fight for something inherently good together.
As someone who knows just how much these Christians have lost the plot of their faith tradition, believe me when I tell you that they cannot be allowed to steer this nation. It will not end well for the disparate people who call it home or who one day wish to.
Love and equity and diversity are in the balance.
It’s time we made a choice.
It may be the last one we get.”
Pastor John Pavlovitz
This is legit. My dad’s talked about the detrimental effect of religion and government mixing for at least a decade. You always see nutters blaming things on taking god out of wherever and god given rights and blah blah blah, and they tie it to every aspect of their being so much that they lose any sort of individuality. It’s directly tied to every opinion they have, every stance they take, how they’re entertained, who they interact with,w who they celebrate, who they look down upon, successes and failures, and who they vote for…. just whole hog indoctrination.
I used to enjoy going to church, serving the community, hanging with mostly pretty upstanding citizens and bigots and zealots have taken that away from me. If you’re reading the Bible and coming away with any other message but to be a decent person, then you’re doing it wrong.
That is sad, Dewie. I too have known churches with many good people.
I sometimes think about that Bible story in Matthew 21:12-13:
"Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’"
He was pissed! Imagine what he would feel today. Probably would have apoplexy. Beyond sensing there is mystery in the universe which feels spiritual to me, I'm not religious myself, but I know people of faith who are true to their beliefs and use their faith for the good, which I respect. But their numbers are shrinking. Phony, hateful, racist Christians abound.
You’re a smart man.
I have an enormous amount of faith in something greater than myself but I have no faith in organized religion.
My preference is God, Jesus, no building, Jesus preached without a building all the time and of course I could be mistaken but I don’t think he charged a lot to attend his sermons.
i'm along the same lines as you. I'm not sure if there's a God that fits into the "bearded guy in the sky" type mold, but something HAS to have created all this. and there has to be something beyond this (not heaven, but what is the universe "in").
and if jesus did exist, he would most assuredly be a liberal.
Saw this on FB this morning and found it worth quoting here:
Somber warning from a Pastor about the intentions of Evangelical "conservative" christians in American politics.
Pastor John Pavlovitz: “I’ve been a pastor in the church for over two decades, much of that in predominantly white churches in the American South.
I’ve spent countless hours in church staff meetings and men’s Bible studies and youth pastor conferences.
I’ve stayed connected on social media with thousands of people still there in those churches. I read what they share and post and amplify and I know how they think and what they believe.
I need you to understand something and I say it without any hyperbole: white Evangelicals need to be stopped, now.
If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.
This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish.
I watched it all unfold from the inside:
I was at a North Carolina megachurch when Obama was elected and I saw the shift take place firsthand. I saw the fear slowly being ratcheted up and the agenda become solidified and the prejudices leveraged.
I was speaking regularly at the Billy Graham headquarters when Fox News reporters and Republicans like Sarah Palin started walking the halls with frequency.
I saw the messages at pastor’s conferences grow more incendiary and urgent, and heard the supremacist dog whistles become louder and more frequent.
While many decent people around this nation celebrated the progress of a black president and the many civil and human rights victories and gradually let down their guard—the white Conservative church set off the alarms and prepared for a holy war.
Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.
These are not followers of Jesus despite the trappings and window dressing. They are Jesus-less extremists: blind zealots for nothing but power. They have been conditioned by decades of polluted theology and FoxNews alternative facts to see diversity as a threat, to see progress as attacks on America, and to interpret more people being treated with dignity as oppression of white people.
Trust me when I tell you that we won’t recover from the theocracy Evangelicals are constructing once it is established. If we fail in 2022, they will have a political power that will render every election null and void, and we will never have a voice again in our lifetimes.
Women will lose autonomy over their own bodies.
LGBTQ people will have the rights to marry and adopt taken away.
People of color will be fully squeezed out of the electoral process.
Immigrants will be denied access to opportunity and refuge here.
These are not creative projections. They are precisely what Evangelicals have repeatedly stated as their intentions, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to having a rubber stamp.
We can still stop it, though.
We just need a unity and coordination that transcends theirs.
We need a sustained, passionate, dedicated defense of humanity that rivals their relentless assaults on it.
I hear many people say they’re terrified, but being terrified alone doesn’t do anything but help these people.
Be terrified and get angry.
Be terrified and get busy.
Be terrified and go to work.
Be terrified and fight like hell.
I wish more decent people in America remembered they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them, and we need to. We just need to stop lamenting how much damage they are doing and start doing something to oppose them.
We’ve seen this play out throughout history and we know how it ends. We know what unchecked religious extremist is capable of and we know the cost of the silence and inaction of good people. We also know what people are capable of when they refuse to accept fascism and white supremacy cloaked in the Bible and wrapped in the flag, when they fight for something inherently good together.
As someone who knows just how much these Christians have lost the plot of their faith tradition, believe me when I tell you that they cannot be allowed to steer this nation. It will not end well for the disparate people who call it home or who one day wish to.
Love and equity and diversity are in the balance.
It’s time we made a choice.
It may be the last one we get.”
Pastor John Pavlovitz
This is legit. My dad’s talked about the detrimental effect of religion and government mixing for at least a decade. You always see nutters blaming things on taking god out of wherever and god given rights and blah blah blah, and they tie it to every aspect of their being so much that they lose any sort of individuality. It’s directly tied to every opinion they have, every stance they take, how they’re entertained, who they interact with,w who they celebrate, who they look down upon, successes and failures, and who they vote for…. just whole hog indoctrination.
I used to enjoy going to church, serving the community, hanging with mostly pretty upstanding citizens and bigots and zealots have taken that away from me. If you’re reading the Bible and coming away with any other message but to be a decent person, then you’re doing it wrong.
It’s kind of like how the Catholics (well all religions) used religion to cover their pedophilia, republicans are using government to cover their centuries old racism, hierarchy, etc., etc., (so many messed up evil, ugly beliefs I don’t have the time).
Remember, our nation started over religious freedom, or so they claimed, therefore our government is based on religious beliefs. There is no separation between state and church, never was, never will be. They’ve been pretending for years that it’s ok to be different, practice your own faith, own your body, when all along they’ve been lying just like our SCJ. Our forefathers, who were white men who raped, fathered children to, had relationships with, owned and killed black women, and killed, hung tortured, starved, degraded, spit on, etc etc all black people are the same ones we’ve been told to and considered to be our hero’s, our fathers, Only problem is the jackasses never bothered to read the New Testament so here we are. What we need is a whole new constitution, one actually based on today. If you keep piling shit on top of shit all you get is a bigger pile of shit. All these wasps needed was someone to light the torch, and that’s not word play, I’m being serious.
Southern Baptist Convention database of sexual abusers just leaked. 205 pages and judging by comments on social media it’s just a drop in the bucket. So many “there are 2 from my old church and they left off 4” type comments. Sickening. Makes you wonder how that’s played into the front running deflection with “pedowood”/Qanon etc.
Saw this on FB this morning and found it worth quoting here:
Somber warning from a Pastor about the intentions of Evangelical "conservative" christians in American politics.
Pastor John Pavlovitz: “I’ve been a pastor in the church for over two decades, much of that in predominantly white churches in the American South.
I’ve spent countless hours in church staff meetings and men’s Bible studies and youth pastor conferences.
I’ve stayed connected on social media with thousands of people still there in those churches. I read what they share and post and amplify and I know how they think and what they believe.
I need you to understand something and I say it without any hyperbole: white Evangelicals need to be stopped, now.
If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.
This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish.
I watched it all unfold from the inside:
I was at a North Carolina megachurch when Obama was elected and I saw the shift take place firsthand. I saw the fear slowly being ratcheted up and the agenda become solidified and the prejudices leveraged.
I was speaking regularly at the Billy Graham headquarters when Fox News reporters and Republicans like Sarah Palin started walking the halls with frequency.
I saw the messages at pastor’s conferences grow more incendiary and urgent, and heard the supremacist dog whistles become louder and more frequent.
While many decent people around this nation celebrated the progress of a black president and the many civil and human rights victories and gradually let down their guard—the white Conservative church set off the alarms and prepared for a holy war.
Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.
These are not followers of Jesus despite the trappings and window dressing. They are Jesus-less extremists: blind zealots for nothing but power. They have been conditioned by decades of polluted theology and FoxNews alternative facts to see diversity as a threat, to see progress as attacks on America, and to interpret more people being treated with dignity as oppression of white people.
Trust me when I tell you that we won’t recover from the theocracy Evangelicals are constructing once it is established. If we fail in 2022, they will have a political power that will render every election null and void, and we will never have a voice again in our lifetimes.
Women will lose autonomy over their own bodies.
LGBTQ people will have the rights to marry and adopt taken away.
People of color will be fully squeezed out of the electoral process.
Immigrants will be denied access to opportunity and refuge here.
These are not creative projections. They are precisely what Evangelicals have repeatedly stated as their intentions, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to having a rubber stamp.
We can still stop it, though.
We just need a unity and coordination that transcends theirs.
We need a sustained, passionate, dedicated defense of humanity that rivals their relentless assaults on it.
I hear many people say they’re terrified, but being terrified alone doesn’t do anything but help these people.
Be terrified and get angry.
Be terrified and get busy.
Be terrified and go to work.
Be terrified and fight like hell.
I wish more decent people in America remembered they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them, and we need to. We just need to stop lamenting how much damage they are doing and start doing something to oppose them.
We’ve seen this play out throughout history and we know how it ends. We know what unchecked religious extremist is capable of and we know the cost of the silence and inaction of good people. We also know what people are capable of when they refuse to accept fascism and white supremacy cloaked in the Bible and wrapped in the flag, when they fight for something inherently good together.
As someone who knows just how much these Christians have lost the plot of their faith tradition, believe me when I tell you that they cannot be allowed to steer this nation. It will not end well for the disparate people who call it home or who one day wish to.
Love and equity and diversity are in the balance.
It’s time we made a choice.
It may be the last one we get.”
Pastor John Pavlovitz
This is legit. My dad’s talked about the detrimental effect of religion and government mixing for at least a decade. You always see nutters blaming things on taking god out of wherever and god given rights and blah blah blah, and they tie it to every aspect of their being so much that they lose any sort of individuality. It’s directly tied to every opinion they have, every stance they take, how they’re entertained, who they interact with,w who they celebrate, who they look down upon, successes and failures, and who they vote for…. just whole hog indoctrination.
I used to enjoy going to church, serving the community, hanging with mostly pretty upstanding citizens and bigots and zealots have taken that away from me. If you’re reading the Bible and coming away with any other message but to be a decent person, then you’re doing it wrong.
That is sad, Dewie. I too have known churches with many good people.
I sometimes think about that Bible story in Matthew 21:12-13:
"Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’"
He was pissed! Imagine what he would feel today. Probably would have apoplexy. Beyond sensing there is mystery in the universe which feels spiritual to me, I'm not religious myself, but I know people of faith who are true to their beliefs and use their faith for the good, which I respect. But their numbers are shrinking. Phony, hateful, racist Christians abound.
You’re a smart man.
I have an enormous amount of faith in something greater than myself but I have no faith in organized religion.
My preference is God, Jesus, no building, Jesus preached without a building all the time and of course I could be mistaken but I don’t think he charged a lot to attend his sermons.
LOL, no, I don't think Jesus would be a televangelist raking in the bucks!
The so-called "christians" get wound up when you remind them that Jesus was a dark skinned Jewish guy from Palestine who loved and cared for everyone.
They don’t like being reminded that the Bible, whether you take total stock in what it says or not, had been constructed by man. Hearing theologians discuss how it’s been altered is eye opening and instead of respecting the knowledge and effort they’ve put into it “Christian’s” dismiss it outright because it doesn’t serve their purposes in modern times.
Saw this on FB this morning and found it worth quoting here:
Somber warning from a Pastor about the intentions of Evangelical "conservative" christians in American politics.
Pastor John Pavlovitz: “I’ve been a pastor in the church for over two decades, much of that in predominantly white churches in the American South.
I’ve spent countless hours in church staff meetings and men’s Bible studies and youth pastor conferences.
I’ve stayed connected on social media with thousands of people still there in those churches. I read what they share and post and amplify and I know how they think and what they believe.
I need you to understand something and I say it without any hyperbole: white Evangelicals need to be stopped, now.
If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.
This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish.
I watched it all unfold from the inside:
I was at a North Carolina megachurch when Obama was elected and I saw the shift take place firsthand. I saw the fear slowly being ratcheted up and the agenda become solidified and the prejudices leveraged.
I was speaking regularly at the Billy Graham headquarters when Fox News reporters and Republicans like Sarah Palin started walking the halls with frequency.
I saw the messages at pastor’s conferences grow more incendiary and urgent, and heard the supremacist dog whistles become louder and more frequent.
While many decent people around this nation celebrated the progress of a black president and the many civil and human rights victories and gradually let down their guard—the white Conservative church set off the alarms and prepared for a holy war.
Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.
These are not followers of Jesus despite the trappings and window dressing. They are Jesus-less extremists: blind zealots for nothing but power. They have been conditioned by decades of polluted theology and FoxNews alternative facts to see diversity as a threat, to see progress as attacks on America, and to interpret more people being treated with dignity as oppression of white people.
Trust me when I tell you that we won’t recover from the theocracy Evangelicals are constructing once it is established. If we fail in 2022, they will have a political power that will render every election null and void, and we will never have a voice again in our lifetimes.
Women will lose autonomy over their own bodies.
LGBTQ people will have the rights to marry and adopt taken away.
People of color will be fully squeezed out of the electoral process.
Immigrants will be denied access to opportunity and refuge here.
These are not creative projections. They are precisely what Evangelicals have repeatedly stated as their intentions, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to having a rubber stamp.
We can still stop it, though.
We just need a unity and coordination that transcends theirs.
We need a sustained, passionate, dedicated defense of humanity that rivals their relentless assaults on it.
I hear many people say they’re terrified, but being terrified alone doesn’t do anything but help these people.
Be terrified and get angry.
Be terrified and get busy.
Be terrified and go to work.
Be terrified and fight like hell.
I wish more decent people in America remembered they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them, and we need to. We just need to stop lamenting how much damage they are doing and start doing something to oppose them.
We’ve seen this play out throughout history and we know how it ends. We know what unchecked religious extremist is capable of and we know the cost of the silence and inaction of good people. We also know what people are capable of when they refuse to accept fascism and white supremacy cloaked in the Bible and wrapped in the flag, when they fight for something inherently good together.
As someone who knows just how much these Christians have lost the plot of their faith tradition, believe me when I tell you that they cannot be allowed to steer this nation. It will not end well for the disparate people who call it home or who one day wish to.
Love and equity and diversity are in the balance.
It’s time we made a choice.
It may be the last one we get.”
Pastor John Pavlovitz
This is legit. My dad’s talked about the detrimental effect of religion and government mixing for at least a decade. You always see nutters blaming things on taking god out of wherever and god given rights and blah blah blah, and they tie it to every aspect of their being so much that they lose any sort of individuality. It’s directly tied to every opinion they have, every stance they take, how they’re entertained, who they interact with,w who they celebrate, who they look down upon, successes and failures, and who they vote for…. just whole hog indoctrination.
I used to enjoy going to church, serving the community, hanging with mostly pretty upstanding citizens and bigots and zealots have taken that away from me. If you’re reading the Bible and coming away with any other message but to be a decent person, then you’re doing it wrong.
That is sad, Dewie. I too have known churches with many good people.
I sometimes think about that Bible story in Matthew 21:12-13:
"Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’"
He was pissed! Imagine what he would feel today. Probably would have apoplexy. Beyond sensing there is mystery in the universe which feels spiritual to me, I'm not religious myself, but I know people of faith who are true to their beliefs and use their faith for the good, which I respect. But their numbers are shrinking. Phony, hateful, racist Christians abound.
You’re a smart man.
I have an enormous amount of faith in something greater than myself but I have no faith in organized religion.
My preference is God, Jesus, no building, Jesus preached without a building all the time and of course I could be mistaken but I don’t think he charged a lot to attend his sermons.
LOL, no, I don't think Jesus would be a televangelist raking in the bucks!
The so-called "christians" get wound up when you remind them that Jesus was a dark skinned Jewish guy from Palestine who loved and cared for everyone.
They don’t like being reminded that the Bible, whether you take total stock in what it says or not, had been constructed by man. Hearing theologians discuss how it’s been altered is eye opening and instead of respecting the knowledge and effort they’ve put into it “Christian’s” dismiss it outright because it doesn’t serve their purposes in modern times.
Yes, it makes you wonder if we’ve ever been told the truth about anything. Some of the most interesting books were the ones left out.
such a coward. but well knew that from the get go of trump insulting his wife and cruz sucking trump's balls afterwards. i can't imagine how anyone votes for that slime.
The democrats refuse to secure the doors to your child’s school while opening and removing the doors to our borders!
Meanwhile, the democrats lead by AOC, Hillary Clinton, and the squad, want to indoctrinate your children with Critical Race Theory, and, aaaaaand, take away their god given gender and make them something they are not!
And trust me folks, you’ve heard the whispers, oh yea, but don’t be fooled, the democrats want to cancel the Second Amendment and prevent you from defending yourself and your family with your god given right to own and possess, on your person, if you want that right, a firearm of any type because your Second Amendment SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!
Democrats don’t have an answer to high gasoline prices and if they run the show, they’ll be $10.00, $12.00 or some experts claim as high as $18.00 to $20.00 a gallon. Oh no folks, what we need to do is cut taxes for those true Americans WHO PAY TAXES!
Saw this on FB this morning and found it worth quoting here:
Somber warning from a Pastor about the intentions of Evangelical "conservative" christians in American politics.
Pastor John Pavlovitz: “I’ve been a pastor in the church for over two decades, much of that in predominantly white churches in the American South.
I’ve spent countless hours in church staff meetings and men’s Bible studies and youth pastor conferences.
I’ve stayed connected on social media with thousands of people still there in those churches. I read what they share and post and amplify and I know how they think and what they believe.
I need you to understand something and I say it without any hyperbole: white Evangelicals need to be stopped, now.
If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.
This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish.
I watched it all unfold from the inside:
I was at a North Carolina megachurch when Obama was elected and I saw the shift take place firsthand. I saw the fear slowly being ratcheted up and the agenda become solidified and the prejudices leveraged.
I was speaking regularly at the Billy Graham headquarters when Fox News reporters and Republicans like Sarah Palin started walking the halls with frequency.
I saw the messages at pastor’s conferences grow more incendiary and urgent, and heard the supremacist dog whistles become louder and more frequent.
While many decent people around this nation celebrated the progress of a black president and the many civil and human rights victories and gradually let down their guard—the white Conservative church set off the alarms and prepared for a holy war.
Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.
These are not followers of Jesus despite the trappings and window dressing. They are Jesus-less extremists: blind zealots for nothing but power. They have been conditioned by decades of polluted theology and FoxNews alternative facts to see diversity as a threat, to see progress as attacks on America, and to interpret more people being treated with dignity as oppression of white people.
Trust me when I tell you that we won’t recover from the theocracy Evangelicals are constructing once it is established. If we fail in 2022, they will have a political power that will render every election null and void, and we will never have a voice again in our lifetimes.
Women will lose autonomy over their own bodies.
LGBTQ people will have the rights to marry and adopt taken away.
People of color will be fully squeezed out of the electoral process.
Immigrants will be denied access to opportunity and refuge here.
These are not creative projections. They are precisely what Evangelicals have repeatedly stated as their intentions, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to having a rubber stamp.
We can still stop it, though.
We just need a unity and coordination that transcends theirs.
We need a sustained, passionate, dedicated defense of humanity that rivals their relentless assaults on it.
I hear many people say they’re terrified, but being terrified alone doesn’t do anything but help these people.
Be terrified and get angry.
Be terrified and get busy.
Be terrified and go to work.
Be terrified and fight like hell.
I wish more decent people in America remembered they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them, and we need to. We just need to stop lamenting how much damage they are doing and start doing something to oppose them.
We’ve seen this play out throughout history and we know how it ends. We know what unchecked religious extremist is capable of and we know the cost of the silence and inaction of good people. We also know what people are capable of when they refuse to accept fascism and white supremacy cloaked in the Bible and wrapped in the flag, when they fight for something inherently good together.
As someone who knows just how much these Christians have lost the plot of their faith tradition, believe me when I tell you that they cannot be allowed to steer this nation. It will not end well for the disparate people who call it home or who one day wish to.
Love and equity and diversity are in the balance.
It’s time we made a choice.
It may be the last one we get.”
Pastor John Pavlovitz
This is legit. My dad’s talked about the detrimental effect of religion and government mixing for at least a decade. You always see nutters blaming things on taking god out of wherever and god given rights and blah blah blah, and they tie it to every aspect of their being so much that they lose any sort of individuality. It’s directly tied to every opinion they have, every stance they take, how they’re entertained, who they interact with,w who they celebrate, who they look down upon, successes and failures, and who they vote for…. just whole hog indoctrination.
I used to enjoy going to church, serving the community, hanging with mostly pretty upstanding citizens and bigots and zealots have taken that away from me. If you’re reading the Bible and coming away with any other message but to be a decent person, then you’re doing it wrong.
That is sad, Dewie. I too have known churches with many good people.
I sometimes think about that Bible story in Matthew 21:12-13:
"Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’"
He was pissed! Imagine what he would feel today. Probably would have apoplexy. Beyond sensing there is mystery in the universe which feels spiritual to me, I'm not religious myself, but I know people of faith who are true to their beliefs and use their faith for the good, which I respect. But their numbers are shrinking. Phony, hateful, racist Christians abound.
You’re a smart man.
I have an enormous amount of faith in something greater than myself but I have no faith in organized religion.
My preference is God, Jesus, no building, Jesus preached without a building all the time and of course I could be mistaken but I don’t think he charged a lot to attend his sermons.
LOL, no, I don't think Jesus would be a televangelist raking in the bucks!
The so-called "christians" get wound up when you remind them that Jesus was a dark skinned Jewish guy from Palestine who loved and cared for everyone.
I usually remind them St Nicholas was a Turk. Not some fat white guy from Norway
Religion is actually the perfect point to prove systemic racism exists. Conservatives pretend it’s a made up concept. If racism isn’t a thing then why are they either more comfortable/or insist that the people who they pray to are portrayed as white? Bring white and praying to an Arab shouldn’t be a big deal in a post race world
I was shocked when I first learned how bastardized the bible has been over time to fit whomever's agenda. the word of god? what a joke.
The irony is most of the ridiculousness that gets used is Old Testament stuff. So that’s what they cling to to justify a lot, yet Jewish people who are Old Testament only are going to hell. Go figure
mainline Jews don’t even interpret the Old Testament that literally and they are the experts there. I defer to them
You see evidence of this right here on these forums.
This is why we can’t have a rational discussion or a common-sense compromise about gun violence. Heck, this is why we can’t have a rational discussion or a common-sense compromise about anything. It’s not that we are ideologically polarized; on gun control, as on many topics, a broad consensus exists. The main obstacle is that one side of the debate has been hijacked by disinformation.
A new study shows how distorting disinformation has become on the political right in the Trump era. Brian Guay of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others set out to learn why, as previous studies of social media patterns have found, Republicans share between 200 percent and 500 percent more fake news (fabrications published by sites masquerading as news outlets) than Democrats. Were they less able to distinguish fact from fiction? More psychologically predisposed to political bias?
In part, yes. But the researchers found that “the issue primarily seems to be a supply issue,” Guay told me. “There’s just way more fake news on the right than the left.” In experiments giving Democrats and Republicans equal amounts of fake news that confirmed their world views, Republicans were more likely to share the falsehoods — but only 1.6 times more likely. This suggests that Republicans don’t have some “overreaching hunger” to traffic in untruths; they simply can’t avoid it because they’re so immersed in the stuff.
Guay’s is the latest of many studies identifying the disinformation “asymmetry” afflicting the right in the Trump era. In lay terms: Garbage in, garbage out. Republican voters hear lies by the thousand from Trump and imitators such as Johnson and Cruz. They hear new conspiracy theories daily from Fox News’s Tucker Carlson and other Trump-inspired elites. It’s hardly surprising that, thus exposed, they become more toxic in their language, more extreme in their ideology and more outraged.
If you saw “evidence” everywhere you turned, from people you trusted, that the country is being run by socialist pedophiles bent on disarming the populace, extinguishing your race and destroying the United States, you’d probably be outraged, too. At the very least, you might not be in the best frame of mind for a constructive conversation about ending gun violence.
You see evidence of this right here on these forums.
This is why we can’t have a rational discussion or a common-sense compromise about gun violence. Heck, this is why we can’t have a rational discussion or a common-sense compromise about anything. It’s not that we are ideologically polarized; on gun control, as on many topics, a broad consensus exists. The main obstacle is that one side of the debate has been hijacked by disinformation.
A new study shows how distorting disinformation has become on the political right in the Trump era. Brian Guay of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others set out to learn why, as previous studies of social media patterns have found, Republicans share between 200 percent and 500 percent more fake news (fabrications published by sites masquerading as news outlets) than Democrats. Were they less able to distinguish fact from fiction? More psychologically predisposed to political bias?
In part, yes. But the researchers found that “the issue primarily seems to be a supply issue,” Guay told me. “There’s just way more fake news on the right than the left.” In experiments giving Democrats and Republicans equal amounts of fake news that confirmed their world views, Republicans were more likely to share the falsehoods — but only 1.6 times more likely. This suggests that Republicans don’t have some “overreaching hunger” to traffic in untruths; they simply can’t avoid it because they’re so immersed in the stuff.
Guay’s is the latest of many studies identifying the disinformation “asymmetry” afflicting the right in the Trump era. In lay terms: Garbage in, garbage out. Republican voters hear lies by the thousand from Trump and imitators such as Johnson and Cruz. They hear new conspiracy theories daily from Fox News’s Tucker Carlson and other Trump-inspired elites. It’s hardly surprising that, thus exposed, they become more toxic in their language, more extreme in their ideology and more outraged.
If you saw “evidence” everywhere you turned, from people you trusted, that the country is being run by socialist pedophiles bent on disarming the populace, extinguishing your race and destroying the United States, you’d probably be outraged, too. At the very least, you might not be in the best frame of mind for a constructive conversation about ending gun violence.
Your first paragraph is true. It’s not just guns. The debate on guns and taxes are the same.
a small percentage of people own assault rifles. If all the non assault rifle owners decided assault rifles are a bad idea there would be movement on the issue. Problem is that people might want an assault rifle someday.
taxation is the same. Let’s not tax billionaires and give them the same proportional tax burden as a teacher because that’s going to mess up my income someday when I too am a billionaire
99 percent of those people will never own an assault rifle or be billionaire. The idea they might though means they won’t support change
Nationally Gallup found 7.1% put themselves into a category other than straight.
So why the disparity? Is this more legit data? Are kids not sure and trying different things out? Is the GOP correct in that schools, etc (while allowing those that are truly other than straight to be themselves) are also encouraging experimentation and false moves away from the mean?
It is a very interesting statistic. Wish I knew what the real data was...it's quite the difference...7.1% vs 38%....is the 7.1% just low cause people are scared to be and tell the world you they really are?
Saw this on FB this morning and found it worth quoting here:
Somber warning from a Pastor about the intentions of Evangelical "conservative" christians in American politics.
Pastor John Pavlovitz: “I’ve been a pastor in the church for over two decades, much of that in predominantly white churches in the American South.
I’ve spent countless hours in church staff meetings and men’s Bible studies and youth pastor conferences.
I’ve stayed connected on social media with thousands of people still there in those churches. I read what they share and post and amplify and I know how they think and what they believe.
I need you to understand something and I say it without any hyperbole: white Evangelicals need to be stopped, now.
If the 2022 midterms elections allow Republicans to gain control of Congress, Conservative Christians will decimate this nation, and LGBTQ people, Muslims, women, people of color, and non-Christians will never have equality under the law again. We will all be at their mercy—and they will no longer have use for mercy.
This is not alarmist, sky-is-falling histrionics, it is the clear and sober forecast from someone who knows these people better than anyone. Over the last decade and a half, as my theology shifted and my beliefs grew more and more progressive, I’ve been a kind of undercover Liberal in an increasingly extremist movement, that while once relegated to minor fringe noisemakers is now at the precipice of Roman Empire-level power. They are less than two years away from having a dominance that they will wield violently and not relinquish.
I watched it all unfold from the inside:
I was at a North Carolina megachurch when Obama was elected and I saw the shift take place firsthand. I saw the fear slowly being ratcheted up and the agenda become solidified and the prejudices leveraged.
I was speaking regularly at the Billy Graham headquarters when Fox News reporters and Republicans like Sarah Palin started walking the halls with frequency.
I saw the messages at pastor’s conferences grow more incendiary and urgent, and heard the supremacist dog whistles become louder and more frequent.
While many decent people around this nation celebrated the progress of a black president and the many civil and human rights victories and gradually let down their guard—the white Conservative church set off the alarms and prepared for a holy war.
Yet, they were still a largely powerless, dying dinosaur until 2016, when Donald Trump acquired the presidency and gave the Evangelicals the perfect amoral partner to serve as the biggest bully pulpit they’ve ever had. Combine that with a fragmented Left, a general fatigue by the larger population, a ceremonial victory in Congress (thanks to Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema), and Republican attacks on voters’ rights— and we are now a hair’s breadth from the subjugation of diverse humanity here.
These are not followers of Jesus despite the trappings and window dressing. They are Jesus-less extremists: blind zealots for nothing but power. They have been conditioned by decades of polluted theology and FoxNews alternative facts to see diversity as a threat, to see progress as attacks on America, and to interpret more people being treated with dignity as oppression of white people.
Trust me when I tell you that we won’t recover from the theocracy Evangelicals are constructing once it is established. If we fail in 2022, they will have a political power that will render every election null and void, and we will never have a voice again in our lifetimes.
Women will lose autonomy over their own bodies.
LGBTQ people will have the rights to marry and adopt taken away.
People of color will be fully squeezed out of the electoral process.
Immigrants will be denied access to opportunity and refuge here.
These are not creative projections. They are precisely what Evangelicals have repeatedly stated as their intentions, and they’re closer than they’ve ever been to having a rubber stamp.
We can still stop it, though.
We just need a unity and coordination that transcends theirs.
We need a sustained, passionate, dedicated defense of humanity that rivals their relentless assaults on it.
I hear many people say they’re terrified, but being terrified alone doesn’t do anything but help these people.
Be terrified and get angry.
Be terrified and get busy.
Be terrified and go to work.
Be terrified and fight like hell.
I wish more decent people in America remembered they are among the vast majority instead of acting as if they are helpless victims of Republican Christians. We could defeat them, and we need to. We just need to stop lamenting how much damage they are doing and start doing something to oppose them.
We’ve seen this play out throughout history and we know how it ends. We know what unchecked religious extremist is capable of and we know the cost of the silence and inaction of good people. We also know what people are capable of when they refuse to accept fascism and white supremacy cloaked in the Bible and wrapped in the flag, when they fight for something inherently good together.
As someone who knows just how much these Christians have lost the plot of their faith tradition, believe me when I tell you that they cannot be allowed to steer this nation. It will not end well for the disparate people who call it home or who one day wish to.
Love and equity and diversity are in the balance.
It’s time we made a choice.
It may be the last one we get.”
Pastor John Pavlovitz
This is legit. My dad’s talked about the detrimental effect of religion and government mixing for at least a decade. You always see nutters blaming things on taking god out of wherever and god given rights and blah blah blah, and they tie it to every aspect of their being so much that they lose any sort of individuality. It’s directly tied to every opinion they have, every stance they take, how they’re entertained, who they interact with,w who they celebrate, who they look down upon, successes and failures, and who they vote for…. just whole hog indoctrination.
I used to enjoy going to church, serving the community, hanging with mostly pretty upstanding citizens and bigots and zealots have taken that away from me. If you’re reading the Bible and coming away with any other message but to be a decent person, then you’re doing it wrong.
That is sad, Dewie. I too have known churches with many good people.
I sometimes think about that Bible story in Matthew 21:12-13:
"Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’"
He was pissed! Imagine what he would feel today. Probably would have apoplexy. Beyond sensing there is mystery in the universe which feels spiritual to me, I'm not religious myself, but I know people of faith who are true to their beliefs and use their faith for the good, which I respect. But their numbers are shrinking. Phony, hateful, racist Christians abound.
You’re a smart man.
I have an enormous amount of faith in something greater than myself but I have no faith in organized religion.
My preference is God, Jesus, no building, Jesus preached without a building all the time and of course I could be mistaken but I don’t think he charged a lot to attend his sermons.
LOL, no, I don't think Jesus would be a televangelist raking in the bucks!
The so-called "christians" get wound up when you remind them that Jesus was a dark skinned Jewish guy from Palestine who loved and cared for everyone.
Exactly, likely something like this:
painting at this Lutheran church I've attended aa meetings at.
feels right to me.
I like to think of Jesus down at the southern border protecting us from caravans of women and children
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville 2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
Nationally Gallup found 7.1% put themselves into a category other than straight.
So why the disparity? Is this more legit data? Are kids not sure and trying different things out? Is the GOP correct in that schools, etc (while allowing those that are truly other than straight to be themselves) are also encouraging experimentation and false moves away from the mean?
It is a very interesting statistic. Wish I knew what the real data was...it's quite the difference...7.1% vs 38%....is the 7.1% just low cause people are scared to be and tell the world you they really are?
I would suspect data set is different.
a 50 year old may be gay and isn’t comfortable sharing that fact. A teen may be more comfortable.
Are there more gay people that are teens? Probably not. There are probably more out teens
Nationally Gallup found 7.1% put themselves into a category other than straight.
So why the disparity? Is this more legit data? Are kids not sure and trying different things out? Is the GOP correct in that schools, etc (while allowing those that are truly other than straight to be themselves) are also encouraging experimentation and false moves away from the mean?
It is a very interesting statistic. Wish I knew what the real data was...it's quite the difference...7.1% vs 38%....is the 7.1% just low cause people are scared to be and tell the world you they really are?
I would suspect data set is different.
a 50 year old may be gay and isn’t comfortable sharing that fact. A teen may be more comfortable.
Are there more gay people that are teens? Probably not. There are probably more out teens
Seemed strange to me as this is in a very conservative state...but in one of the smaller liberal pockets (university area). Those numbers were shocking to me that they were so high. I do wish there could be a true deep dive with all the reasons on it to understand it better.
Nationally Gallup found 7.1% put themselves into a category other than straight.
So why the disparity? Is this more legit data? Are kids not sure and trying different things out? Is the GOP correct in that schools, etc (while allowing those that are truly other than straight to be themselves) are also encouraging experimentation and false moves away from the mean?
It is a very interesting statistic. Wish I knew what the real data was...it's quite the difference...7.1% vs 38%....is the 7.1% just low cause people are scared to be and tell the world you they really are?
I would suspect data set is different.
a 50 year old may be gay and isn’t comfortable sharing that fact. A teen may be more comfortable.
Are there more gay people that are teens? Probably not. There are probably more out teens
Seemed strange to me as this is in a very conservative state...but in one of the smaller liberal pockets (university area). Those numbers were shocking to me that they were so high. I do wish there could be a true deep dive with all the reasons on it to understand it better.
In college I was aware of a lot of experimentation going on. I know those same people today. Twenty years later they are married and have kids.
sexuality on the whole is more fluid than we think. Those people grow up, have kids, get married. They choose family and being committed to their spouse. They probably identify as straight. They aren’t gay, but they are not exactly straight either
Nationally Gallup found 7.1% put themselves into a category other than straight.
So why the disparity? Is this more legit data? Are kids not sure and trying different things out? Is the GOP correct in that schools, etc (while allowing those that are truly other than straight to be themselves) are also encouraging experimentation and false moves away from the mean?
It is a very interesting statistic. Wish I knew what the real data was...it's quite the difference...7.1% vs 38%....is the 7.1% just low cause people are scared to be and tell the world you they really are?
I would suspect data set is different.
a 50 year old may be gay and isn’t comfortable sharing that fact. A teen may be more comfortable.
Are there more gay people that are teens? Probably not. There are probably more out teens
Seemed strange to me as this is in a very conservative state...but in one of the smaller liberal pockets (university area). Those numbers were shocking to me that they were so high. I do wish there could be a true deep dive with all the reasons on it to understand it better.
In college I was aware of a lot of experimentation going on. I know those same people today. Twenty years later they are married and have kids.
sexuality on the whole is more fluid than we think. Those people grow up, have kids, get married. They choose family and being committed to their spouse. They probably identify as straight. They aren’t gay, but they are not exactly straight either
I have 4 nieces and 1 nephew, 4 of them being teenagers. Of the teenagers, the 3 oldest have each confided in their parents at some point or another that they thought they might be gay, but weren't sure... since making those declarations, 2 of those 3 now are pretty confident they aren't.
My only point of making this comment is that I think in many cases, teenagers are simply figuring things out, and as opposed to when I was in high school in the early 90s, less afraid to consider the possibility they're gay, never mind suggesting it to their parents.
I could be way off on this, but that poll quoted might just be teenagers being unsure, and leaving open the possibility.
Need to consider margin of error and that high school kids can be, well, high school kids and fuck with the poll by giving false answers and not taking it seriously.
Nationally Gallup found 7.1% put themselves into a category other than straight.
So why the disparity? Is this more legit data? Are kids not sure and trying different things out? Is the GOP correct in that schools, etc (while allowing those that are truly other than straight to be themselves) are also encouraging experimentation and false moves away from the mean?
It is a very interesting statistic. Wish I knew what the real data was...it's quite the difference...7.1% vs 38%....is the 7.1% just low cause people are scared to be and tell the world you they really are?
I would suspect data set is different.
a 50 year old may be gay and isn’t comfortable sharing that fact. A teen may be more comfortable.
Are there more gay people that are teens? Probably not. There are probably more out teens
Seemed strange to me as this is in a very conservative state...but in one of the smaller liberal pockets (university area). Those numbers were shocking to me that they were so high. I do wish there could be a true deep dive with all the reasons on it to understand it better.
In college I was aware of a lot of experimentation going on. I know those same people today. Twenty years later they are married and have kids.
sexuality on the whole is more fluid than we think. Those people grow up, have kids, get married. They choose family and being committed to their spouse. They probably identify as straight. They aren’t gay, but they are not exactly straight either
I have 4 nieces and 1 nephew, 4 of them being teenagers. Of the teenagers, the 3 oldest have each confided in their parents at some point or another that they thought they might be gay, but weren't sure... since making those declarations, 2 of those 3 now are pretty confident they aren't.
My only point of making this comment is that I think in many cases, teenagers are simply figuring things out, and as opposed to when I was in high school in the early 90s, less afraid to consider the possibility they're gay, never mind suggesting it to their parents.
I could be way off on this, but that poll quoted might just be teenagers being unsure, and leaving open the possibility.
In college what I saw was almost exclusively women being fluid. Do I think it’s because women are more likely to be bisexual? No. It’s more socially acceptable and that’s what I then observed.
looking at history the Romans are a perfect example. Bisexual men are all over the historical record. Were there more bisexual men in antiquity or was it more socially acceptable and then that’s what you saw? I don’t think there were more bisexual men then
yes, figuring it out is one factor. Having a cultural environment that allows you to figure it out is another.
I don’t think colleges are making people gay, they might be creating an atmosphere where people are comfortable being who they are. That’s not a bad thing
plus people are also more sexual generally when they are 20
Need to consider margin of error and that high school kids can be, well, high school kids and fuck with the poll by giving false answers and not taking it seriously.
Comments
Scoffs. My Painting on black velvet says otherwise!!!!! Its hung right next to the other King, Elvis.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Yeah, I remember seeing that painting (probably posted by you here at some time). Very cool. I like both!
and if jesus did exist, he would most assuredly be a liberal.
www.headstonesband.com
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www.headstonesband.com
www.headstonesband.com
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The democrats refuse to secure the doors to your child’s school while opening and removing the doors to our borders!
Meanwhile, the democrats lead by AOC, Hillary Clinton, and the squad, want to indoctrinate your children with Critical Race Theory, and, aaaaaand, take away their god given gender and make them something they are not!
And trust me folks, you’ve heard the whispers, oh yea, but don’t be fooled, the democrats want to cancel the Second Amendment and prevent you from defending yourself and your family with your god given right to own and possess, on your person, if you want that right, a firearm of any type because your Second Amendment SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!
Democrats don’t have an answer to high gasoline prices and if they run the show, they’ll be $10.00, $12.00 or some experts claim as high as $18.00 to $20.00 a gallon. Oh no folks, what we need to do is cut taxes for those true Americans WHO PAY TAXES!
Good luck.
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Religion is actually the perfect point to prove systemic racism exists. Conservatives pretend it’s a made up concept. If racism isn’t a thing then why are they either more comfortable/or insist that the people who they pray to are portrayed as white? Bring white and praying to an Arab shouldn’t be a big deal in a post race world
mainline Jews don’t even interpret the Old Testament that literally and they are the experts there. I defer to them
Think about it.
POOTWH
Ted Crud
Lindsy Flimsey Flipflop Faloozy
Rupert
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This is why we can’t have a rational discussion or a common-sense compromise about gun violence. Heck, this is why we can’t have a rational discussion or a common-sense compromise about anything. It’s not that we are ideologically polarized; on gun control, as on many topics, a broad consensus exists. The main obstacle is that one side of the debate has been hijacked by disinformation.
A new study shows how distorting disinformation has become on the political right in the Trump era. Brian Guay of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others set out to learn why, as previous studies of social media patterns have found, Republicans share between 200 percent and 500 percent more fake news (fabrications published by sites masquerading as news outlets) than Democrats. Were they less able to distinguish fact from fiction? More psychologically predisposed to political bias?
In part, yes. But the researchers found that “the issue primarily seems to be a supply issue,” Guay told me. “There’s just way more fake news on the right than the left.” In experiments giving Democrats and Republicans equal amounts of fake news that confirmed their world views, Republicans were more likely to share the falsehoods — but only 1.6 times more likely. This suggests that Republicans don’t have some “overreaching hunger” to traffic in untruths; they simply can’t avoid it because they’re so immersed in the stuff.
Guay’s is the latest of many studies identifying the disinformation “asymmetry” afflicting the right in the Trump era. In lay terms: Garbage in, garbage out. Republican voters hear lies by the thousand from Trump and imitators such as Johnson and Cruz. They hear new conspiracy theories daily from Fox News’s Tucker Carlson and other Trump-inspired elites. It’s hardly surprising that, thus exposed, they become more toxic in their language, more extreme in their ideology and more outraged.
If you saw “evidence” everywhere you turned, from people you trusted, that the country is being run by socialist pedophiles bent on disarming the populace, extinguishing your race and destroying the United States, you’d probably be outraged, too. At the very least, you might not be in the best frame of mind for a constructive conversation about ending gun violence.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/31/gun-safety-compromise-impossible-gop-disinformation/
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a small percentage of people own assault rifles. If all the non assault rifle owners decided assault rifles are a bad idea there would be movement on the issue. Problem is that people might want an assault rifle someday.
taxation is the same. Let’s not tax billionaires and give them the same proportional tax burden as a teacher because that’s going to mess up my income someday when I too am a billionaire
99 percent of those people will never own an assault rifle or be billionaire. The idea they might though means they won’t support change
Straight = 62%
Gay/Lesbian = 10.9%
Bi/Pan = 18.5%
Asexual = 4.3%
Other = 4.3%
Nationally Gallup found 7.1% put themselves into a category other than straight.
So why the disparity? Is this more legit data? Are kids not sure and trying different things out? Is the GOP correct in that schools, etc (while allowing those that are truly other than straight to be themselves) are also encouraging experimentation and false moves away from the mean?
It is a very interesting statistic. Wish I knew what the real data was...it's quite the difference...7.1% vs 38%....is the 7.1% just low cause people are scared to be and tell the world you they really are?
I like to think of Jesus down at the southern border protecting us from caravans of women and children
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
a 50 year old may be gay and isn’t comfortable sharing that fact. A teen may be more comfortable.
I have 4 nieces and 1 nephew, 4 of them being teenagers. Of the teenagers, the 3 oldest have each confided in their parents at some point or another that they thought they might be gay, but weren't sure... since making those declarations, 2 of those 3 now are pretty confident they aren't.
My only point of making this comment is that I think in many cases, teenagers are simply figuring things out, and as opposed to when I was in high school in the early 90s, less afraid to consider the possibility they're gay, never mind suggesting it to their parents.
I could be way off on this, but that poll quoted might just be teenagers being unsure, and leaving open the possibility.
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looking at history the Romans are a perfect example. Bisexual men are all over the historical record. Were there more bisexual men in antiquity or was it more socially acceptable and then that’s what you saw? I don’t think there were more bisexual men then
yes, figuring it out is one factor. Having a cultural environment that allows you to figure it out is another.
plus people are also more sexual generally when they are 20