For those who have followed this blog for years, I suspect that you have discerned a growing disgust on my part with evangelical Christians who I increasingly view as some of the most selfish, self-centered, and often hate-filled individuals one can encounter in daily activities. The aftermath of the massacre at Pulse in Orlando finds countless members of the LGBT community shocked, in mourning and fighting back fear that copycat attacks might occur. Indeed, as the Georgia Voice reports:
The Atlanta Police Department confirmed they are investigating a gay Atlanta man who tweeted that he would make two local gay bars “the next Orlando.” . . . Brett Edgerton, going by the handle @BrettTEdgerton, tweeted the following: “TEN or Blake’s could be the next Orlando. You think I am the type to be the next ‘shooter’? Keep hating me then…”
So we worry for our lives and the lives of those we love, yet what are evangelicals whining about? Their declining ability to inflict their archaic, ignorance based religious beliefs on all of society. And perhaps the fact that they just might have to think for themselves and accept modern knowledge that increasingly shows the falsity of their beliefs. Here's a sampling of this misogyny:
Pastor Richie Clendenen stepped away from the pulpit, microphone in hand. He walked the aisles of the Christian Fellowship Church, his voice rising to describe the perils believers face in 21st-century America."The Bible says in this life you will have troubles, you will have persecutions. And Jesus takes it a step further: You'll be hated by all nations for my name's sake," he said. "Let me tell you," the minister said, "that time is here."
The faithful in the pews needed little convincing. Even in this deeply religious swath of western Kentucky — a state where about half the residents are evangelical — conservative Christians feel under siege.
For decades, they say, they have been steadily pushed to the sidelines of American life . . . . Religious conservatives could once count on their neighbors to at least share their view of marriage. Those days are gone. Public opinion on same-sex relationships turned against conservatives even before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationwide.
Now, many evangelicals say liberals want to seal their cultural victory by silencing the church. Liberals call this paranoid.
Clendenen, preaching on this recent Sunday, reflected on the chasm between his congregants and other Americans. "There's nobody hated more in this nation than Christians," he said, amid nods and cries of encouragement. "Welcome to America's most wanted: You."
For evangelicals like those at Christian Fellowship, the sense of a painful reckoning is not just imagined; their declining clout in public life can be measured. . . . a series of losses in church membership and in public policy battles, along with America's changing demographics, are weakening evangelical influence, even in some of the most conservative regions of the country.
Nearly a quarter of Americans say they no longer affiliate with a faith tradition. It's the highest share ever recorded in surveys . . . . Christians who have been only nominally tied to a conservative church are steadily dropping out altogether. . . . white evangelicals can't match the growth rate of groups that tend to support Democrats — Latinos, younger people and Americans with no religious affiliation.
"The idea of what we call biblical morality in our culture at large is completely laughed at and spurned as nonsense," said David Parish, a former pastor at Christian Fellowship and the son of its founder. "The church as an institution, as a public entity — we are moving more and more in conflict with the culture and with other agendas."
For so many decades these people have stigmatized others and made other people's lives Hell. Do I have any sympathy for these folks? No. Not one shred.
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