{"id":183073,"date":"2015-03-22T18:54:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-22T23:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/03\/22\/more-evidence-that-conservative-christianity-has-degenerated-into-a-vehicle-for-hate\/"},"modified":"2015-03-22T18:54:00","modified_gmt":"2015-03-22T23:54:00","slug":"more-evidence-that-conservative-christianity-has-degenerated-into-a-vehicle-for-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/03\/22\/more-evidence-that-conservative-christianity-has-degenerated-into-a-vehicle-for-hate\/","title":{"rendered":"More Evidence That Conservative Christianity Has Degenerated Into a Vehicle for Hate"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
This is beyond contemptible<\/i><\/div>\n

Once Again I need to invoke Shelby Spong<\/a>‘s question, “I have quoted the controversial theologian’s question, “Has religion in general and Christianity in particular degenerated to the level that it has become little more than a veil under which anger can be legitimatized?”<\/p>\n

In Tennessee, a Talibaptist cleric has equated equal rights to Satan<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A Tennessee pastor said this week that his church was \u201cnot trying to offend anyone\u201d when it put up a sign linking \u201cequal rights\u201d to Satan.<\/span>

<\/span> Members of the community expressed outrage over the weekend after photos of marquee outside the Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle Church were circulated online. The sign read, \u201cRemember, Satan was the first to demand equal rights.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> \u201cWho was your target audience? Who were you speaking to when you put it up there?\u201d Knoxville resident Rick Staples, asked, according to WBIR. \u201cAnd when you say you\u2019re asking for your equal rights, who\u2019s asking for their equal rights and who are you comparing to Satan? That was very strong language.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> Andy Henry said that the church was trying to make a statement about gay rights.<\/span>

<\/span> \u201cIt\u2019s clearly a sign that was meant to offend a particular community \u2013 the LGBT community. Because of (the church\u2019s) lack of foresight, they ended up offending everybody who had ever fought for equality or civil rights in general,\u201d Henry observed. <\/span>

<\/span> But Pastor Tony Greene insisted that everyone misunderstood the message.<\/span>

<\/span> \u201cOur sign referencing Satan demanding his equal rights to ascend into the heavens and be God was simply \u2018I\u2019 and all about that individual,\u201d Greene told WATE. \u201cIt was not a statement against any one group in particular, you know what about the rights of the unborn babies, the rights of children, the rights of everyone?\u201d<\/span>

<\/span> He added: \u201cMy heart breaks in the dividedness of our country.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, Rev. Greene is not calling for unity, he is expressing a world view for which faith is indistinguishable from hate.<\/p>\n

At its core, this is the same spirituality that we see from Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban.<\/p>\n

H\/t Neo at the Stellar Parthenon BBS<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is beyond contemptible Once Again I need to invoke Shelby Spong‘s question, “I have quoted the controversial theologian’s question, “Has religion in general and Christianity in particular degenerated to the level that it has become little more than a veil under which anger can be legitimatized?” In Tennessee, a Talibaptist cleric has equated equal …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[967,970,969,987,1030,1116,1021],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bigotry","category-corruption","category-evil","category-fail","category-lgbtq","category-medieval","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}