Churches around the world are in trouble. You see, young people are leaving Christianity in droves, and those that are staying have very shallow pocketbooks. This is the latest discovery of a recent study of protestant pastors that found that the majority of them were very concerned that the next generation of Christians were finding themselves unwilling to be charitable:
The future of the Church depends in large part on generosity. And that generosity will soon hinge on a generation who presently exhibit less financial security and lower levels of Christian affiliation, church attendance and charitable giving than their elders”
There are several reasons for this lack of “generosity”. For starters, Gen Z is poorer than their parents. They are also more educated about church misconduct, and it hasn’t helped these religious organizations that so many sexual abuse scandals have surfaced. It’s not exactly great marketing. Lastly, Gen Z might be politely showing up to church, but it seems the main reason is just to please their parents or grandparents. They lack their own reasons for showing up, and that’s a good thing.
The fact is, religiosity is dying among the younger generation. Living in the information age has made it practically impossible for churches to keep their flock. Either some scandal erupts, or a basic internet search will thoroughly destroy any claims made by the religious.
So, how are these guys going to keep paying the bills? Who cares!
With the relaunch of the podcast into an audio blog, we begin by discussing Polish people leaving religion, a Korean cult that defrauded and kill their victim, and women in Gambia face the reality of FGM. Don’t miss out!
How many times are we going to do this? I’ve run out of ways to write “Another Youth Pastor sentenced to jail for child abuse”, so I’m just going to give you the facts in this case and hopefully keep my lunch down.
Jordan Huffman, 52, has been convicted of child abuse and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He drugged his 12 year old victim with alcohol and pot, with the court acknowledging that there were undoubtedly more victims that had not yet come forward. The District Attorney said:
“This defendant groomed, manipulated, and sexual assaulted a child who came to him for support and guidance in his capacity of a youth pastor. He continued this course of abuse over years. The damage this defendant has inflicted over the years cannot be overstated and his conduct has earned him every day of the sentence imposed today.
“The sentencing court acknowledged the likelihood of other victims of this defendant.”
The court is so worried that he might re-offend that when he gets out as a 72 year old man, he’ll continue to be supervised until he is dead and in the ground. This is assuming he’ll survive his prison sentence, which is doubtful.
Honestly, if you’re a Christian and you have children, you’ve got to wake up to the fact that youth camps are just disgusting orgies of sex for depraved human beings. Pray all you want, but it’s not going to protect them from these child rapists.
Haiti is not a pleasant place to be right now. Following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, the government has been unable to control roving criminal gangs. It’s safe to say that the country may be one of the most dangerous places in the world right now.
It’s why the following story is so terrifying. In an act of both stupidity and hubris, a congregation lead by pastor Marcorel Zidor of the Evangelical Church of the Pool of Bethesda, organized a mass protest with congregants confronting one of the most notorious gang, demanding they leave. Armed with machetes and faith, these deluded fools were no match for the gang armed to the teeth and led by a mysterious man known only as Jeff (no, not this guy).
Police said in a statement that they had tried to convince the religious group to stop their plan “to avoid a carnage by criminals who have an arsenal of war.” Elbé noted that the group had not notified police about the protest as required and that officers were unable to halt the crowd partly because it had split up into two groups.
7 people are now confirmed dead, with an unknown number of injured. A tragedy that could easily have been averted. How many people want to bet that this irresponsible pastor gets a slap on the wrist for this?
This week, Jeff joins me as we talk about Christianity making a comeback, we review the movie “God’s Not Dead”, and we talk about the new ‘documentary’ “The Principle”, and how famous scientists were tricked into being in a movie about how the sun revolves around the earth!
By now, I’m sure you’ve all heard about this movie: God’s Not Dead. It’s the story of a bunch of Christians getting suckered out of their money, saving God from a bunch of super meany atheists. Like most of the cheesy crap they throw on film, this particular Christian movie is like a giant cameo of failed careers. Kevin Sorbo plays a hateful atheist teacher who rejects God when his mother dies of cancer when he’s 12, while his equally underemployed pal Dean Cain plays a man so self-absorbed, he dumps his partner when she finds herself diagnosed with cancer (for failing at not dying of cancer).
Now, I won’t go into detail about the film. Dan Fincke already wrote a behemoth article about it, so if you want to know precisely why the film sucks, you can read his review. I was more interested in how other Christians would respond to it.
A blog called “Gospel Spam” recently reviewed it, and despite a few nice things to say, the reviewer basically took a giant crap all over it:
Christian film writing has been notoriously bad since its beginning. Almost every Christian film you’ve ever seen has followed a template: an emotional story line which is a bit unrealistic using gratuitous tear-jerkers to illicit some gratuitous tears with the obligatory tip of the hat gospel presentation worked in not so subtly to make it clear that this is a Christian film because its aim is to evangelize…
When you have good actors and good technical presentation, this is where bad writing just jumps off the screen and spits in your face.
The rest of the review is fine, until the author gets to the part where – despite being somewhat sympathetic to the fact that atheists were mischaracterized in the movie – displays his own severe lack of understanding about what it means not to believe in fairy-tales:
While I do believe that some atheists are atheists because of personal tragedy and many of them are former Christians, atheists are atheists because they love their sin (Romans 1:18). They suppress the truth they already know in unrighteousness…While atheists deny the God they already know exists, they do so because they hate Him and love sin. For a primer on the condition of man, read Romans 3:10-18.
How is this any fucking better than the bullshit in God’s not Dead? It’s the same mischaracterization, the same ‘demonization’ as the crap on celluloid he’s reviewing. Hey buddy, if you’re going to try and come to the defense of non-believers, how about doing a little fucking research outside of the New Testament, dude?
If you’re a long-time fan, some of you may recall that Ryan and I used to run a Mixed Martial Arts themed blog called “Fightlinker” back in the day. Our podcast “The Low Blow” had a small but highly dedicated following (in fact, we still get the occasional email years later asking us to do more shows). So, needless to say, MMA was a big part of our lives for a while.
The sport seems to attract an unusually large amount of Christians. That’s not really surprising: the sport tends to attract wrestlers and other athletes that tend to come from relatively poor rural areas. There’s a huge contingent of religionists in the sport, and now they are getting very ambitious. A new movie has just come out called “Fight Church”, and it’s making the rounds at various film festivals. It’s your standard bullshit Christian narrative: life is a battleground, so let’s punch people in the face for Jesus.
The movie has some big names: Jon “Bones” Jones and Benson Henderson are in it (two major champions of the sport), saying the usual tropes like “I wouldn’t be where I am if it wasn’t for Jesus”, or “Jesus didn’t tap!” (no, but I think we can all agree that he was TKO’d).
The highlight of the video is when the fighting preacher is pressuring his son into fighting. You can tell from his eyes that he does not want to be there. Hey kid, Jesus wouldn’t have been scared: he would have stood there and taken that beating like a man!
They say everything is bigger in Texas: this probably also applies to the insanity of the populace there. How else can you explain this church deciding to build their own version of Noah’s Ark at the cost of a cool 5 million bucks?
You might recall that there’s a similar project out of Florida that’s been trying to get funding from Kickstarter. After almost a month, they’ve managed to snag an impressive $520 through 21 backers, which means to accomplish their financial goals, they only need to make about $37,000 a day for the next 40 days. Looks like someone could sure use a miracle!
The obvious popularity of such a project notwithstanding, the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio – the group responsible for this monument to ignorance – is inviting the public to see just how gullible human beings can be. For those parishioners who perhaps felt like their hard-earned money could have been spent doing something useful, here’s a soundbite that’s sure to ease their fears:
If casinos can build opulent buildings to incentivize gamblers to want to come and enjoy their weekend, how then can you justify not building something that would incentivize people to come and hear about the Word of God?” Hagee said. “I don’t have any problem with somebody saying it’s over the top.”
He’s right: there’s nothing I love more than watching ridiculous human beings waste their money on expensive, useless religious propaganda. Who are they trying to impress with this monstrosity anyway? Other Christians who already buy into this bullshit? Certainly it isn’t anyone with half a brain, or with a working knowledge of biological science.
Here’s hoping that the cost of running this thing becomes a boondoggle that ends up bankrupting their dumb asses.
What do you get when you combine shitty inspirational synth music with a bigoted, ignorant Christian teenage girl? You get the ironically titled “Rated T for Tolerance”, a strange Orwellian name that belies their own contorted views of reality.
Now some of you might think that this video falls under “Poe’s Law”, but as I’ve said in the past, when it’s impossible to tell the difference, what does it matter? She’s representing the views of millions of assholes, so as far as I’m concerned, she’s in their ranks.
I’m beginning to think it’s totally impossible to do anything secular in America without some religious jackass accusing us of waging a “War on Christmas”. This pathetic attempt to make Christians appear marginalized has the effect of making them all look like old fools, if you ask me. When there’s any kind of story that exploits this fear mongering, the media will trip over themselves to cover a make believe war while totally ignoring the reality of a present one.
One such annoying tale of over-reaction involves a simple complaint made by a parent at Terry Elementary School in Little Rock, Arkansas. She complained to the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers that the school was showing a screening of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” -effectively displaying, with taxpayer monies – a religious movie sponsored by a public institution. Worried there might be a backlash against her daughter if she removed her from the event, the parent in question asked that the children pay 2 bucks to cover the cost so the school wouldn’t flip the bill. Sounds like a non-story, right? Well, you obviously don’t troll conservative sites like I do:
Atheist group attacks elementary school over field trip to see ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ at local church claiming it ‘violates religious freedoms’
The problem, of course, is that no such attack took place. The parent who complained still allowed her child to go. She merely highlighted the fact A Charlie Brown Christmas still has a religious theme to it, and schools should not be in the business of endorsing any religion. The fact conservative ass-hats take these kinds of non-stories and blow them out of proportion goes to show it really doesn’t matter how politely you try to bring your objections to Christian privilege: we’ll always be accused of trying to destroy the hopes and dreams of people who want total religious homogeny in America.
I have some fond memories of the TV show Northern Exposure. It might have something to do with the fact Alaska looks a lot like rural Quebec in the winter (complete with wood shacks, small town politics, and some adorable wackos). Janine Turner was in my spank bank for several years after the show had ended, but then again, I didn’t have the Internet to tell me what a bat-shit crazy bitch she is. When she isn’t supporting Sarah Palin as a political candidate, she’s helping teach people the secrets of ‘Christoga’, an exercise routine for aging Christian hags who want to spend as much time working out as the do praying to their invisible friend.
Is it a complete bastardization of another faith’s exercise routine? Sure, but to be fair, yoga had been watered down by white people for decades, so we’ll assume this is just yet another example of the pathetic cash-grab Christians are so famous for. “Watch us do ineffectual movements while vaguely mentioning Jesus.” Fun times…
1) Harvard University is Jesus’ #1 enemy, because there’s learnin’ going on there.
2) America apparently elects people that like killing babies (he may be referring to abortion, but I think their ICBM’s do a better job.
3) You can’t be a good Christians unless you can instantly kill somebody with a gun.
4) Secular progressives have abandoned God (that’s why they’re called secular, genius).
5) Everyone who doesn’t believe in his version of Christ is a Marxist.
I dislike religious historians. I can’t for the life of me fathom how any of these men and women can take their profession seriously when they have so much invested in their beliefs. Who among them is willing to question the historicity of their own God? Even if they are, can we trust the blinders of faith won’t simply make it impossible for them to be objective?
For an example of what I’m talking about, take this recent finding from Harvard professor Karen L. King: she claims to have found a 4th century note from Coptic (Egyptian) Christians that make mention of Jesus having a wife. There’s yet to be any actual testing on the piece of papyrus, but already King and her team are convinced of its authenticity.
Even if it did originate from that time period, so what? This is yet another example of third, fourth accounts being taken as fact. If you’ve ever spent 5 minutes analyzing human behavior, you quickly realize most of us aren’t really interested in facts or truth. We’re all too busy trying to make the world fit into OUR vision, and that means the inconvenience of reality often means it’s entirely left out of our conversations. I don’t see much scholarly debate over whether or not Amon Ra had a wife, and he too came to Earth to help the poor and oppressed. There’s a trend to all legends, you see, and the fact that people try to inject this Jesus guy into real history only proves how poor their scholarship actually is.
What I find frustrating in all of this is even people skeptical of this new ‘finding’ fail to apply the same level of skepticism to everything else. Take a quote from this Christian who seems entirely confused abut what ‘attested historical figure’ actually means:
Jesus may be one of the best attested figures in the ancient world, but we still know hardly anything about him. And because he is the key figure in the largest religion in the world, we are keen to fill in the blanks…
The truth of the matter is that we don’t know what Jesus looked like. We don’t know where he was or what he was doing when he turned 18. And we don’t know if he was ever married or divorced.
What he looked like or if he had a wife is only the tip of this ignorance iceberg. When was this supposed messiah born? When did people start writing about him? Does it not seem suspicious to these folks that even many early Christians believed he was simply an allegory? The author admits there were plenty of religious frauds all too happy to fabricate evidence. Why is it so difficult to think the same is true for his historicity?
How many more times do we have to read dubious articles about finding Jesus’ tomb or some supposed piece of his actual cross. You might as well claim you found Hercules’ resting place as far as I’m concerned.
Can you imagine hiring these lamers for your kid’s birthday party? I’m not sure they realize this, but tantalizing kids with the prospect of puppies, ice cream or sports memorabilia, only to show them an empty box that turns into a cross is the mother of all lame finales. “Look kids, the greatest gift God has ever given us is invisible!”.
Don’t you love it when Christians make creepy videos telling you the ‘good news’ that you’re a sinning piece of filth who doesn’t even deserve God’s awesome love? Here’s a Walmart greeter to tell you that you don’t have to spend forever in torment if you just accept that a 2000 year old Palestinian Jew of questionable historical merit was the creator of the cosmos. Oh, the catch is, if you don’t, you’ll burn in hell forever. Sounds a bit harsh you say?
“Now I know that may seem a bit harsh ([being thrown in a lake of fire for all eternity] but ask yourself: what does a good judge do to a guilty criminal? In other words, if you do the crime, you do the time. You see, God isn’t willing for any of us to parish [sic] in spite of the fact that we’ve all sinned and we all fall short of the glory of God.”
Either Christians fail to understand the moral repugnance of an eternity of torment as punishment, or they believe that every tiny offense (of which there are countless in their religion) merits a judgement that no living person would even dare hand out. How long, for instance, would it be morally justified to torture Adolf Hitler in hell? I admit a part of me does want to seek revenge, but eternity is a long time. In fact, eternity never ends, which means there would never be respite for anyone who had committed even the most repugnant crime.
Besides, with the Christian God, being a ‘criminal’ is often the result of ‘thought crime’. The authors of the Bible are quick to point out that even lusting after someone is committing a mortal sin. You can’t even masturbate to thoughts of your neighbor’s wife without risking spending forever bathing in a lake of fire. Yeah, you’re right buddy. That does sound pretty fucking harsh.
“But here’s the good news: Proving he was God, Jesus came to this earth; performed many miracles. He raised the dead, he healed the sick, the lame, the blind, and then he did something even more miraculous: he proved he was god by fulfilling all the prophesies that were written about the coming of the Messiah who would take away the sins of the world.”
I love how endlessly impressed Christians are by second hand accounts of a series of lousy magic tricks. Surely an all powerful creator of the universe can do more than replicate a few loaves of bread and fish, or curse a bunch of pigs to die. Besides, how ‘miraculous’ is it when you fulfill prophesies you were already aware of? And what about the whole prophesy of the Messiah NOT dying and re-establishing the make believe kingdom of Judea? Seems like a rather big one right there. I remember the Jews feeling like his candidacy was severely threatened by this obvious failure.
“Why would God send his one and only son to take the punishment for your sin and for mine? Because he loves you.”
Yeah, I don’t want that kind of creepy love. Besides, if Jesus rose again, then he never really sacrificed anything more than a weekend of being beaten like a dog, all for his/his dad’s amusement. And with all that fucked up love, the deal is that if you don’t accept this pathetic charity, this very act merits your eternity in that lake of fire God so lovingly crafted for us. Man, with a friend like that, who needs enemies?
