Baptist preachers go wild!

(Do not, repeat do not, have a mouthful of coffee while watching this video.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Baptist pastors ranted, whooped, and stormed across the pulpit before a cheering crowd last week at a teen camp meeting. 

The event took place April 11 at Middle Tennessee Baptist Church, where the fired-up pastors bellowed gibberish and ran into the crowd, where they slapped hands with the congregation. 

Others chanted like auctioneers, danced jigs, or strutted around in exaggerated fashion, swinging their jackets over their heads.

WTF? 

Okay I admit it, I simply will never understand religion.

Not gonna happen.

Southern Baptists encouraging congregants to marry young to avoid "sexual sin."

Courtesy of The Tennessean:

Southern Baptist Convention leaders know they've lost the culture war on same-sex marriage, but now they're turning their attention inside the church to get congregants to marry younger. 

Convention policy expert Andrew Walker said he can't put a hard number on how young Southern Baptists should marry. But he thinks they should be far and away beating the national median age for first-time marriage. 

The Southern Baptist Convention used to tell couples to wait until they reach financial stability, said Jon Akin, pastor of Fairview Church in Lebanon. "What we've communicated to our young people is finances are more important than sexual sin, and the Bible seems to say the exact opposite of that." 

Now, the denomination is emphasizing practical and theological reasons to marry younger. Marriage helps keep young people from sexual sin in the midst of their sexual maturity, Akin said, and helps them fulfill God's design for men and women as complementary beings.

Akin goes on to say that he is not going to enforce a "hard age ceiling" but he just wants Southern Baptists to get "marryable" sooner.

Whatever in the hell that means.

First let me just say that sex is not a sin.

One more time for those who are a little slow.

Sex is NOT a sin!

And that goes for premarital, post marital, extramarital, gay, furry, BDSM, or any other flavor you might enjoy.

In fact just get rid of that ridiculous "sin" word altogether. It has absolutely no value in conversations among intelligent people. 

The only time sex is wrong is if one, or more, participants are too young, too chemically intoxicated, or too intimidated to legally or ethically provide consent.

Having said that this idea of having young people marry before they have come to terms with their sexuality, and have matured as people, is a recipe for future betrayal of their marriage vows and an increased divorced rate.

I'm sorry but these young people are going to be exposed to all kinds of tantalizing temptations as they go out into the world, and if they are unsure of themselves or unsure of their marriage, they are going to succumb to those temptations. Trust me.

This kind of thinking may have worked back in the 19th Century where the church could cloister its congregants from the outside world and shame them into staying married, but this is the 21st Century and those tactics are no longer viable.

Good news for those Operation American Spring losers. They might be joined by the Southern Baptist losers.

The Operation American Spring supporters.

Courtesy of The Washington Times:  

The Southern Baptist Convention is set to debate and vote on a motion to join an effort to impeach President Obama. 

Former convention 2nd Vice President Wiley Drake entered the motion Tuesday at the Southern Baptists’ annual conference, which is being held in Baltimore. 

Mr. Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., asked the convention to “consider leading us to consider being a part of Operation American Spring seeking the impeachment of the President of the United States.” 

His motion was seconded by a scattering of the more than 4,400 conference registrants during an introduction of new motions by conference members. 

Hello? God is that you?

Apparently this Wiley Drake fellow has had it in for the President since way back in 2008 when he was party to the lawsuit that claimed Obama was not a citizen of the United States and therefore ineligible to be President.

So nice that he has found some fellow lunatics to join with in his hatred of President Obama.

Maybe they can bunk together at the Hotel Thorazine after the nice men in the white coats come to take them away.

Arizona pastor claims birth control "promotes whoredom."

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Arizona Pastor Steven Anderson warned his congregation recently that birth control was not only turn women into “whores,” it was also destroying the country. 

In a sermon posted online this week, the Faithful Word Baptist Church leader explained that contraception was “not something Christians should be practicing,” even though he acknowledged that 99 percent of Christians believed it was acceptable. 

Anderson pointed out that God, in the book of Genesis, had made childbearing painful to punish women for their Original Sin, adding that the husband “shall rule over thee.” 

He argued that feminism had “given women the power” to decide when to have children for themselves, allowing them to have careers and follow other interests. 

“It used to be a young women, she gets married, she has children, and that’s her job,” he lamented. “They literally count my wife as unemployed! She’s not unemployed, she doesn’t want to be employed. I mean, she’s a wife, she’s a mother.”

Yeah, you know whether she wants to be employed or not, if she does not draw a salary then she is in fact unemployed. What a moron!

But Pastor Dumbass was not done showing his ignorance yet.

“Not only does birth control do damage to women, it hurts their body if they’re using the pills. And it also affects their character, causing them to be an idle, tattler, gossip, turning aside after Satan,” he insisted. 

Women would “get into sin” if they were not “busy” raising children, Anderson said.

After mocking actress Annette Funicello for once promoting birth control in the 50's, Anderson followed it up with this little gem.  

“It promotes promiscuity, it promotes whoredom!” he advised, reading from the Bible: “Do not prostitute thy daughter to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom and the land become full of wickedness!” 

“A land can call to whoredom!” he exclaimed. “And the United States today, fits that bill. If anybody has ever fit that bill, it’s the United States of America.”

And that my friends is why you do not take advice about sex, marriage, and relationships from a book that was written when people still considered women property, and did not really understand human reproduction.

I was going to call this guy a caveman, but I really think that would be an insult to cavemen.

Hard to believe that somebody this anti-woman managed to find some poor female to marry him.

"Outreach to Rednecks" program uses gun giveaway to attract Kentucky Baptists back to church.

Courtesy of Americans Against the Tea Party:  

Things sure are tough in Jesusland! Apparently lacking followers, Kentucky Baptist churches are resorting to an interesting new method to win converts: gun giveaways they have dubbed “outreach to rednecks.” 

The Kentucky Baptist Convention is doing exactly what Jesus would want: luring converts by giving them the means to murder others! At their “Second Amendment Celebrations,” churches across the state invite gun lovers everywhere to enjoy a nice, juicy steak and a chance to win fabulous prizes–all of which are capable of sending someone to meet Jesus very efficiently. 

According to Chuck McAlister, a former pastor and Outdoor Channel hunting show host, over 1,600 men made “professions of faith” at about 50 gun giveaway events last year. The hillbilly handouts managed to lure over 500 people out of their homes on a snowy January day to a gun event at Highview Baptist Church. Sixty-one of those men “made decisions to seek salvation,” according to McAlister. According to Paul Chitwood, the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s executive director, “it’s been very effective.”

Once again I have to ask, "Have any of these people ever read the New Testament? Do that not understand the words attributed to Jesus?"

But hey if you can't trust a former pastor and hunting show host about the most effective way to get asses in the pews then who can you trust?

I am beginning to feel badly for the normal everyday Christians who are living their lives trying to be good people, and who keep finding themselves constantly represented in the news by the craziest people in the country.

Southern Baptist Convention calls for firing of Boy Scout leadership in response to lifting of gay youth ban.

Courtesy of MSNBC: 

The Southern Baptist Convention on Wednesday called for the removal of some of the Boy Scouts’ leadership after the organization voted to allow gay youth to join, but did not ask its affiliated churches to pull their sponsorship of Scouting. 

The convention approved the call in a resolution crafted by a committee at the group’s annual meeting in Houston. It comes three weeks after the Boy Scouts of America voted in an historic ballot to allow gay youth to join after the issue of LGBT membership had roiled the youth organization for years. 

 The resolution doesn't name specific Boy Scouts leaders, but noted it believed some in executive and board positions had tried to enact the membership change earlier this year without first getting input from “the full range of the Scouting family” and asked for the BSA to “remove” them. 

Deron Smith, a spokesman for the BSA, responded by email, saying that the organization “has some of the finest volunteer leaders in the world. We are thankful for their tireless commitment to serving the youth of this nation and investing in its future.” 

Allowing openly gay youth in Scouting, according to the Baptists resolution, "has the potential to complicate basic understandings of male friendships, needlessly politicize human sexuality, and heighten sexual tensions within the Boy Scouts."

Hang on a minute, I'm busy basking in the love of Christianity right now.

I'm sorry but every time I read one of these over the top responses to the acceptance of the LGBT community I cannot help but smell desperation and fear. They are terrified that the more groups they have spent thousands of years vilifying become accepted by society, with NO resulting negative affect, the smaller their influence becomes.

By the way since when did the Baptist's get the right to hire and fire over at the BSA?

Assholes!

Indiana Gryphen and the Temple of Baptists.

Today I visited the Anchorage Baptist Temple which served as ground zero for the anti-homosexual fervor that swept through my city this summer as the Anchorage Assembly voted to pass Ordinance 64 which would have provided the same rights for the LGBT community to live and work in Anchorage that everybody inside this monstrous building took for granted.

Of course that was before Prevo's lapdog, and our current sorry excuse for a mayor, Dan Sullivan vetoed it.

This Sunday was a special Sunday at ABT because it was the 38th anniversary of Jerry Prevo's ministry. Yep thirty eight years of putting down homosexuals and begging for handouts. How could I miss it?

The huge parking lot was fairly bulging with cars, and I found myself amazed at just how many people are members of this church. And as you can see for yourself from the picture, the building itself is ginormous!

Inside the building was opulent and I could almost smell the money wafting through the ventilation system. Inside the auditorium itself, I was amazed at the vaulted ceilings, professional lighting, and huge stage that would be the absolute envy of theater companies anywhere in Alaska.

Even the PAC in Anchorage had nothing on this place.

They had four, count them four, large Digi Power 72 cameras placed strategically throughout the auditorium to record and broadcast Prevo's sermon for those Baptists too sick to attend, but perhaps not too sick to write a check.

When I sat down Prevo was just wrapping up his morning service and was oddly enough talking about how nobody thought he would ever amount to anything, and look how famous he had become with all of his accomplishments, delivered as some sort of message on the importance of humility. Yeah I did not get it either.

The 11:00 session started off with a song containing a strong military flavor that invoked images of "soldiers of light" and the "crushing of enemies". It made me wonder if they were confusing Jesus with Rambo?

After that Glenn Clarey took the stage and started the beatification of Pastor Prevo. According to Mr. Clarey Jerry was just barely this side of the "walk on water, make water into wine" guy that I thought this place was built to worship. (One very interesting fact that was mentioned is that, according to a Focus on the Family study, "fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry every month, or 2-3 a day. When I heard that my first thought was, "See these people can be helped".)

Then Mr. Clarey launched into how proud they all are to have a minister like Jerry Prevo who did not abandon his flock and who "bravely" fought against the "homosexual ordinance" this summer. Oh yeah suppressing human rights is heroic indeed!

After that my sensibilities were assaulted with a video homage to Pastor Jerry, which ended with yet another reminder of his "victory over the homosexuals". (They simply could not seem to stop talking about this subject!) This was followed by a standing ovation from the congregation. (Now I know why none of my gay friends wanted to come with me.)

Afterward we were exhorted to give Prevo a "love offering" to show our appreciation for all of his hard work and sacrifice. (You know bashing those gays really works up a sweat.)

When Mr. Clarey finally pried his lips off of Jerry's ass, the stage was taken by a middle aged man, with a powerful voice, who sang a very beautiful song to honor Pastor Prevo called "Thank You". I was actually quite moved, but not for the same reasons as the rest of the crowd.

What the congregation at large may not have been aware of is that the writer of that song, Ray Boltz, just came out of the closet last year and admitted that he was gay. (Damn it! They are everywhere!)

After the song, while still wiping his eyes, Prevo took to the podium, and without a hint of irony, started talking about the recent funeral of George Sullivan (our current mayor's father) and HIS brave stand against the homosexuals. He then followed that up by making the statement "If YOUR pastor did not stand up against this homosexual ordinance last summer, you should fire him!" This was followed by a standing ovation from the mostly middle aged, slightly chunky crowd. (Just how close is that damn exit door anyhow?)

So not only is Jerry Prevo openly promoting hatred toward the gays, he is promoting the punishment of any other Christian minister who does not agree with him. Wow! Now THAT is some set of balls on this guy!

For the meat of his sermon today Prevo chose to preach on, and I kid you not about this, "The Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs". Apparently a story that I have read over a hundred times to thousands of young children is actually a Christian morality play. Who knew?

Anyhow, according to Prevo, the sin that the pigs engaged in was not "building their lives with the right stuff". Now what is the "right stuff" you may ask? Well apparently it is constant church attendance, adherence to the Word of God, and tithing. Yep apparently if you give God protection money, by way of tithes, he will take care of you and provide you with material things like "good wine", "good food", and "prosperity".

If you fail to do that then you will be "blown to hell" by the Wolf/Satan.

I looked around to see if anybody else found this analogy as ridiculous as I did and I did manage to see a few furrowed brows trying to make sense of Prevo's bastardization of a children's story to make a point about morality and giving money to his church. (Well good there are some thinkers in the crowd.)

As he was wrapping things up (and that soft spiritual music started wafting through the speakers) Prevo reminded any visitors that they could come back to the VIP room and he would meet them face to face.

What? You can actually meet and talk to the gay bashing Jerry Prevo face to face if you want? Do I dare?

Are you new here? Of course I was going to stay and meet Pastor Jerry!

In the VIP room there were doughnuts and yet another video extolling the virtues of the Anchorage Baptist Temple and Jerry Prevo, and ending, I kid you not, on his work to suppress gay rights. (I guess that leaves no doubt as to exactly HOW Prevo defines his ministry.)

I shook a few hands and gave my name, my REAL name, to a number of junior pastors who were quite pleasant and very cordial. (Not one of them batted and eye or seemed to recognize me by name, which means I guess even members of ABT don't listen to Eddie Burke's crappy radio show.)

I then noticed Jerry Prevo enter the room and slowly made my way over to him.

After he had greeted a few other newcomers, he turned his attention to me.

Now Prevo's reaction was somewhat different then that of his junior pastors, he DID recognize me. And that was very evident by the look that came over his face. When I gave my real name, he asked me how he knew me, with one suspicious eyebrow raised. I mentioned that I had interviewed him at the Assembly meeting back in August. Oh, he said and followed up with "and what brings you here"?

Now I am not one to be rude to somebody in their home without provocation, and I did not come to start trouble, so I simply said I had come to check out his church and congratulated him on his sermon. (I know, but I was trying to be non-threatening.) Prevo's face, which had appeared a bit troubled, relaxed and he warmly smiled and said "well I hope you will join us again sometime". He then patted me on the shoulder and walked off to greet other new visitors.

As I made the long walk back to my car I thought to myself, I wonder how long before Prevo puts two and two together and realizes who he just talked to, and I wonder how different my reception might be if I take him up on his offer and decide to infiltrate his temple in the future.

Well THAT is an adventure for another time.