Unsettled Christianity

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December 19th, 2012

Mad Props to the Rabbi – “Bryan Fischer…is not a religious man” @BryanJFischer @theird

“The fact is that is the ultimate statement of heresy,” Rabbi Shmuley Boteach said on CNN. “This is not a religious man.”

“Let’s be clear,” Boteach said. “Not only is he [Bryan Fischer] wrong that we kicked God out of our lives, the United States and the American people are the most righteous people in the world.” (not true, JW)

“We have spent endless blood and treasure to defend complete strangers, women from being beaten up by the Taliban. Our soldiers died for those people. God is one our money. We give more charity than any nation on earth. We deserve better. I am tired of people maligning the American people and saying we deserve to suffer, we’ve kicked God out. This is the most religious country in the Western world.” (true, JW)

Not only is the Rabbi correct (mostly, not going to agree with the “most righteous people in the world” bit), but as this comes from a Rabbi, this will particularly stink Huckabee and Fischer.

Bryan Fischer Is Proof That Fundi Xtian Religion Causes Psychosis (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
A Serious Question From Religious Right Caveman Bryan Fischer (littlegreenfootballs.com)
AFA’s Bryan Fischer Says Exorcism Can Cure Homosexuality: VIDEO (towleroad.com)
Heartless ‘Religious’ Bastards of the Day: Mike Huckabee and Bryan Fischer (littlegreenfootballs.com)

Tags: american family association, bryan fischer, Mike Huckabee, Newtown, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
Posted in Religion and Politics | 1 Comment »

December 14th, 2012

The Right Wing God is a Psychopath – God just shrugged at #Sandyhook

According to Bryan Fischer, God didn’t want to save the children because he wasn’t wanted in the public schools.

“Here’s the bottom line — God is not going to go where is not wanted,” he said on his radio show today. “We kicked God out of our public school system. I think God would say to us, hey, I would be glad to protect your children but you gotta invite me back into your world first. I’m not going to go where I’m not wanted. I am a gentleman…. Back when we had prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments in schools, we did not need guns.”

Go head… serve this god if you want…

Tags: Adam Lanza, american family association, bryan fischer, newton, Ryan Lanza, Sandy Hook
Posted in Religion and Politics | 3 Comments »

August 8th, 2012

Why is a man who advocates kidnapping children still on the radio?

In two separate tweets last night, he called for an “Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households.”

Wow…. I don’t understand this guy held up as a Christian.

This is sad…

Tags: american family association, bryan fischer
Posted in Religion and Politics | No Comments »

August 14th, 2011

Bryan Fischer for Secretary of Defense

Our military strength is a function of our spiritual strength. We can have the strongest and mightiest military in the world in terms of guns and ammunition and tanks and soldiers, but if we are not spiritually strong as a people, we can be defeated, we can and will suffer defeat. So it is absolutely critical for us who care about this nation, who care about the United States, to say “look, we have got to be spiritually strong as a people if we are going to be militarily strong.”

That’s why it is so important that we have in the military men of faith, men of Christian faith, who are in touch with God and with the spirit of God. Because when they come together to formulate battle plans, their minds are going to be quickened by the Holy Spirit of God and under his nudgings, his promptings, they’re going to be able to develop battle plans that are going to lead to victory on the field of conflict.

Continue reading on Examiner.com here

Really?

Tags: american family association, bryan fischer
Posted in Religion and Politics | 2 Comments »

July 18th, 2011

Who would be excluded in a Dominionist-ru(i)n(ed) America

“The god of Judaism is the devil. The Jew will not be recognized by God as one of His chosen people until he abandons his demonic religion and returns to the faith of his fathers–the faith which embraces Jesus Christ and His Gospel.” David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1984), p. 127.

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association claims:

“Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment.”(Blog post of23 March 2011)

Pat Roberston extends such to fellow Christians:

“You say you’re supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.” — Pat Robertson, The 700 Club, January 14, 1991

No Jews. No Muslims. No Presbyterians, Catholics, Methodists or Episcoplians? Also, when you get down to it, no Baptists (i.e., cessationists) either.

Read Fr. Steve’s thoughts on this.

The Threat From Within: Dominionists Taking Over America (k1nsey6.wordpress.com)
Alan Keyes and the Oak Initiative (barthsnotes.wordpress.com)

Tags: american family association, bryan fischer, David Chilton, pat robertson
Posted in Religion and Politics | 2 Comments »

November 24th, 2010

Bryan Fischer – Lower the Age of Consent and try 12 year olds for the death penalty.

“We should roll back secondary education to the point where our students are graduating from high school by age 16. We can teach them everything they need to learn at the secondary level by then, and prepare them for the next stage in life, which could be further education, apprenticeship, or vocational education. We should expect them to be launching into some kind of career trajectory by the time they are 16.

“There are implications in all of this for the institution of marriage. By idolizing adolescence, we have artificially prolonged the age at which people enter in marriage. The average is now, according to 2007 figures, about 27.5 years for men and 25.6 for women. But the young men and women whom God has created become sexually mature by their mid-teens. The bodies that God has created are ready for sexual intimacy by the time they are 16. Unless God has made a mistake in the way he has designed our sexuality, then we need to rethink our whole understanding of the optimum age for entering into marriage.” – American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer, saying he agrees with Iranian president Mahmoud Admadinejad and “the Jews” and that children should be ready to marry by age 16. Fischer also says that children as young as 12 should be tried as adults and subject to the death penalty.

(Via – Right Wing Watch)

I guess I understand this. I am not going to tell you what I really hear when I read something like this, I mean, about lowering the age of consent. But, it is really disturbing when I hear that children as young as twelve should be tried for the death penalty.

And, as you might suspect, I am completely against the death penalty.

Michael B. Keegan: Bryan Fischer, Tony Perkins, and the Hate Agenda (huffingtonpost.com)

Tags: american family association, bryan fischer
Posted in Religion and Politics | 5 Comments »

October 4th, 2010

Gary Glenn, AFA Takes on Christian-ity over Homosexual Bullying in Michigan

I haven’t found my voice here – not yet.

Regardless of how you feel about homosexuality, we must still speak openly to human dignity, to humanity, and to person-hood. There is little in atheism – that I see – which speaks to these things as centerpieces of the human experience. It is through this theology – and for me, exclusively Christian Theology – which highlights humanity as the centerpiece of God’s Creation.

Christian’s blog notes…

If you think this isn’t a problem, just look at the recent news from this week alone:

Asher Brown, a 13-year-old boy from Houston, was fed up with being called “different names for being homosexual” for two years and shot himself.

Seth Walsh, a 13-year-old boy from Tehachapi, Calif. died Tuesday after hanging himself from a tree in his backyard. He was tormented by students for being gay.

And, in the most publicized story, Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old student at Rutgers University in New Jersey jumped off a bridge to his death after his roommate secretly recorded him having sex with a man and streamed it live on the internet.

Also this week we heard the story of 11-year-old Tyler Wilson from Ohio whose arm was broken by bullies that don’t like Tyler being a cheerleader.

This is in response in the AFA’s announcement of their opposition to the Bullying Bill in Michigan. Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association responds. I would urge you to read Christian’s post and Gary’s response. Be fair, understanding. Chime in if you can. Remember human dignity. Remember Christian love, justice and fairness.

Also, check out this opinion piece by Jonathan Capehart on the rash of suicides by gay youth this past month.

Friends, for a particular reason, this issue is close to my heart.

Here is another view on why this is a Theological Issue.

By the way, October is National Bullying Prevention Month.

Tyler Clementi’s Suicide Resonates On Campus, Beyond (huffingtonpost.com)
A Plea for Empathy (laist.com)

Tags: american family association, Christian Salafia, Gary Glenn, Jonathan Capehart, suicide
Posted in Homosexuality | 21 Comments »

May 29th, 2010

Should we kill Promiscuous People?

You remember the story in the Old Testament about Phineas? Some are advocating making him an example for today:

On his radio program last Friday, Fischer read a passage from Numbers 25 in the Bible — pointed out to him by his wife, he says — in which a man named Phineas kills an amorous man and woman of differing tribes at a time when “the nation had lapsed into rampant sexual immorality. “I don’t know if that sounds familiar to you — it certainly does to me — and Phineas … did something very decisive,” Fischer said. Phineas “found an Israelite in flagrante with a Philistine woman and he ran them both through with a spear, pinned them both to the ground inside their tent, ran his spear through both of them, right into the ground,” Fischer said. “And that shook up the nation, it got their attention and they transformed … they turned from that kind of behavior and renewed their commitment to follow God.”

That doesn’t seem extreme to Fischer. He declared that “God is obviously looking for more Phineases in our day.” Phineas, he added, “was able to turn back the wrath of God from his people, from his nation. Fischer added his hope that “each one of us be a Phineas in our own world and in our own generation.” (from here).

So, do you think God is looking for us to restore the theocracy in which we punish sin with the death penalty? Does God want you to be the next Phineas where you begin to kill those people who are living in sin? If Bryan can talk the talk, why doesn’t he walk the walk?

Now, because when you challenge people like Fischer, people seem to think that you are challenging the fact that sexual immorality isn’t sin – Yes, sexual immorality is sin, and yes you have to repent from it, but no I don’t think that under the NT we are to kill those people who commit this sin or any other sin.

Oh, and read the passage – it is not so much about sexual immorality as about preserving the purity of Israel.

Tags: american family association, bryan fischer, sexual immorality
Posted in Society and Religion | 5 Comments »

May 10th, 2010

AFA comes out swinging at Elena Kagan

From a blog post by Byran Fischer of the AFA,

Elena Kagan, if nominated today, will be forced to face the press. She cannot be kept closeted not only from the public but from the inquiring minds of the media. They have a solemn responsibility to do one thing: ask her directly and openly and in front of the American people: Are you a lesbian?

A refusal to answer is a tacit admission of guilt. But she may not be able publicly to deny she’s a lesbian, likely because it’s true. She may not be able to admit it either, because it could cost her a Supreme Court post. So she’s likely to refuse to answer the question at all, and the only plausible explanation for her evasion would be because rumors of her lesbianism aren’t rumors at all but based in fact.

…

It’s time we got over the myth that what a public servant does in his private life is of no consequence. We cannot afford to have another sexually abnormal individual in a position of important civic responsibility, especially when that individual could become one of nine votes in an out of control oligarchy that constantly usurps constitutional prerogatives to unethically and illegally legislate for 300 million Americans.

The stakes are too high. Social conservatives must rise up as one and say no lesbian is qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. Will they?

I just don’t get this. I really don’t. Sin is sin, but does a lifestyle choice which is within the bounds of the laws of this country count as a crime which keeps someone from being a public servant? If that is the case, then I except 90% of the American political seats to be vacant in the morning.

I have to wonder if this comes from her appearance?

This is not a theocracy, not really a democracy for that matter.

Tags: american family association, Elena Kagan, supreme court
Posted in Religion and Politics | 16 Comments »

January 13th, 2010

Hath No Man Biblical Literacy?

Some time ago, apparently to satisfy an intellectual masochistic streak, I subscribed to the e-mail newsletter of the American Family Association. This evening, I received a rather spectacular gem of a press release.

From Coram Deo Studios and Lionsgate comes No Greater Love, a feature film about a broken marriage, a sovereign God and a life-changing love.

(snip)

No Greater Love is a beautiful depiction of how loving God and loving others can bring the unlovable to Christ. In this film the church reaches out in love and with truthful correction. It’s a visible reminder that God is in control and His love is compelling.

>Sigh of unsurprised amusement<

The AFA and Coram Deo are clearly oblivious as to the source of their title. You all know the verse:

“Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

The type of love referenced in the verse is far from matrimonial; instead, the ‘greater love’ is the kind of literal sacrificial love exhibited by God when he played “I’ll kill mine if you’ll kill yours” with Abraham.

Being untrue to source material is nothing new for Hollywood films, but for an ostensibly Christian studio to release a Christian film and display such an obvious disregard for the semiotics of their title is…par for the course when it comes to “Christian” films.

Tags: AFA, american family association, Coram Deo, etymology, film, love, movie
Posted in Semiotics, Society and Religion | 7 Comments »

November 10th, 2009

American Family Association: No More Muslims in the U.S. Military

This is stupid:

Of course, most U.S. Muslims don’t shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine. As soon as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their moderates, we’ll go back to allowing them to serve. You tell us who the ones are that we have to worry about, prove you’re right, and Muslims can once again serve. Until that day comes, we simply cannot afford the risk. You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it’s used, and we’ll welcome you back with open arms. This is not Islamophobia, it is Islamo-realism.

Read the rest of this entry »