Category Archives: religious news

political news, religious news

Tim Dunn: scary dude

Tim Dunn has taken front-and-center stage as the most frightening political operative at work in Texas.

Why say such a thing? Well, the Texas Tribune reports that a former Texas House speaker, Joe Straus, has confirmed that Dunn — who runs Empower Texans, told him that “only Christians” should hold leadership positions in the Legislature.

Straus is Jewish. So I am presuming that Dunn either (a) didn’t know that when he said it to the speaker or (b) knew it and didn’t give a sh**. I’m guessing it was the latter.

Empower Texans is the far right-wing political action committee that works tirelessly against Republicans who aren’t conservative enough to suit the group’s taste. Dunn is a Midland oil executive who believes that Christianity is the only religion on Earth that is worth a damn.

According to the Tribune: But Dunn reportedly demanded that Straus replace “a significant number” of his committee chairs with tea party-aligned lawmakers backed by Dunn’s political advocacy group, Empower Texans. After Straus rebuffed the demand, the two began to talk about social policy, at which point Dunn allegedly said he believed only Christians should hold leadership posts. “It was a pretty unsatisfactory meeting,” Straus said Thursday. “We never met again.”

Ya think?

Joe Straus: Tim Dunn said only Christians should be in leadership | The Texas Tribune

Let me remind Dunn and others of his ilk of something the founders wrote into the Constitution. Article VI states that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

What about that statement does that dimwit not get?

political news, religious news

He can’t cite a single verse? What?

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The presumed Republican Party presidential nominee claims to be a devout Christian.

I mean, he says he has “many Bibles” strewn throughout his houses in Florida, New Jersey and … Timbuktu.

Now he’s signing Bibles and selling them for 60 bucks a throw. For what purpose? To raise money to pay legal bills accumulated as he defends himself against multiple felony charges contained in four criminal indictments.

He’s a phony and a fraud, says Mitt Romney among others. Here’s how one can make that presumption.’

When reporters have asked him to cite a “favorite verse or two” from the Bible, the former Bible-thumper in Chief can’t do it. He won’t do it. He says it’s “too personal” to cite a single favorite verse. A reporter once asked him whether he prefers the Old or the New Testament. He answered: “Oh, let me think. They’re equal.”

He is without question, debate or any discussion needed the most un-religious and immoral individual ever to hold the office of POTUS. To think he wants it back simply sends chills throughout my old man’s body.

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Here is a brief video that shows what I am talking about. Spoiler alert: It is admittedly compiled by someone who opposes this individual’s claim of piety.

Donald Trump Can’t/Won’t Name His Favorite Bible Verse (youtube.com)

political news, religious news

No … God didn’t do this!

Of all the histrionics I have heard about why the MAGA crowd is so in love with the former POTUS who wants to return to office, only one proclamation actually offends me.

It goes like this: It was God’s will that put him in the office and God wants him to return.

Let us ponder that for a moment, or maybe two.

When you rely on the Almighty to justify your earthly political beliefs, you immediately run into serious trouble. Where in the world does it say that God looks the other way at someone breaking his sacred vow of fidelity to his wife? Don’t the evangelicals who back the former POTUS stand firm on the biblical view that cheating on one’s spouse is a sin worthy of high scorn?

Moreover, where does the Good Book allow for someone to on one side of his mouth proclaim to be someone of deep faith and then declare with the other side of his pie hole that he has never sought forgiveness for any sin he has committed?

Citing Scripture is a dangerous gambit. God also must have decreed that Joe Biden be elected president in 2020. That’s why he’s there now, in the office, making decisions on our behalf!

Those of us out here in Voter Land who also worship God understand the teaching laid out in the Bible far more than the guy who pretends to be faithful.

A critic of this blog ID’s himself (I presume it’s a guy) as Psalm 109:8. I looked that passage up. I says: “Let his years be few; let someone else take his position.” He believes President Biden should lose his job because the Bible suggests as much. Such devotion to Scripture. You know what the next verse says? “Let his children be fatherless; let his wife become a widow.” 

You want a reason to take great offense at some phony notion that God intended for the former Idiot in Chief to be elected? That is why one should never mix religion with politics.

political news, religious news

Perverts preaching Christian doctrine

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Jesus Christ would be appalled at what passes these days for teaching in his name.

There. I said out loud what has been gnawing at me for decades.

OK, I have to acknowledge that as a Christian, I must assume that Jesus knows what is happening. After all, the son of God, is … well, God, right? So he knows.

This notion of Christian nationalism, though, is beginning to bother me in the extreme. It presumes the nation’s founders created a nation steeped in Christian teaching, that the nation adheres to Christianity and that it ignores or dismisses the faith of others who happen to be devoted to a deity other than Jesus Christ.

I have read the New Testament since, oh, I was a little boy. That is more than 70 years! I don’t profess to know what every chapter and verse says. But I have learned that I am entitled to interpret it as narrowly or broadly as I choose.

On most matters, I take a broad view of what the Bible tells us.

These so-called Christian nationalists also seem to take an overly broad view of what Jesus taught us while he walked the Earth. He said his way was the only way to heaven. I get that part. What I cannot swallow is the notion of condemning others who do not follow Jesus’s teaching. That is what I hear the Christian nationalists doing.

Is that in keeping with what Jesus taught the world? No. It isn’t. Those who purport that it is have perverted the holy word to a level I do not — and cannot — recognize.

They inject their version of Christianity into our secular politics where, in my ever-so-humble view, it does not belong. I believe strongly that religion belongs exclusively in houses of worship, not on street corners or in campaign rallies.

medical news, national news, religious news

Court goes way beyond what is decent

The Alabama supreme court has issued a ruling that is going to reverberate all over the nation, as it endangers a medical practice that allows couples to welcome children into this deeply troubled world.

The court has ruled that embryos are “children,” and that the destruction of embryos that are not implanted into women’s bodies via in vitro fertilization theoretically could be construed as “murder.”

This despicable ruling is a nod by the court to the Christian nationalist movement in Alabama and it well could be — and should be — challenged as violating the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

This one hits many millions of Americans right where they live. Indeed, a member of my family gave birth some years ago to twins after she and her husband decided to seek an IVF procedure. Had the court ruling issued in Alabama had been in force in the state where they live, this couple could not have welcomed their son and daughter into the world.

The First Amendment declares that Congress must not enact any law that establishes a state religion. The Alabama high court has thumbed its nose at the amendment and declared that if Christian nationalists want to declare embryos to be children, then that’s all right. Let ’em have their say, the court has ruled.

This is crap. No, it’s worse than that. It is an evil intrusion into a couple’s most delicate decision-making process.

national news, political news, religious news

We are a ‘secular government,’ dammit!

I keep hearing about how U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson cloaks himself in the New Testament, about how he is pushing the doctrine of “Christian nationalism.”

Sigh … I want to remind the speaker and those who adhere to his reported view of how government should function of this irrefutable fact: You won’t find the word “God” anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. Why is that? Because the men who wrote it consciously avoided using such language because they had fled religious oppression in Europe. They wrote a secular document that establishes that human beings should determine our laws and that they should not be influenced by a specific religion. Yes, I am talking about Christianity. The founders established in Article VI that there must be “no religious test” to determine who should run for public office. The First Amendment to the Constitution lays out a number of civil liberties that deserve protection from government interference; the first one of them is religion, as the amendment declares that “Congress shall make no law” that establishes a state religion. Speaker Johnson needs to put a sock in his proclamation of faith. It is admirable that he is a man of strong faith. That is as far he should go, and he must end this rhetoric that attaches references to God to legislation enacted by fallible men and women.
religious news

Why object to ‘happy holiday’?

Quiz time, y’all: Who among us really objects to retail employees wishing their customers a “happy holiday” rather than “Merry Christmas”?

At the risk of generalizing, I submit that those who object are either: close-minded, ignorant of those around them, also ignorant of the “religious liberty” clause in the Constitution, just plain bigoted.

I never, ever have objected to receiving a “happy holidays” wish from a retailer. I also am a Christian who celebrates Christmas fully, relishing the commercial aspect as well as the religious significance of the holiday.

I also recognize that my religious orientation is far from the only one being observed by my neighbors, or even my friends. I live in a community with a significant Muslim population. I see women with hijabs on their heads daily; I also presume the men who accompany them also are of the Muslim faith.

Why wish someone a Merry Christmas who doesn’t observe the holiday? A “happy holiday” would suffice. Why, they likely would smile back and wish the same for the retail employee.

Donald Trump once stupidly asserted that if he were elected POTUS that he would “make” businesses wish customers a “Merry Christmas.” Of course, the president has no authority to issue such an order. But … it played well among the MAGA base that helped elect their moronic leader to office in 2016.

The simple act of wishing people a happy holiday is a recognition of the pluralistic society in which we live. It should offend no one — not a single patriotic American — even a little bit to hear it.

I submit the pluralism plays a huge part in “making America great.”

religious news

GOP set to impose religion in public schools

Pass the Pepto … because my gut is starting to churn over a highly contentious issue making its way out of the Texas Legislature.

The state Senate has approved a bill that would require public schools in Texas to display the Ten Commandments.

Oh, boy! Here we go.

It’s headed to the House, with its own Republican majority. Any bets on whether it ends up on GOP Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk and on whether Abbott will sign it into law? I didn’t think so.

Why is issue so troublesome for me? For starters, I need to stipulate that I have no particularly strong personal objection to the Ten Commandments being displayed in public schools. The commandments, let us remember, are chronicled in the Old Testament, which tells of the instruction Moses received from the Almighty.

That’s out of the way.

However … the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution stipulates several civil liberties. The first of them declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion … ” Hmm. What does that mean, precisely?

It means, as I read it, that Congress’ prohibition is exclusive to that body. Meaning that Congress can’t enact a law. Does that also preclude state legislatures? Maybe I’m splitting hairs. I also understand fully that the founders created a secular government that is supposed to be free from religion.

Does it preclude religious influence? No, not that I can tell.

The Ten Commandments clearly are a religious statement, given to us by God Almighty. Public schools are government entities, paid for with taxpayer funds, some of which come from individuals and families that might object to any element of religion being installed in public school system. Is it fair to them to expose them to a statement they could find objectionable? No, which is what the founders realized when they created a secular Constitution.

I am not going to mount a protest if the Legislature sends this bill to Abbott’s desk and Abbott signs it.

I just fear we are about to head down that proverbial slippery slope.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

religious news

This isn’t very biblical

A social media acquaintance posted something I want to share here, and then I’ll offer a brief comment.

It comes from the New Testament:

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men … but when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen.” ~ Matthew 6:5

My friend posted the message along with a picture of Joel Osteen standing before an enormous crowd in the “church” he converted from a Houston sports venue. It’s gawdy and, well, a testament to conspicuous consumption.

It ain’t my kinda house of worship.

I thought Jesus had it right when he instructed us to pray in privately. This sort of glam-worship is a major turnoff … at least it is to me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, religious news

Protecting all civil liberties

“Well, the radical left believes that the freedom of religion is the freedom from religion. But it’s nothing the American founders ever thought of or generations of Americans fought to defend.”

The comment here is attributed to former Vice President Mike Pence, as if that’s any surprise.

I want to take a brief moment to challenge the ex-VPOTUS’s assertion.

When I took my oath upon being inducted into the U.S. Army in 1968, I presumed in the moment that I was going to protect the U.S. Constitution. That means all of the civil liberties enshrined in the document. One of those liberties includes the First Amendment’s protection against the government imposing a state religion.

Pence to revisit religious freedom act – High Plains Blogger (wordpress.com)

The amendment does in fact guarantee citizens the right to avoid religion if that is their choice. It isn’t mine, but I have no right to presume that every American should follow my lead. They are free to worship whatever or not worship any religious deity.

Are we clear? Good!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com