Category Archives: religious news

religious news

Christian nationalism? Ugh!

Christian nationalism is clawing its way back onto the political stage. If you’ll pardon my seeming hysteria, but … this notion frightens me.

Why? Well, the United States of America — despite the lies put forward by Christian nationalists — is not a Christian nation.

I have looked everywhere throughout the U.S. Constitution for the words “Jesus Christ,” or “Christian,” or “Chistianity.” I’ll be deep-friend and slathered in butter, but I cannot find any of those terms. Nowhere. The Constitution does not mention any of them. Not one time!

Why do you suppose that’s the case? It is because the nation’s founders were descended directly from those in Europe who fled religious persecution. They also fled governments that demanded that they worship a certain way.

Let’s also stipulate for the umpteenth time that the First Amendment to the Constitution declares that “Congress shall make no law” that establishes a state religion. Got it? Good!

Not everyone gets it, though. Take the recent blathering of the QAnon queen herself, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who said that she is a “nationalist” and also a “Christian.” Therefore, she said, “I am a Christian nationalist.”

She’s also stupidly misrepresenting the oath she took when she entered Congress in January 2021. The oath does not specify allegiance to a deity, let alone a Christian deity.

We must keep a watchful eye on Christian nationalists. They are a frightening bunch.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

religious news

Church and state are separate … period!

Lauren Boebert must believe she knows something that’s lost on practically every American alive today, given that the nation’s founders created a government more than two centuries ago, long before any of us were around.

The Colorado Republican congresswoman made a patently preposterous assertion recently. She said: “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it. I am tired of this separation-of-church-and-state junk.”

Well …

She made the comment at a church service. Imagine that, eh?

Let me spell out what I believe the founders intended. They intended to create a secular governing document, one that does not answer to the dictates of spiritual teaching. The First Amendment, for example, contains several civil liberties the government protects. The first one mentioned — and this is important — deals with religion.

The amendment declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … ” I want to call attention to the fact that the founders thought enough of that clause to make it the first one mentioned in the First Amendment to the nation’s government document.

Boebert’s ignorant statement about “separation-of-church-and-state junk” reminds me of a mantra a former Amarillo Globe-News colleague of mine used to recite. He kept insisting that since the Constitution doesn’t mention church-state separation specifically that it doesn’t really exist. I had to remind him that the courts have held over the course of two centuries that the First Amendment’s meaning intends to keep the church out of government’s business. Just because the Constitution doesn’t declare in so many words that the church cannot mingle in state business doesn’t make it less true.

So it is with nimrods such as Lauren Boebert, who in her brief time in Congress has managed to stand out as a spokeswoman for some truly wacky notions.

I tend to interpret the Constitution the same way I interpret my Bible, in that I am inclined to take a broad, expansive view of what both documents mean.

It’s my right to do so. The Constitution speaks clearly to it in that First Amendment.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

religious news

Public policy = taxation

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Here’s a thought I want to share: If religious organizations are going to bully public officials into following certain policy positions, then they need to be taxed liked any other business.

The San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese has declared its intention to deny House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — a devout Catholic — communion because of her pro-choice stance on abortion.

Hold on!

Pelosi’s position on abortion is well-known and has been reported on since before she became a member of Congress. The SF archdiocese, though, has sniffed out an opportunity to make some extra hay over the issue because of that draft Supreme Court opinion that suggests the court is set to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion decision.

Speaker Pelosi shouldn’t be denied a sacred religious sacrament because of a public policy dispute she might have with the leaders of the church of which she has been a lifelong member.

I should point out, too, that members of Congress, as do virtually members of the federal government, take oaths of loyalty to the Constitution, not to the Bible or any other holy book. The last time I checked, which wasn’t long ago, I determined for the umpteenth time that the Constitution is a secular document.

The Church is treading on a slippery and dangerous slope by denying the speaker the opportunity to partake in holy communion.

But if the Church is allowed to get away with this kind of bullying, then there needs to be a serious debate and a decision on requiring religious organizations to share in the tax burden that falls on the rest of us.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

religious news

First Amendment revisited

Let’s take a quick second look at the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in light of a decision the Supreme Court is likely to deliver about a former high school football coach who lost his job because he wanted to pray on the field after games.

Joe Kennedy, a former coach at Bremerton (Wash.) High School, has seen this case make all the way to the top of the judicial food chain.  His prayers drew criticism from those who said it violated the Constitution’s ban on state-sanctioned religion.

OK, back to the amendment. It sets four liberties for protection; it calls for a free press, freedom to assemble peaceably, to petition the government for gripes … and it has a religion clause.

It says, specifically, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … ”

The framers set the religion matter first among those liberties. Why? Because their direct forebears had fled Europe’s religious mandate. They created a secular state in the New World. The other provisions came secondary to the religious one.

It does trouble me, therefore, that someone would complain about a coach praying on the field, which is his right as a U.S. citizen. The athletes who joined him in prayer? They weren’t forced to do it. The coach didn’t threaten them with losing their playing time if they decided against praying.

Common sense would seem to dictate that the young athletes were free to do what they felt like doing. Common sense also tells me the framers had it right when they lined out the prohibition against establishing a state religion as the first civil liberty to be protected.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

religious news

Let the coach pray

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This is one of those issues that makes my public-policy heartburn flare up, so here goes a shot at trying to make sense of something.

Joseph Kennedy was a football coach at Bremerton (Wash.) High School. He once knelt in prayer at the 50-yard line, thanking the Almighty for keeping the players safe. A few players then joined him, voluntarily. The players and the coach would pray after games.

Then word got out that he was doing it. News spread around the school district. I guess someone took issue with it, contending it violated the First Amendment prohibition against Congress establishing a state religion.

Now the case is going to the U.S. Supreme Court.

What a crock!

I do not understand why this case even is being discussed. The coach lost his job over his praying on the field. He moved to Florida.

“It seems so simple to me: It’s a guy taking a knee by himself on the 50-yard-line, which to me doesn’t seem like it needs a rocket scientist or a Supreme Court justice to figure out,” he told CBS News. “I didn’t want to cause any waves, and the thing I wanted to do was coach football and thank God after the game.”

Then we have this response: “When a coach uses the power of his job to be in a place and have access to students at a time when they’re expected to encircle him and come to him, that’s an abuse of that power and a violation of the Constitution,” Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told CBS News’ Jan Crawford. “Religious freedom is not the right to impose your religion on others. We all need to have it, so that’s why the free exercise and establishment clause work together to protect religious freedom for all of us.”

Imposing religion? Wow!

After losing his job for praying on the field, ex-high school football coach Joe Kennedy brings case to Supreme Court – CBS News

As I understand it, the coach didn’t demand players pray with him; it was strictly voluntary. Nor do I believe he preached New Testament Gospel lessons. Which makes me wonder if Jewish, Buddhist or Muslim students could pray to “God” in the same fashion as their Christian teammates.

There is no “sanctioning” of a religion occurring in these prayers. Is there?

Well, the SCOTUS is going to hear the case. My hunch is that the court’s 6-3 super-conservative-majority is going to find that Coach Kennedy violated no constitutional prohibition.

I am OK with that. Let the coach pray.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

religious news

Easter greetings reveal plenty

Make no mistake about it: The differences between Joe Biden and the man he succeeded as president of the United States were on full display in the respective Easter greetings the two men sent out today.

President Biden’s message was full of hope, given the nature of the Christian holiday, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. “As we reflect today on Christ’s Resurrection, we are reminded that with faith, hope, and love — even death can be defeated,” the president tweeted. “From our family to yours, we wish you hope, health, joy, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding. Happy Easter and may God bless and keep you.”

Biden and Trump release very different Easter messages (msn.com)

Then came this from Donald J. Trump, who used his Easter message to launch an attack on New York Attorney General Letitia James: “May she remain healthy despite the fact that she will continue to drive business out of New York while at the same time keeping crime, death, and destruction in New York!” reads a message from Trump’s Save America political action committee, which also calls James a “racist.”

Wow! Enough said.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

religious news

Yes, tax churches too

Annette Ferrell is a Dallas resident who, in a letter to the Dallas Morning News, posed a question that I believe I am prepared to answer.

She wrote this in today’s newspaper: Am I the only one shocked that churches recommend political candidates? Are pastors announcing or suggesting which candidate to support to their flock? Am I mistaken that our nation was built on religious freedom from domination of any religion? Is it time to tax the churches?

Let’s see. OK, my answer is that, yes, it is time to tax churches the way we tax other institutions.

The Constitution declares only that Congress shall make no law that establishes a state religion. Beyond that, the nation’s government document is virtually silent on the issue of religion, although it does declare in Article VI that there should be “no religious test” demanded of political candidates. I suppose, though, that taxing authorities have deemed houses of worship to be untouchable, that they shouldn’t be taxed because they — ostensibly, at least — are not involved in the political process.

Well, many of them damn sure are involved.

Here’s an example I want to share briefly about something I witnessed during my first year in Texas. I attended a political rally in the spring of 1984 — in a church in Beaumont. It featured a stemwinder of a speech from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Baptist preacher who that year was running for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Jackson had the place rockin’ with his rhetoric. It was, from a political standpoint, one of the most electrifying events I’ve ever witnessed.

The setting, though, did give me pause. That it occurred in a church troubled me at the time.

If we fast-forward to the present day, we see churches becoming involved in the election of Republican candidates for high office. Preachers have developed clever ways of dancing around their political activity. Their involvement is unmistakable.

If politicians must make their pitches in houses of worship, then the government has every right to assess tax liabilities on those places.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

religious news

No communion for POTUS?

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By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The Bible is God’s infallible word, yes?

So, with that I want to venture briefly into some dangerous rhetorical territory. Some Catholic bishops want to deny President and Mrs. Biden communion because of their views on abortion.

Catholic Church doctrine opposes abortion. Period. It is not a debatable point. President Biden believes women deserve to have the right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy, which is against church doctrine. Some bishops want to deny serving him communion at Mass. Given that the first couple attends church regularly, well … that’s a big deal.

My quandary is this: The Bible I have read since I was a little boy does not set any sin above all others. Thus, abortion is no more serious a sin than, say, coveting someone else’s property or engaging in sloth.

How, then, do bishops justify weaponizing a particular sin by denying a politician communion which in effect declares that abortion is more punishable than any other sin? Is that in keeping with Biblical teaching?

religious news

Evangelical leaders: lukewarm to man of faith

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A story I read in the newspaper this morning offered a curiously ironic tale of how a key political demographic group is awaiting the arrival of a new president of the United States.

The evangelical Christian movement — with leaders such as Dallas preacher Robert Jeffress, Franklin Graham, Tony Perkins — is giving Joe Biden a wait-and-see welcome as he prepares to become president of the United States.

The irony? Joe Biden is a man of deep and abiding faith in God and in Jesus Christ. The man he is replacing as president of the United States has what one could say generously has a flimsy relationship with Scripture. Yet the evangelical movement clung furiously to the notion of Donald Trump getting re-elected to a second term.

Why the love affair with The Donald? It’s purely political. He appointed judges who adhered to evangelicals’ world view. They are anti-choice on abortion; they favor prayer in public schools; they rule consistently against gay Americans’ rights. What does Donald Trump think about all of that? No one can say with any degree of certainty that he endorses any of it. He just makes the correct political appointments.

They’re getting now a man who attends church daily. He prays to God. His faith has held him up as he has battled unspeakable personal tragedy — such as burying his wife and infant daughter and then his grown son many years later.

President-elect Biden’s personal faith journey isn’t enough to persuade many faith leaders to back him with anything approaching the zeal they demonstrated for a guy who has only a passing acquaintance with faith and whose personal behavior betrays virtually every tenet found in both the Old and New testaments of the Good Book.

The headline in today’s Dallas Morning News declared that the “religious right” is “wary of Biden but not hostile.”

The irony of the evangelicals’ tepid response to the election of a man of faith, though, still screams loudly at me.

religious news

Falwell Jr. sues Liberty U … for defamation? Eh?

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Jerry Falwell Jr. is fighting back against the university his late father founded.

Someone will have to explain to me how this should play out.

Falwell once served as president of Liberty University, the school that his dad, Jerry Falwell Sr., founded. Junior got himself into a series of scandals and ethical difficulties, culminating in a picture showing him snuggling with a woman who is not his wife … with his pants unzipped.

Oh, we also have reports of his wife engaging in a sexual relationship with a pool guy who alleges that Junior actually watched the two of them taking part in naughty behavior. To think, then, that Falwell Sr. founded an organization called the Moral Majority.

Falwell now says the university defamed him and that he was dismissed unjustly from his post as head of the nation’s largest Christian institution of higher learning.

I am no fan of Falwell Jr., or his father for that matter. So I am not looking at this lawsuit story with a dispassionate set of eyes. I acknowledge my bias. Still, it seems to me — looking at this from some distance — that Falwell Jr. brought all of this trouble on himself with his rather strange behavior.