I Survived the Christian Right

One day I was enjoying a beer with a friend in a popular pub near my home when I noticed someone who went to my former evangelical church. After I picked myself off the floor due to shock from seeing him in a bar, we greeted each other and I asked if he still attended.

“I finally left last year,” the man said.

“Do you mind me asking why you left?” I asked.

“I got tired of jumping through hoops.”

What an apt way of describing what I also experienced in the majority of the six or seven evangelical churches I attended over the years. Why do some churches make our faith journey into an obstacle course on a field of required religious practices and doctrines? Could legalistic control have something to do with it? Again, there are some admirable exceptions, but as Brennan Manning once said, “the American church accepts grace in theory, but denies it in practice.”1

Evangelical Christians largely conform to a performance-oriented approach to God: Regularly attend church to worship God our way, pray and read the Bible daily, go to a home group, adhere to a particular statement of faith, believe the right dogma and the future return of Christ, be pro-life, dress modestly, don’t drink (or if you do, please don’t do it in front of us), avoid risqué movies, don’t put swear words, sex scenes, or questionable doctrines in your books,2 refrain from producing music on a secular recording label, and whatever you do, don’t vote for a Democrat. And those are the more moderate rules! In summary, avoid contamination by the world, heretics, and liberals and insulate yourself in the squeaky-clean alternate evangelical world we created.

More at: Homebrewed Christianity!

A Globalization of the Culture Wars

On the one hand, religion can stir compassion and generosity, but it can also spark hatred and division. One area in which the divisive element becomes particularly ugly involves the violations of the human rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Last year, for example, a group of American evangelicals flew to Uganda to preach fiery sermons against gays. Their message was that the “gay agenda” aims to abolish traditional marriage and institute a global regime of sexual permissiveness. This rhetoric contributed to the drafting of a draconian law decreeing that anyone convicted of having gay sex will be subject to the minimum punishment of life imprisonment.

More at: Global Post!

Jesus is Ready to Beat the Hell Out of You

The religious right, who commonly refers to a “gay agenda” which supposedly encompasses the LGBT community as trying to “recruit” people into being one of us…has decided to take the recruitment effort to a new level for their own benefit.

It would appear the religious right needs a boost in membership as well as a boost of testosterone and what better way of getting both than kicking some ass?

It looks as though the Bible is not the only thing anti-gay evangelicals are beating today, but according to the following post found on New York Times, they’re literally beating the ‘Hell’ out of each other…

“Hard punches!” he shouted from the sidelines of a martial arts event called Cage Assault. “Finish the fight! To the head! To the head!”

The young man was a member of a fight team at Xtreme Ministries, a small church near Nashville that doubles as a mixed martial arts academy. Mr. Renken, who founded the church and academy, doubles as the team’s coach. The school’s motto is “Where Feet, Fist and Faith Collide.”

Mr. Renken’s ministry is one of a small but growing number of evangelical churches that have embraced mixed martial arts — a sport with a reputation for violence and blood that combines kickboxing, wrestling and other fighting styles — to reach and convert young men, whose church attendance has been persistently low. Mixed martial arts events have drawn millions of television viewers, and one was the top pay-per-view event in 2009.

Recruitment efforts at the churches, which are predominantly white, involve fight night television viewing parties and lecture series that use ultimate fighting to explain how Christ fought for what he believed in. Other ministers go further, hosting or participating in live events.

The goal, these pastors say, is to inject some machismo into their ministries — and into the image of Jesus — in the hope of making Christianity more appealing. “Compassion and love — we agree with all that stuff, too,” said Brandon Beals, 37, the lead pastor at Canyon Creek Church outside of Seattle. “But what led me to find Christ was that Jesus was a fighter.”

So there you have it…the new wave of Macho, anti-gay evangelical Christians…coming to a ultimate fighting match near you!

(Soy) Milk Does a ‘Gay’ Body Good?

The anti-gay evangelicals get just a little more desperate…and crazy, every day!

According to Gay NZ:

The evangelical-Christian owners of a national gym franchise are being taken to task for encouraging their members to read discredited material claiming that drinking soy milk makes men gay.

In its most recent e-newsletter Club Physical, whose advertising slogan is “A place where you belong” and whose owners proudly proclaim their membership of Auckland’s conservative evangelical Life Church, provides an “interesting” link to an article that claims that soy milk given to young boys turns them gay, with the rider that “homosexuality is always deviant.”

The claim has no known basis in scientific or researched fact and no references are provided by its American author Jim Rutz. It first surfaced in New Zealand in a 2003 Investigate magazine article published by it’s anti-gay conservative Christian publisher Ian Wishart. GayNZ.com at that time contacted health authorities, soy milk manufacturers and even Plunket for comment and all rubbished the soy-gay link claim.

Read the entire post here!

Mayor Backpeddles After Anti-Gay Remarks

During a conversation about the division between LGBT and evangelical residents, Mayor Osby Davis told the NY Times that gays won’t go to heaven. Now, the mayor of Vallejo, a Northern California community has had to spend a little time back-peddling.

In a statement issued earlier this week, Davis claims that he’s actively seeking to represent all residents of Vallejo, not only heterosexual ones.

The mayor, who is an evangelical, told the Times gays are “committing sin and that sin will keep them out of heaven.”

Davis is now claiming his remarks were taken out of context, and that he won’t use his mayoral position to promote his religious ideology.

Davis defeated a gay candidate for mayor of Vallejo in 2007 by only two votes.

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