The world is an opportunistic place. As Steve Jobs famously implied, in order to sell something, in order to manipulate a desired response from someone else, you need to be speaking the language of emotions. Whether fear, desire or shame, empires have been built on exploiting the base emotional reactions of other humans, and in some cases, monetizing them.
You could argue that religion, the oldest form of politics, is one place where appealing to people’s insecurities is customary — whether promising satisfaction of carnal desires or immortality through reincarnation of your true essence. In a time where secularism is on the rise, it is natural that more and more individuals who subscribe to a religion will want to prove its relevance and importance, and objectify just about anything to do so. It’s only natural to see and hear the scaremongers.
Secular Left Posts
Natural disasters and acts of God tend to appear alongside each other on legal papers and insurance policies. It seems they’re touched on in Joel Osteen’s megachurch operations manual, too. You might think a former NBA basketball arena with capacity for 17,000 would make a good shelter in such a situation. Joel disagrees.
Despite being situated fairly ideally to assist the community during the worst hurricane to hit Texas in over fifty years, Osteen’s only first move was to encourage church members to donate to the church while insisting that flood waters made the facility inaccessible.
Don’t Hate the Pastor, Hate the Megachurch
10 Commandments Moument on grounds of Lucas County Ohio Courthouse
A stone marker has sat on the grounds of the Lucas County Courthouse in Toledo, Ohio for the past 60 years. It’s engraved with the 10 Commandments – a set of Christian religious rules. Supporters of the monument claim the commandments are part of our collective legal history so it should remain on the courthouse lawn. In 2006, a federal court agreed. A reasonable person, looking at the full background of how the monument came to be would come to a different conclusion.
The Lucas County Courthouse is located on Adams Street in downtown Toledo. There aren’t many monuments or markers on the grounds but one that caught my eye is a 10 Commandments monument that was donated by a local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1957. The Eagles placed hundreds of markers across the country starting in the late 1940s through the early 1960s. The markers were placed on courthouses, public schools, and public parks.
The current political climate might be unfortunately tinged by partisan politics, but that doesn’t mean new points of view cannot emerge. A healthy society needs people who ask questions, challenge the norm and explore new ideas.
On July 13th, The House Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Appropriations bill was voted out of committee 31-32 and heads to the full US House of Representatives for consideration. The bill includes a section that would basically eliminate the Johnson amendment enforcement of the tax code against churches opening them up to used as political tools and bribery facilitators.
A look at most of the major news headlines about Christianity often paints its followers as ultraconservative people who are against certain minority groups, such as refugees and the LGBT community. However, that’s not always the case, and a potentially powerful movement known as the Christian Left, or progressive Christianity, is also present and making impacts in faith communities and beyond.