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Calling All Christians, Jews, etc...
As has now been established, if you disagree with ANYTHING said by your reverend, pastor or rabbi you must leave and denounce your church IMMEDIATELY!
Catholics who believe in equal rights must denounce the churches policy against women priests and leave now. Also, any Catholic who believes in birth control should excuse themselves from whatever they're doing at this moment to denounce their church and revoke their membership.
Any Jew that eats pork, get out. Not wearing your Yamika, go find a new religion.
As for everyone else, if you do not currently agree with every aspect of every word that comes out of your pastor, priest or rabbi's mouth, then you must stand up and get out now.
Best of luck attending your new church, the church of yourself.
Comments (32)
That's yarmulke, not Yamika, although it does sound sort of like Yamika.
March 20, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Hooked on phonics worked for me" LOL!
Sorry though, and thanks for the correction.
I should've looked it up.
March 20, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
So does that mean that "Hanukkah" is really spelled "Harnulke"?
March 20, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chanukah. No, Chanukka. Maybe Haneca. Hanicah?
March 20, 2008 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought it was spelled like "harmonica"
March 20, 2008 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can agree with what they meaning but you don't have to agree with the expression. Hate speech is hate speech, however well inteded.
March 20, 2008 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
How much of the Bible have you read? Would you believe that I can find a rather large amount of "hate speech" in there as well? ("Hate speech" in the same sense that Wright's comments were "hate speech".)
I can find bits about how you should stone disobedient children, sacrifice your son on an altar if asked to, how the rich will be damned, etc., not to mention the bits used by certain Republicans to justify homophobia or even outright racism (admittedly, that last bit requires some rather creative interpretation of scripture).
March 20, 2008 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's a great point Ben, except that today is March 20, 2008.
A long history separates us from the times of when Bible was written. That history contains Hitler, Stalin, slavery, Matthew Shepard, lynching and the list is very very very long.
March 20, 2008 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
A lot of time has passed since Vatican 2. That doesn't make this post any less accurate and on-message. If religion is now reserved only for the Orthodox of every faith, those who agree only with the written tenets of their faith as articulated by their local religious leaders, I think we'll see a staggering decline in religious observance in this country. I don't really have a dog in that fight, per se, but have it your way!
March 20, 2008 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
If God is infallible, why should history have any impact? Presumably, most Christians think the Bible is at least inspired by the Word of God, if not the literal Word of God.
Similarly, most churches still cover at least some of this "objectionable" material today. For example, I've never heard any pastor, minister, or rabbi suggest that Abraham wasn't asked to sacrifice his only son on that altar. I suspect that if you visited Hillary's church, you would find them (occasionally) reading from many of these parts.
Obama's preacher was actually calling up many of these parts, but he then reframed them in a manner relevant to contemporary America.
March 20, 2008 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only the most fundamentalist Jews have a doctrine that every word of the Torah (that's your old testament, along with the vast majority of those prophets the Christians keep claiming) is literally true. I think that's true of Christians, too. For the rest of us, there's more than 2,000 years of rabbinical commentary on every bit of it, plus lots of nice stuff mixed in with the nasty bits of the New Testament.
And more than half the time the rabbis disagree and leave you with a choice as to whether you can open a butcher shop within the same little neighborhood if someone else already has a shop there, and if you did, whether it's OK to hand out sweets to children so they'll bring their parent's orders there.
March 20, 2008 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fair enough, but they keep reading from this Book with all that offensive stuff in it. It's not enough to simply make excuses—they need to denounce and reject it!
March 20, 2008 9:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
As Crosby, Stills and Nash once said, "This song is normally real long... and we're going to play it real slow tonight." If you think so-and-so begat so-and-so for however many tedious pages was bad, just wait for the serialized millenial rundown of victimhood.
Of course imitating Bill humping and "some don't have time to go lynching", and "God damn America" are now equated with "disagreeing with *ANYTHING* your preacher says".
I remember the quaint old days when it was debating whether a Biblical passage should be translated as "willst" or "shallst" or "mayest". Now it's whether you should hump forwards or backwards.
March 20, 2008 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I personally found imitating Bill humping to be in particular poor taste (in more ways than one). I also found Lot's daughter getting her dad drunk so he would sleep with her to be in poor taste, as well.
In case it's not clear (and I fear it might not be), I'm being quite sincere when I say I found the faux humping to be in bad taste.
March 20, 2008 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
To be clear, Lot's behavior was deplorable, as was his daughters. In fact I reject and condemn them, perhaps even denounce them.
And while the Bible is full of tawdry stuff, the preachers typically skip over the "thy breasts are like roes" stuff, leaving it as a homework assignment for young children to figure out on their own.
March 21, 2008 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
That you're doing your best to perpetuate this "controversy" is questionable, if not downright deplorable. Why is this important to you?
March 20, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
My intention was to draw attention to the absurdity of the questions being bantered about as to why Barack didn't leave his church.
No one agrees 100% with all of the tenets of their church and yet people stay members for years.
No one agrees 100% with all of the words spoken during a sermon. Even if that sermon is the dryest, dullest recitation of liturgy ever concocted.
Some pastors, priests and rabbi's occasionaly try to shock their congregation into actually thinking about what is being preached. I listened to a sermon once in which the pastor invoked Star Wars to highlight the story being discussed that day. Although Star Wars would never be seen as unpatriotic, it's hardly Christian.
Since you seem to have missed it, my post was a call to recognize the ridiculousness of this entire episode and get people to look inward and move on.
March 20, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I understand your intention. I was actually addressing Lalo35adm. I should have made that clear.
March 20, 2008 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
My apologies, it's sometimes hard to tell looking at the indents.
March 20, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Slouch: if you don't understand why I find it wrong, it's pointless to keep talking about. I support Clinton but if I found out that her pastor has been inciting hate (Gay people are converting our innocent children!) and she didn't do anything about it for 20 years, she would lose my support.
As for Rev Wright, I understand the context of what he was talking about. I disagree passionately with how he chose to express it. The mother of my best friend was born in a concentration camp in Germany. Hate speech can be very effective.
March 20, 2008 7:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Laylo,
I'm not questioning your hearty condemnation of a man you don't know.
I'm not questioning your judgment that a few million pixels and a couple of seconds of sound equate to the overall character and deepest convictions of a fellow human being that spent several decades enthralling hundreds of thousands of your fellow Americans.
I'll not pretend for a single second to understand that.
What I'm questioning is your motive. I have a difficult time understanding how ANYONE but Republicans benefits from this argument.
Can you tell me what you stand to gain in the long run by focusing on it?
March 21, 2008 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I love this "hate speech" meme. When did Rev. Wright say you ought to hate anyone? Even the "God Damn America" comment is conditional and is specifically about condemning bad deeds that the reverend perceives America has done. The Hilary is rich, white and (therefore) privileged comment is also not about hating any group, but about pointing out the fact that Hilary is well, rich, white and privileged and Obama is not. This may offend, but it's not hate speech. People keep acting as though Wright is Farakkhan -- that he goes around talking about 'blue-eyed devils' and the like. He doesn't. He talks about discrimination. The worst thing he said was spouting a conspiracy theory about AIDS, but even that is not hate speech. Has he, at any time, condemn any race, creed, color, or sexual orientation as a group, in total, because he doesn't like them? No, there is no evidence that he has done so. What Wright hollers about is white racism as he defines it. Now you may disagree with how he defines it or where he sees it, heck, I might too, but even Wights most inflammatory comments are not hate speech. This "hate speech" meme is code for 'the loud black man is angry and it makes me uncomfortable'. But mislabeling Wright's civil rights-era anger and skepticism about the inherent good-heartedness of the Amereican government "hate" makes slandering Obama real easy though. I guess there's that.
March 20, 2008 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why it that so many Obama supporters seem to regard Hillary as some kind of omnipotent force of evil who can only scare up votes through shameful, dirty tricks? Could it be that decades of Republican attacks have insidiously sunk in? Could it have something to do with the fact that she's a woman? Certainly, the image is belied by the ineptitude of her campaign thus far. As for the unfair attacks, what exactly are they? Sure, the 3am phone call was lame, but it was intended to highlight a legitimate issue - Obama's lack of experience and our lack of knowledge of him. Same with the absurd Commander in Chief comments. Could someone provide additional examples?
March 20, 2008 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please disregard - this wound up in the wrong place. Computer glitch.
March 20, 2008 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I have denounced and renounced the Catholic church because I disagree with its politics and ideas. There is an alternative to accepting often offensive religious views -- rejecting religion outright is always an option.
Do I hold practicing Catholics responsible for supporting a sexist and homphobic institution? Yes. I'm not militant about it or anything. I'm not rude about it. But yes, I do hold people accoountable for that sort of thing. Same way people get judged for wearing fur.
March 20, 2008 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
As an atheist, I'm sympathetic to your point. However, none of the candidates meet that criteria. They are all members of a church that read from a book that has offensive things in it. They know those offensive things are in there, but yet they continue to read from it. They even seem to venerate it.
March 20, 2008 8:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know. It REALLY bothers me. But they won't stop! Ugh.
March 20, 2008 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not going to quit being a Jew based on Israel's insane policies or the rabid support of certain wealthy American Jews. For one thing I can't; Goyim certainly don't care whether I believe or not, 'cause to them I'll always just be Jewish. Fortunately, I belong to an inclusive synagogue where we dumped an extremist rabbi for one who respects yet challenges all of our views.
My ideas about Wright & Obama are too complex for me to articulate yet, but I do not hold Obama responsible for his pastor's statements, knowing of his deep love for the church's community.
March 20, 2008 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lets get real cynical for a minute...
Lets suppose that Barack did not join a church because he had been 'unchurched' as a youth and was interacting with Rev. Wright during his 'searching phase' while engaged in community organizing and activism...
Maybe, just maybe, he joined a large prominent church preaching the social gospel (ie. really involved in helping out the community) with an eye to future LOCAL political ambitions and knew this would be 'the place' to be in the community he was investing in.
Even then, big FRIGGIN deal.
I tried to choose churches based on the availability of cute single men (didn't work, still trying)
I know many soccer families who choose churches based on the day care and social networking... and they get reminded often how the non-Christians are going to hell.
And I know alot of mega metro church members go for reasons other than what the pastor is or isn't saying. At least we know (from Barack's language and words) that the scary things preached out of Trinity weren't going to work there way into frightening public policy.
I'd rather have a vicious anti-white preacher whose words aren't changing the candidate's views on race, than have a candidate whose beliefs in the end times make apocalypses a good thing.
March 20, 2008 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and lets not forget... I'm not aware of too many Christian (or other) churches that endorse pre- or extra-marital sex. So, clearly MANY Americans are clearly capable of ignoring things they don't want to read or hear from their church.
March 20, 2008 8:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is high time that it dawned on religious folk that they have a moral obligation to fight the immoral actions of the religious institutions which they fund.
March 21, 2008 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Personally, I think it's more complicated than that. The people that run these institutions are the serious "true believers". They are not inclined to change or update any of the policies or structures because they are invested in the institution as it exists and as it has existed.
I was a member of a Country Club for about a year and although I found many of the "rank and file" members were somewhat progressive the members that were on the board were very conservative. The board members were the ones whose parents and grandparents had been board members. These people were not interested in ending "mens day" and preferred membership for men or preferred tee times for men. They were all about the priveleges of the men at the club because they were the true believers in the history of that institution.
March 21, 2008 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
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