Sunday, March 14, 2010

Outraged by Glenn Beck’s Salvo, Christians Fire Back - NYTimes.com

Outraged by Glenn Beck’s Salvo, Christians Fire Back - NYTimes.com

Last week, the conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck called on Christians to leave their churches if they hear preaching about social or economic justice, saying they were code words for Communism and Nazism.

This week the remarks prompted outrage from several Christian bloggers. The Rev. Jim Wallis, who leads the liberal Christian antipoverty group Sojourners, in Washington, called on Christians to leave Glenn Beck.

“What he has said attacks the very heart of our Christian faith, and Christians should no longer watch his show,” Mr. Wallis wrote on his blog, God’s Politics. “His show should now be in the same category asHoward Stern.”

In attacking churches that espouse social justice, Mr. Beck is taking on most mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, black and Hispanic congregations in the country — not to mention plenty of evangelical churches and even his own, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Mr. Beck said on his radio show on March 2, “I beg you, look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words.”

“Am I advising people to leave their church? Yes! If I am going to Jeremiah Wright’s church,” he said, referring to President Obama’s former pastor in Chicago. “If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish. Go alert your bishop.”

Religion scholars say the term “social justice” was probably coined in the 1800s, codified in encyclicals by successive popes and adopted widely by Protestant churches in the 1900s. The concept is that Christians should not merely give to the poor, but also work to correct unjust conditions that keep people poor. Many Christians consider it a recurring theme in Scripture.

Mr. Beck himself is a convert to Mormonism, a faith that identifies itself as part of the Christian family, but is nevertheless rejected by many Christians. ...

IndyStar.com | Johnson County, Indiana, breaking news, photos, things to do | The Indianapolis Star

IndyStar.com | Johnson County, Indiana, breaking news, photos, things to do | The Indianapolis Star

A Greenwood High School honor student who learned in class about court rulings striking down school prayer has found a real-world application -- his own graduation ceremony.

Eric Workman's lawsuit, filed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, challenges the high school's practice of allowing seniors to vote on whether to have a student-led prayer at graduation.

ACLU attorney Ken Falk said allowing the vote and even having the prayer run afoul of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that found prayers at public school-sponsored events to violate the First Amendment.

"This is particularly egregious when it's coming from a student who's going to be sitting on the stage," Falk said.

Workman, 18, is ranked first in his class, the lawsuit says. He declined to be interviewed, but Falk said Workman approached the ACLU because he found the practice troubling in light of what he's learned in government classes.

Greenwood Schools Superintendent David Edds said a student-approved prayer has been a long-standing feature at graduation.

Controversy over school prayer has faded from the forefront since the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in 2000 that a Texas high school could not allow students to deliver prayers over the public address system at football games.

Eight years earlier, the Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that a public school could not offer a prayer at graduation. ...

Monday, March 08, 2010

Tax Status Of Lawmakers' Religious Refuge Disputed : NPR

Tax Status Of Lawmakers' Religious Refuge Disputed : NPR

The three-story, brick townhouse at 133 C Street SE sits a half-block from the Cannon House Office Building, roughly three blocks from the Capitol — the home-away-from-home for a regular contingent of fundamentalist Christian members of Congress, who can pray in the living room and walk to work.

The C Street Center, which owns the 1880 vintage townhouse, claims status as a church. And as with other religious organizations, the IRS takes the center's word that it is a church. As a result, the center doesn't have to file public tax returns, as most nonprofit organizations must do.

The arrangement fits the C Street Center's practically invisible public presence. But now a group of 13 ministers has asked the IRS to revoke that church status.

Their complaint, delivered to the IRS on Tuesday, says: "An organization whose chief activity is providing room and board to members of Congress is not a church." It cites a list of 15 factors that the agency considers in granting church status.

"Is there public worship?" said the leader of the group of ministers, Pastor Eric Williams of the North Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. "Is it open to the public? Are there trained leaders who serve the church? C Street really has none of those marks that make it a church."

And if it is not a church, Williams says other questions come up — like whether the C Street Center's fundraising and other activities meet the requirements for 501(c)(3) charities.

NPR couldn't call the center for an interview, because it doesn't reveal its phone number — or numbers for lawyers or other contacts — on property records, other public documents or, seemingly, any other documents.

The townhouse would likely go unnoticed, except that its denizens keep popping up in embarrassing news stories.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford lived there when he was a Republican member of the House. Last June, he got caught going to visit his mistress in Buenos Aires. Sanford held a tearful news conference, where he said he'd turned back to C Street for help.

"I was part of a group called C Street when I was in Washington," he said. "It was a — believe it or not — a Christian Bible study, some folks that asked members of Congress hard questions that I think were very, very important. And I've been working with them."

Then, three weeks later, Leisha Pickering filed an alienation-of-affections lawsuit against the mistress of her husband, Mississippi Republican Chip Pickering. Leisha Pickering alleged that the pair carried on a home-wrecking affair while he was in Congress and living at the C Street house.

And then, in November, two Republican senators associated with C Street drew still more publicity to the house.

Nevada Sen. John Ensign owned up to an affair with a staffer. And Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said he had been a go-between as Ensign and the woman's husband fought over a financial settlement. Coburn defended his actions in an interview on the ABC program This Week, saying, "Look, my whole goal in this thing was to bring two families to closure of a very painful episode." ...

Tippy's Journal - Southern Baptist Ministers Lead Prayer For Obama's Death

Tippy's Journal - Southern Baptist Ministers Lead Prayer For Obama's Death
Posted by Tippy in General Discussion: Presidency
Mon Mar 08th 2010, 10:45 AM
Several Southern Baptist Ministers across the nation are leading prayers in their congregations asking God to kill Obama and “leave his children fatherless.” They reference Psalm 109:8 as a biblical commandment for all Christians to pray for Obama’s quick death. John Avlon interviews two of the ministers and reports:

Praying for President Obama’s death has become a sick cottage industry for some evangelicals on the lunatic fringe. Bumper stickers, T-shirts, and teddy bears are sold with the wholesome-sounding slogan “Pray for Obama” but tagged with the more troublesome “Psalm 109:8”—which reads “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership” followed by “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.”

In Wingnut circles, it’s known as the “Imprecatory Prayer.” Offered not just from select pulpits, but increasingly expressed through tweets and forwarded via email, this decidedly un-Christian Christian subculture has found its most enthusiastic advocates in a few Obama Derangement Syndrome-afflicted preachers—notably Orange County’s Wiley Drake and Arizona’s Steven L. Anderson.

Pastor Wiley Drake kicked off this Presidents’ Day Weekend with an email blast to his supporters saying “Imprecatory Prayer is now our DUTY” and announcing a daily teleconference call to advance the cause. Drake has been an enthusiastic advocate of imprecatory prayer since he announced that God answered his call with the murder of Kansas abortion clinic doctor George Tiller in church last May. “George Tiller was far greater in his atrocities than Adolf Hitler,” Drake said at the time, “so I am happy. I am glad that he is dead.” This emboldened him to add “the usurper that is in the White House … B. Hussein Obama” to the list said in his church on Sundays.

It is often reported that self-identification as a Christian is declining in America. Those in the republican “family values” right wing claim its because of the left wing waging a “War on Christianity and Christian Values”. Could it be that folks are really turning away from Christianity because of lunatics like these calling themselves Christians and giving the rest of us a bad name? ..