“Last week in Dallas, the Southern Baptists held their annual convention, and they invited Mike Spence to speak. This is nothing new for evangelical groups. Both President Obama, and President George W Bush spoke before such gatherings during their terms. But, when speaking to these kinds of gatherings, politicians, and especially high level elected politicians tend to minimize any political references, focusing instead on their own faith, what it has meant to their lives, and how it guides them in their governing.
“Not Mike Pence, the black hole of sycophants. Pence is well known as the worst kind of evangelical, the boastful, in-your-face, uber pious kind of evangelical. But Pence spent more time praising the great stature and works of his political born again God, Donald Trump, than he did praising the life and works of Jesus Christ.
“Which went over about as well as an ex spouse at a wedding. Evangelical reaction was swift and brutal. Evangelicals took to social media and twitter, blasting Pence for hijacking their meeting for his own crass political purposes. The outcry was so great that the leaders said that they will entertain a motion in their next session to stop inviting political figures to speak at future annual meetings. Apparently, there is a limit to even Christian charity, and Trump and pence have tapped out that wallet.”
— From “Is Trump Alienating One Of The GOP’s Most Solid Constituencies? I Think So.” Read the Rest
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Lowest Of Hypocrites: Conserviative ‘Pro-Life,’ Pro-Family Groups Go Silent On Border Family Separations
By Jennifer Bendery
The HuffPost (6/19/18)
WASHINGTON ― Conservative groups that promote themselves as “pro-life” and “pro-family” are quietly supporting the Trump administration policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the border, or refusing to weigh in at all.
Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion organization that pledges to “encircle the vulnerable ones who need us, and to fight until they are safe and free,” said Monday it won’t discuss Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, which separates children from their parents so the adults can be criminally prosecuted for crossing the border without documentation. Previously, authorities typically kept migrant families together and routed them to immigration courts.
“From its inception, Susan B. Anthony List has been completely dedicated to protecting the first right without which no other rights matter: the right to life,” the group’s president, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said in a statement. “Therefore, we refrain from public comment on immigration and many other topics, including other policies that impact families.”
Dannenfelser’s comments were in response to a recent New York Times op-ed titled, “You Can’t Be Pro-Life and Against Immigrant Children.” …
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Hundreds Of United Methodist Clergy Charge Jeff Sessions With Child Abuse, Immorality & Racial Discrimination
By Elizabeth Preza
AlterNet (6/19/18)
More than 600 United Methodist clergy and church members say they will bring charges against fellow United Methodist Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump’s attorney general, over his implementation of the president’s “zero tolerance” policy which has resulted in the separation of children from their parents at the border.
According to the United Methodist news wire, Sessions is accused of child abuse, immorality, racial discrimination and “dissemination of doctrines contrary to the established standards of doctrines” of the church.
“While other individuals and areas of the federal government are implicated in each of these examples, Mr. Sessions—as a long-term United Methodist in a tremendously powerful, public position—is particularly accountable to us, his church,” the complaint reads. “He is ours, and we are his. As his denomination, we have an ethical obligation to speak boldly when one of our members is engaged in causing significant harm in matters contrary to the Discipline on the global stage.” …