By Bob Bigham
Raw Story (7/18/19)
Multiple victims have come forward to accuse a New Jersey pastor of sexually assaulting them as part of exorcism rituals.
“Three men have come forward claiming Rev. Dr. William Weaver performed sex acts on them when they came to him for private counseling at Linden Presbyterian Church,” Newsweek reportedThursday. “Weaver, 69, would allegedly tell the men that he needed to ‘suck’ out demons through their semen, citing Native American rituals and a verse from Ephesians telling Christians to ‘put on the full armor of God.’”
“According to impact statements the men submitted to the Presbytery of Elizabeth, which has jurisdiction over the church in Linden, Weaver would order each to strip naked and lie down. Then he would place an “angel coin” on their foreheads and have them balance stones on their hands and ankles. Weaver would then allegedly perform oral sex on them,” Newsweek reported. …
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Religious Children Are Meaner Than Their Secular Counterparts, Study Finds
By Harriet Sherwood
The Guardian (11/6/15)
Children from religious families are less kind and more punitive than those from non-religious households, according to a new study.
Academics from seven universities across the world studied Christian, Muslim and non-religious children to test the relationship between religion and morality.
They found that religious belief is a negative influence on children’s altruism.
“Overall, our findings … contradict the commonsense and popular assumption that children from religious households are more altruistic and kind towards others,” said the authors of The Negative Association Between Religiousness and Children’s Altruism Across the World, published this week in Current Biology.
“More generally, they call into question whether religion is vital for moral development, supporting the idea that secularisation of moral discourse will not reduce human kindness – in fact, it will do just the opposite.”
Almost 1,200 children, aged between five and 12, in the US, Canada, China, Jordan, Turkey and South Africa participated in the study. Almost 24% were Christian, 43% Muslim, and 27.6% non-religious. The numbers of Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic and other children were too small to be statistically valid.
They were asked to choose stickers and then told there were not enough to go round for all children in their school, to see if they would share. They were also shown film of children pushing and bumping one another to gauge their responses.
The findings “robustly demonstrate that children from households identifying as either of the two major world religions (Christianity and Islam) were less altruistic than children from non-religious households”.
Older children, usually those with a longer exposure to religion, “exhibit[ed] the greatest negative relations”. …
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‘Keep praying!’ Hope Hicks Texted Michael Cohen To Ask God To Make The Porn Star Payoff Scandal Go Away
By Sarah K. Burris
Raw Story (7/18/19)
According to text messages revealed in the unredacted search warrants in Michael Cohen’s campaign finance case, he and Hope Hicks not only talked on the phone multiple times, but they were also texting.
After the “Access Hollywood” tape dropped, Hicks, Trump and Cohen exchanged multiple phone calls. Cohen even called Kellyanne Conway at a time that she was serving as the Trump campaign manager to discuss a recording of Stormy Daniels sent from her attorney denying the affair after she was paid.
In one text exchange less than one week before the 2016 election, Hicks told Cohen to try to pray the hush-money scandal away.
“I have a statement by Storm denying everything and contradicting the other porn stars statement,” Cohen told Hicks. “I wouldn’t use it now or even discuss with him as no one is talking about this or cares!”
“So far I see only 6 stories,” Cohen texted Hicks.
Congregation Walks Out Of Service After Pastor Echoes Trump’s Racist Comments: ‘The church was empty’
By Eric W. Dolan
Raw Story (7/23/19)
A pastor in Virginia is facing a revolt from his own congregation after he put up a sign echoed controversial comments from President Donald Trump.
Pastor E.W. Lucas of Friendship Baptist Church in Appomattox made headlines last week after putting up the sign “America, I love it. If you don’t love it, leave it.”
The pastor put up the sign the same week that Trump lashed out at progressive congresswomen with a racist demand they “go back” to their country of origin.
“People that feel hard about our president and want to down the president and down the country and everything, they ought to go over there and live in these other countries for a little while,” Lucas told WSET.
This past Sunday, however, members of his church walked out of the service. …
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Evangelical Writer Who Influenced ‘Purity Culture’, Announces Separation From Wife
By Sarah MacCammon
NPR (7/21/19)
Joshua Harris, one of the most influential voices on sex and relationships for a generation of evangelical Christians, announced this past week that he and his wife are separating after 19 years of marriage.
Harris’s book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, was published in 1997 when he was in his early 20s. It became a manual for young evangelicals looking for love.
In recent years, Harris has apologized for some of the ideas he promoted and publicly wrestled with them in a documentary.
In an interview with NPR last year, Harris talked about going through that process with his wife Shannon.
“I think it’s made us realize how there’s heartache and there’s pain no matter which pathway you choose in life,” Harris said. “There’s no path that you can choose that can protect you from that.”
Harris and his wife announced their separation on Instagram …
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Liberals Hilariously Twitter-troll Hypocritical Rightwing ‘Christians’ With #ThingsJesusNeverSaid
By Bob Brigham
Raw Story (7/13/19)
Efforts by far-right extremists to politicize Christianity were ruthlessly ridiculed on Saturday as “Things Jesus Never Said” trended nationwide on Twitter.
People pointed out hypocrisy by the religious right on health care, race and President Donald Trump.
Clergy members who believe they need their own private jets were also a topic for derision. …
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Pastor Who Called Out Sexual Harassment In Church Gets Ousted After ‘pressuring’ Subordinates To Visit Sex Novelty Store
[Editor’s Note: Religious hypocrisy is not limited to the right, this happened in a liberal congregation. — Mark L. Taylor]
By Travis Gettys
Raw Story (7/12/19)
A Manhattan pastor who gained fame for speaking out against sexual harassment stepped down after buying sex toys as presents for ministers and a congregant.
The Rev. Dr. Amy Butler, the first woman to lead the borough’s Riverside Church, faced complaints after taking two assistant ministers and a congregation member on a shopping spree at the Minneapolis sex shop Smitten Kitten and giving unwanted items to them as gifts, reported the New York Post.
The group had been traveling to a religious conference, and Butler gave a $200 bunny-shaped vibrator to a minister, who is also a single mother, as a 40th birthday present, and offered to buy items for a second minister, a gay man in a committed relationship, but he turned it down. …