Trump-Loving Evangelicals Say They’re Grateful Trump Has Saved Them From Seeing Obama’s Rainbow White House
By Brad Reed
Raw Story (8/13/19)
Conservative evangelical Christians in the United States are President Donald Trump’s most staunch supporters, despite the fact that the president is a serial adulterer who has been accused by multiple women of sexual assault and who regularly deploys racist attacks on political opponents.
A Washington Post profile of Trump-loving evangelicals shows that many of them felt they were under assault by former President Barack Obama — and one of them pointed to the Obama White House lighting up in rainbow colors in 2015 to celebrate the Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing LGBT marriage.
“I didn’t see it lit up in a rainbow this June,” Pennsylvania-based Rev. Chris Gillott told the Post in justifying his support for the president.
Gillott went on to say that he didn’t want to be considered a bigot for opposing the rights of gay people to marry one another. …
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Trump’s Evangelical Advisor Says The Way To Stop Mass Shootings Is To Make Kids Scared Of Jesus & Stop Teaching Evolution
By Sky Palma
Raw Story (8/9/19)
During an appearance on Fox News this Thursday alongside Ethan Bearman of Left Coast News, megachurch pastor and Trump evangelical advisor Robert Jeffress pushed back against skepticism over the “thoughts and prayers” response to mass shootings commonly echoed by religious conservatives, saying that the solution lies in teaching children that God will hold them accountable for their actions.
In the segment which he shared on the YouTube channel for his church, Jeffress argued against the claim that evangelicals aren’t willing to find real-world solutions to gun violence, but added that “if we depend upon legislation alone to solve the gun problem, we’re going to be sadly disappointed.” …
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Florida Pastor Arrested For Shoving Hand Down Restaurant Manager’s Blouse After She Confronted Him Over Anti-Gay Comment
By Tom
Raw Story (8/2/19)
A Florida pastor has been arrested on charges of battery after he was accused of shoving his hand down the blouse of a restaurant manager after she confronted him over an anti-gay comment he wrote on his bill.
The Naples Daily News reports that Frederic Sterry Smith, 62, was charged with simple battery after the incident outside of Milagro On 12 Latin Kitchen, in downtown St. Augustine.
According to the report, Smith — who identifies himself on his Facebook page (since taken down) as a minister and president of non-profit Servant’s Heart Disaster Relief “evangelical hands-on ministry” — had finished a meal at the restaurant and, when presented with the bill, left no tip but wrote, “If he wasn’t gay.”
After the server showed the receipt to his manager, whose name was not given, she confronted Smith and his companion outside with what he had written.
According to the report, “When she asked Smith if he really wrote that on his check, he said yes and then snatched the bill from her and ripped it up. He then grabbed her collar, pulled it open and shoved the torn check down her shirt, touching her breast with his hand.” …
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‘Say, Amen!” — Pastor Who Stole More Than $631,000 From AIDS Charities Claims He’s ‘entitled to it’
By Sarah K. Burris
The Raw story (7/31/19)
A New York City pastor is being charged with stealing money that was allocated to go to help HIV-positive drug addicts to use for Caribbean vacations and gifts for himself.
According to the New York Daily News, Bronx Pastor Reginald Williams, of the Charity Baptist Church of Christ, scammed nonprofit groups out of more than $631,000. Two others, Bennie Hadnott and Naomi Barrera, helped Williams and were charged with grand larceny in the Manhattan Supreme Court Wednesday.
Hadnott scored $40,000 from a contract with his Tondah Consulting Group and he managed to get $54,000 in kickbacks on top of it.
“Williams allegedly used the money to pay off his American Express bill and write cashier’s checks to himself and his wife,” NYDN reported.
Two taxpayer-funded nonprofits were completely plundered, according to prosecutors. …
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Right-Wing Evangelicals Are Driving Americans To Atheism Using 8 Hypocritical & Immoral Maneuvers
By Valerie Tarico
Commentary (7/29/19)
If the Catholic Bishops, their Evangelical Protestant allies, and other Right-wing fundamentalists had the sole objective of decimating religious belief, they couldn’t be doing a better job of it.
Testimonials at sites like ExChristian.net show that people leave religion for a number of reasons, many of which religious leaders have very little control over. Sometimes, for example, people take one too many science classes. Sometimes they find their faith shattered by the suffering in the world – either because of a devastating injury or loss in their own lives or because they experience the realities of another person’s pain in a new way. Sometimes a believer gets intrigued by archaeology or symbology or the study of religion itself. Sometimes a believer simply picks up a copy of the Bible or Koran and discovers faith-shaking contradictions or immoralities there.
But if you read ExChristian testimonials you will notice that quite often church leaders or members do things that either trigger the deconversion process or help it along. They may turn a doubter into a skeptic or a quiet skeptic into an outspoken anti-theist, or as one former Christian calls himself, a de-vangelist.
Here are some top ways Christians push people out the Church door or shove secret skeptics out of the closet. Looking at the list, you can’t help but wonder if the Catholic Bishops and their Evangelical allies are working for the devil. …
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Nebraska Woman Attacks Local Spider-Man Statue As A ‘hate crime’ Against Christianity After Mistaking It For Satan
By Brad Reed
Raw Story (7/17/19)
A resident of Lincoln, Nebraska this week publicly slammed her city for committing a purported “hate crime” against Christianity because she mistook a statue of Spider-Man located at a local zoo for a statue of Satan.
The Lincoln Journal-Star reports that an offended Christian woman wrote an email to Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird demanding that he remove a statue depicting Spider-Man’s hands spinning a web, as she believed the statue depicted devil horns.
“It is a sculpture of two hands open, painted Red & Black, and formed into Devil Horns,” the woman complained, before going on to describe the statue as a “hate crime against the church.”…
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