I am confused by American christians

[Drich]

So where is the coverage of the thousands my home congregation has personally saved from vensualia? Where are the stories of the churches who have spent millions after the movie stars left Haiti? Can you name some of the embedded church groups who are helping to rebuild that nation?

You can name a single person out of the millions who give their lives to helping others...

Now name me a christian who hates fags. out of the maybe 100s that actively do hate gay people everyone of you can produce a name.

Why is that? if not for a one sided anti-church media?

The christian church has been a problem for thousands of years.  I could understand if there was the occasional bad thing that christianity, christians, the church did, but the christian religion has a very bloody history as well as a current evil presence in society.

I judge religion on the entirety of its history, and the bad far outweighs any good it attempts to accomplish.

then you are a fool.

By that assho-logic you should also judge all white people because some of their ancestors owned slaves. AND you should judge all black people because some of their ancestors sold slaves.. You should also judge all Japanese as evil because they annexed Korea after WW1 and started this whole north/south Korean BS

What a stupid way to live life... or do you want to retract that because you did not think it through?

I know what you wanted to say and why.. You think God/Christians are the one place in soceity that you can take your gloves off and just let all the hate out.. all the hate and all the BS soceity makes you eat, it is ok to now puke out onto God... but you didn't think it through did you? that hate the way you framed it can now spill over into 'protected areas' in which you are not allowed to hate.

My question to you is. what does it say about you as a person, that AS Soon as you get an oppertunity to be ville and nasty you turn it up to 11 and dump your anger onto someone and their beliefs?

How do you still see your self as 'better' that any Christian if you can hate us so much, and we can not hate you???

[brewer]

My god your are intentionally blind.

They (your christians) don't need fake news. They make their own news plus advertise themselves to the world and even when in the wrong most so called christians never speak out against what they preach, teach, or their hypocrisy.

Address this list:

Josh Duggar and the Duggar family
Peter Popoff
Jim and Tammy Baker
Jimmy Swaggart
Word of Faith Fellowship
Pat Robertson (beat your wife)
Benny Hinn
Kenneth Copeland
Creflo Dollar
Ted Haggard
Wade Malloy/Wayne Parker
Terry and Brenda Millender

This is only the tip. These are US christian leaders.

do you have any names of active members in the church? or are you hopping that most of these 70s and 80s icons are still doing their thing???

Ahhhh, still blind. Got it.

[The Grand Nudger]

-that's what happens when faith is subverted and transformed into a political wedge for the benefit of people whose agenda is to be as a big a dick as they can in any area they can cram it into.  We still have christians who missed the boarding party for the rightwing Hate Express.  They just aren't as loud and obnoxious, so they go unnoticed.

Dude, the fucking book itself doesn't need to be subverted, all that fucking bad shit is in there to begin with.

Christers stopped believing in the book a loooong time ago, amigo.  American jesusism was very much subverted by a rightwing political agenda in living memory, and the right wing political agenda, in turn, was subverted by the very same. What we have today, on both counts, is the trainwreck that caused.

[Astonished]

Dude, the fucking book itself doesn't need to be subverted, all that fucking bad shit is in there to begin with.

Christers stopped believing in the book a loooong time ago, amigo.  American jesusism was very much subverted by a rightwing political agenda in living memory, and the right wing political agenda, in turn, was subverted by the very same.  What we have today, on both counts, is the trainwreck that caused.

You can reach the exact same conclusion and justify anything with that book. I'm just saying, you don't need to make up something external to cause a train wreck, you can just use the recipe from any random page of the fucking book.

[The Grand Nudger]

What am I making up?  Are you unaware of the last 40 years of republican party history?  They took a bunch of well meaning believing dolts and turned them into froth-at-the-mouth assholes who don't carry a single ounce of water for jesus.  Healing the sick?  Ha, communist!  Giving to the poor...that will only create a dependency.  The meek inherit the earth?  Bullshit, only the dictator and his great men will be noticed by god.  Give unto ceaser?  Nah, fuck that, lets cast Jesus' vote in absentia and give ceaser unto god.

Honestly, it goes back a few decades further than 40 years, to when the dems ceded the south in their apology for being the party of jim crow and complete re-working of their platform.  All those juicy votes laying around...but how would the repubs get a bunch of impoverished southerners who'd been voting dem for a century to vote against their own interests?  Well..they do love them some jesus...and they'd really like it if somebody blew a racist dog whistle from time to time to make them feel normal.   Voila.

The only reason it's so pronounced in the 80's is that this is when a real chirstian, one Jimmy Carter, somehow managed to lose the christer vote to a Ronald Reagan. Because their faith had shifted from being about god and good works and the brotherhood of man.. to being about free market capitalism and fucking the poor and anyone two shades lighter or worse than high yellow.

[Rev. Rye]

American church leaders in America:
Charles Stanley
Haddon Robinson
M.R. DeHaan
*James MacDonald
Hank Hanegraaff
James Dobson (RIP)
Steve Brown
Alistair Begg

These are american Church leaders.

Okay, I had to check out the "James Dobson (RIP)" message just to see if there was some news story that I (and presumably most of us here) would have missed, but it turns out he's still alive and well. Not sure why you put his name there.

Also, I can't be sure about most of the other names (especially given that you seem to have misspelled most of them; I have corrected each spelling error, at least, as far as I've been able to tell), but  honestly, except for the standard anti-gay and anti-abortion cultural signalling, the closest thing to a controversy I've been able to find on them (by skimming Wikipedia) is Hanegraaff's not quite buying into the literal account of Genesis.

However, I do have some familiarity with American Christianity, and it seems kind of odd that most of the people on the list were people I hadn't heard of (and not just because they walk the walk, I know of a couple, like Billy Graham or Paul Tillich or Jay Bakker or Martin Luther King Jr. or Rob Bell or Tony Campolo or even AL GREEN, who actually pastors a church in Memphis when he's not touring), and the only exception to that rule is a man who thinks men can keep their sons from turning gay by taking them into the shower and having them stare at his Dad's big cock, and runs an alarmingly successful group that devotes itself largely to denying gay people their civil rights. We may be cherry-picking, but given that the people the atheists here pick, who may or may not represent Christ's teachings are at least vocal enough that I can at least recognise their names, and yours aren't, you don't seem to be doing a very good job.

For Fuck's Sake, I just managed to think of seven Christian leaders who don't reflect poorly on their religion off the top of my head in that one parenthetical in my third paragraph.

The key issue in the problem isn't just that the messed up Christians in America aren't just a vocal minority who get plopped in front of a microphone to rant just so the news media can get some views. They might be easily ignored if not for the fact that they (calling themselves The Moral Majority) more or less took over the Republican party in the late 1970s after they figured out that aligning themselves with Richard "I am not a Crook" Nixon and Gerald "Drop Dead New York" Ford wasn't a good way to get votes.

[Succubus]

what exposure do you have with american christian? what the fake news says? their double coverage of the westbrough baptists and the none existant coverage of everyone else? You know the WBB are a family congregation and a neighbor right? Yet every other church who sits hundreds to thousands to mega churches who seat 10,000+ with multiple sermons every sunday and all of their works are completely non existent in the mainstream media. So why would you think, you would think any different of anyone else. You have poisoned the well of ALL american Christians based on the crazy stuff they put on the news.

The none existent coverage?? You can not be serious! Where have you been all your life? Look at this group.

This darn Trump depression is affecting our family horribly. Since we moved to Freehold, we haven't been able to sell our beautiful six bedroom house on a 1/10th acre plot in Arizona. The bank is about to foreclose on it. I have already asked the church, but they are feeling the pinch too. Pastor Zeke's Christmas gift is only going to be in the 20 thousand dollar range this year.  It's fortunate that my daughter just turned 13. She needs to be betrothed anyway.  How much do you guys think I could get for her?  She, is of course a virgin. The tokens of virginity will be there on your wedding night when she reaches the age of consent or you can stone her as per Deuteronomy 22:13-21.  She is a decent cook, but lazy about cleaning. It's my wife's fault for that. I'm sure if you have a strong steady hand for keeping her in line, she can be encouraged to get better.  Any serious bids from True Christians will be considered.  You can't make her work out in the field. If you buy her for a wife you have to provide for her for the rest of her natural life, so please don't take this lightly. If you are buying her for your son, please make sure he likes her because otherwise you cannot return her.  Exodus 21:7-10 And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do. If she please not her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he has dealt deceitfully with her. And if he has betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he takes him another wife; her food, her clothing, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish.  God Bless, Levi

These people are part of a very well known Baptist church. Shirley you've come across them before?

"The tokens of virginity will be there on your wedding night when she reaches the age of consent, if not, you can stone her as per Deuteronomy 22:13-21"

What sort of sick fucks are these??

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

then you are a fool.

Matthew 5:22 (in part and in context):   but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.


Boru

[Astonished]

then you are a fool.

Matthew 5:22 (in part and in context):   but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.


Boru

So...what, just empty hell threats? In a thread where theists are trying to say they're not fucked up in the head?

[Lek]

Being British the Christians around me, though few, seem to be overall a rather harmless bunch, mostly good intentioned who keep themselves to themselves, help the needy and champion causes that actually benefit people generally.

This is the sort of Christian that I don't mind, I think they are wrong but they aren't much trouble.

Now this seems to be the opposite of American Christians who blaze around trying to be the biggest arseholes they can be. (they have to a certain extent spread this over here but only in tiny patches).

What gives?

Why is being a huge dick part of the Christian US agenda?

Jesus was always "stirring the pot" wherever he went because he ran counter to the culture of the day. If a person is really following Jesus, he is also going to cause a stir. Being a dick isn't part of being a christian, but if one doesn't stand out in today's culture he's probably not much of a christian.