Sunday's Show, May 21st - Special Edition!
Today, State of Belief exposes a coordinated effort to undermine mainline Protestantism -- and render America's largest denominations incapable of standing up to right wing politics.In conjunction with the website Talk to Action, State of Belief takes an unprecedented look into the takeover of America’s churches, revealing the ugly truths, personal experiences, and exhaustive research of Welton and the three leaders he welcomes today:
Dr. Bruce Prescott is Executive Director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists, President of the Oklahoma chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the host of Religious Talk on KREF radio in Norman, Oklahoma.
Dr. John Dorhauer is minister for the St. Louis Association of the United Churches of Christ. He writes a series for Talk to Action on the right wing attack on the United Churches of Christ.
Dr. Andrew Weaver, a United Methodist pastor and research psychologist, has traced the campaign against mainline Protestantism largely to the Institute on Religion and Democracy. Weaver is associate publisher of Zion's Herald and a contributor to Hard Ball on Holy Ground: The Religious Right v. the Mainline for the Church's Soul. Read his series at Talk to Action on the right wing attack on the United Methodist Church.
The full description of today's show is here. Much more information on this issue, including the research and writings of Welton’s three guests, can be found at Talk to Action, particularly in its Shadow War section.
This is probably not new news
As a life long member of the Roman Catholic Church, I feel that most tradtions in Christianity that stem from both the West (Rome) and the East (Constantinople) have been co opted into promoting the politicized Jesus.
I have come to the belief that Christianity as we know it has been drastically changed from the movement that Jesus started. Around the 4th century, Constantine influenced the movement to allow the Roman government to protect it by becoming the Roman Catholic church. This is around the time that the Nicean Creed was promulgated that the idea of the three unique persons of the Trinity became official.
If Jesus a man, he could have showed his followers that he was serious about living non violently. If Jesus was seen as God incarnated, an idea that was the basis of many "pagan" religions, Jesus' death could have been made to look like a sacrificial offering to a pagan or false God. How did the torture and destruction of the body of Jesus serve God. Did God have to have Jesus treated like a terrorist sympathizer so that he could be tortured and killed without showing that the actions against Jesus were inconsistent with his teachings.
Jesus should not have been treated the way that he was as an offering. Even the pagans treated their sacrificial offerings to the gods with respect. The late Jesuit Priest Richard P. McSorley told me that the church stopped following the teachings of Jesus when the church became institutionalized. It wasn't until the church made the belief in Jesus as God('s son) that his death was not seen as a testament to his nonviolent teachings.
Every Christian Church that has sprung off of the churches of Constantine still believe that Jesus was sacrificed for us. Jesus was actually a sacrifice to the Roman Emperor for the salvation of the Jews that did not see Jesus and his teachings as being nonviolent.
- parent
By ReyHinckleyMay 22, 2006 - 12:33am