Over 300 Christian Theologians Challenge The Corruption Of U.S. Christianity

Repent And Believe In The Gospel! 

The Boston Declaration, condemning the abuse of the Christian faith by many conservatives today, was just written, signed and released by over 300 hundred Christian theologians attending the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, an annual meeting of nearly 10,000 professionals in religion.

In a dramatic press conference at Boston’s famous Old South Church, where many dressed in sackcloth and ashes to call for repentance and change in Christianity in the United States, the presenters were clear that white American Evangelicalism is in a crisis, a crisis of its own making. It has abandoned the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

“Is Roy Moore a hill on which Evangelicals are prepared to die? As for me and my house, ‘Hell no, we won’t go,’” said Evangelical theologian Rev. Dr. Peter Heltzel, Associate Professor of Theology at New York Theological Seminary, asking the crisis question and answering it. “During difficult days in our nation, The Boston Declaration calls Christians to follow the Jesus Way, bearing prophetic witness to Christ through fight racism, sexism, poverty and all forms of oppression.”

One of the key organizers of The Boston Declaration, Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey, Associate Dean at Boston University School of Theology, contrasted the Gospel teachings with what is being peddled as Christianity today in some conservative circles, both religious and political. She said:

We are here because Jesus taught us to “love our neighbor as ourselves.” We are here because we take the parable of the Good Samaritan to heart. We are here because we refuse to allow Christianity to be co-opted by the likes of people who support abuse of women, the closing of our nation to the immigrant in need and the normalizing of lie after lie after lie.

Finally, we are here because we believe our nation yearns to hear from us this day and to watch for how our commitment as Christian theologians continues into the election season of next year.

Rev. Dr. David Wilhite, professor of theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University, said with great intensity that “Evangelical is a category I can’t use any more. Evangelicals have come to misrepresent Christianity. The heart of Evangelicalism is keeping the Gospel call at the heart of all we do.”

Dr. Wilhite noted that Evangelicals “are supposed to have a come to Jesus moment.” And this time in American life, he argued, is clearly such a moment. “Evangelical Christianity has become white, male Christianity. And for this we need to repent.”

Rev. Dr. Reggie Williams, professor of ethics at McCormick Theological Seminary, talked of the heavy hearts carried by himself and other African-Americans in this current moment. “These are sinister times, but they are not new. As a black person educated in Evangelical Christian institutions, I am familiar with a Christianity that has a history of ignoring my being, and providing theological justification for my non-being.”

But, he emphasized, what is “new in my lifetime to have such an over embrace of it.” How can people say it is Christianity to “proclaim good news to the rich or push the differently embodied person to the margins? Now is the time to follow Jesus the poor Jewish prophet whose teaching of the Kingdom was the inspiration for the Boston Declaration.”

I spoke as well. I am a Professor of Theology and President Emerita of Chicago Theological Seminary.

When we have torch carrying right-wing radicals marching around in Charlottesville, Virginia yelling “blood and soil!” and “Jews will not replace us!” it is time to confront this kind of Nazism with the historical courage of those who confronted the Nazis in the 1930s in Germany.

German Christian theologians and pastors spoke out against the corruptions of the Nazi regime that was using every possible deception to wrap itself in the sacred. It was a travesty. Some of them paid for that courage with their lives.

We need that kind of courage today. I said:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German Christian pastor who was arrested and ultimately executed by the Nazis for his opposition to Hitler, contrasted what he called “cheap grace” with the costly grace of the Gospel. “Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits.”

The Christianity Bonhoeffer denounced is the Christianity we denounce today. It is a Christianity that literally enables hate, hate for people of color, for immigrants, for those of other religions, for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender human beings, for women and girls, for the poor and the most vulnerable among us.

And why do these so-called Christians do this? Not out of obedience to the teachings of Jesus, because Jesus taught the exact opposite of their hate-mongering. No, they do it for power, for political gain.

Jesus asks, “What does it profit you to gain the whole world and lose your soul?” Mark 8:36

We are not here merely to denounce, however. The most important thing we can do as Christian theologians is announce the good news of the Gospel. The good news is the radical inclusivity of God, for God so loved the world. Not just some in the world who are white, or rich, or male or heterosexual. God loved the whole world of animals and plants and the entire ecosystem that is a victim of this same rapaciousness and nearly mindless drive for political domination.

The good news, and it is very good news, is an invitation to turn away from greed and turn toward love of neighbor.

Turn away from hate and turn towards love. It’s actually more fun here in the circles of radical hospitality.

Jesus said, “Love one another.” And we say, “Amen.”

Washington State School Districts to Allow 'After-School Satan' Clubs

Allow ‘After-School Satan’ programs or

face costly lawsuits, school told

A lawyer hired by a school district in Washington state has advised education officials that The Satanic Temple must be allowed to hold ‘After-School Satan’ programs.

Attorney Duncan Fobes told Mount Vernon School District that it could face costly litigation, which it would likely lose, if it prevented the The Satanic Temple from holding after-school programs for children at its facilities, the Skagit Valley Herald has reported.

The Temple announced its intention to hold the clubs earlier this year in response to a Supreme Court ruling allowing evangelical religious programs to operate in schools.

Nine clubs, including one in Mount Vernon, have been set up around the US and the Temple said they are specifically targeting schools which host a Good News Bible Club. The interdenominational Christian program operates in more than 3,500 public schools across the US.

Satanic Temple of Seattle spokesperson Tarkus Claypool said a parent brought the Bible club to its attention over concerns the club was teaching children to evangelize to other children, KOMO reports.

One of The Satanic Temple’s founders, Lucien Greaves, said the after-school clubs try to bring diversity to the religious opinions children are exposed to in school. He claimed the Good News Club instills children “with a fear of Hell and God’s wrath.”

That, I'm sure, is an extremely myopic view of what the clubs teach, although I can see it being particularly concerning to Mr Greaves.

The religious freedom campaign group says it does not believe in or worship Satan but instead views him as a metaphor for rebellion and rational inquiry. The group recently made headlines for establishing their headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts, the town famous for the colonial era witch trials.

However, at a Mount Vernon School Board meeting this week, concerned parents spoke out against the Temple's application for an after-school club.

Mike Cheek, who has grandchildren in the district, said, "This is going to be infectious and widespread… I know that if there is anything to do with Satan, it is dark and it is evil."

The district cannot ban the club from school property unless it uses hate speech, incites violence or includes pornography.

Board President Rob Coffey said the district’s hands are tied. "We must make our facilities available... We must make them available whether we like the group or not. There really is no opportunity for us to say no to the Satanic Temple or the After School Satan Club.”

How Old is the Earth, Really? Why Judaism Rejects Creationism

By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.” Psalms 90:2 (The Israel Bible™)


(Shutterstock)

After successfully debating Bill Nye, a celebrity scientist, Ken Ham built a $92 million theme park in Kentucky with a full-size replica of Noah’s Ark as a centerpiece to promote his belief in Biblical Creationism. People are flocking to the park, and its Biblical message of creation seems to be gaining popularity. This belief has not caught on in Judaism, but the reasons may surprise you.

A Pew poll in February showed that 34 percent of Americans choose creationism over evolution, and another 25 percent believe in evolution guided by a supreme being (intelligent design). The poll went into detail, showing that 57 percent of Evangelical Christians believe in creationism, with another 25 percent believing in natural processes guided by a supreme being, leaving only 11 percent who believe in evolution.

On the other hand, the Pew poll showed that 58 percent of Jews believed the world came about through natural processes, another 18 percent believed these processes were guided by a supreme being, and only 16 percent believed the world has always existed in its present form.


Noah’s Ark replica built by Ken Ham. (Twitter @ArkEcounter)

It may seem paradoxical that the People of the Book, who received the Torah directly from God, would reject a belief based on a literal reading of the Bible. But although many see creationism as a choice of belief and Bible over science and data, Jews have worked hard to live successfully in both worlds.

In its purest form, creationism understands the world as coming into existence, fully formed, in six calendar days of 24 hours each, with man created separately as the pinnacle of God’s work. It precludes evolutionary theory and theories about the origin of the universe, leading to a conflict on estimates of when the earth and the universe were created.

Scientists generally agree the earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago. Most scientists claim the Big Bang that brought the universe into existence occurred approximately 14 billion years ago. Young Earth creationists believe both events occurred simultaneously between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago.

As director of the Biblical Museum of Natural History, Rabbi Natan Slifkin embodies the ideal of a Biblical scientist. He doesn’t see any contradictions between the worlds of Bible and science. Judaism, he explains, has always been able to accommodate science and theology. He quoted the Rambam, a preeminent medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher.

“As Rambam said, accept the truth from wherever it comes,” he told Breaking Israel News.

“According to the rationalist approach, it is preferable to explain creation in scientific terms, because it is always preferable to see God working within nature and a system of law. “

Conflicts do arise between Torah and science. The Hebrew calendar, presently standing at 5776, is, in theory, based on the creation of the world. Rabbi Slifkin again quoted the Rambam’s Guide to the Perplexed, in which the rabbinical scholar wrote, “The account of creation is not all to be taken literally.”

The Rambam went on to explain that the Six Days represent a conceptual rather than historical account of creation. Rabbi Slifkin cited Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Hoffman (1843-1921), a member of Agudath Israel’s Council of Torah Sages, who suggested that the Six Days of Creation were lengthy eras rather than 24-hour periods.

Evolution, the impetus for Ken Ham’s massive Biblical theme park, simply does not seem to be such a big deal for Jewish Biblical scholars.


Rabbi Natan Slifkin, General Director of the Biblical Museum of Natural History, in Beit Shemesh, on March 4, 2015. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

“God can work through meteorology, through medicine, through history, and through developmental biology. This is why it makes no difference if the neo-Darwinian explanation of the mechanism for evolution is true or not,” Rabbi Slifkin explained. “All these descriptions were interpreted literally by the Sages of old, and yet almost all recent Torah scholars interpret them non-literally.”

Torah Judaism also differs from Bible-based Christian creationism on the point of the nature of man. Creationism holds that man is distinct from animals, owing to the separate description of his being “formed”. It is partly for this reason that creationists reject evolutionary theory.

Then Hashem God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7

Genesis describes man’s creation twice, and Rabbi Slifkin emphasized the version in the first chapter of Genesis.

And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. Genesis 1:27

Professor Natan Aviezer
Bar Ilan University

“Classical Judaism has long maintained that man is not qualitatively different from animals in his physical aspects,” the rabbi noted. “Man’s unique identity is in his spiritual soul, not in his physical body and most certainly not in his physical origin.”

Professor Natan Aviezer of Bar Ilan University, a physicist and religious Jew, deals with this issue in his book Modern Science and Ancient Faith. He quotes Charles Darwin’s parting words in his manifesto on evolution, On the Origin of Species.

“There is a grandeur in this view of life, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one, and from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” Charles Darwin

Aviezer also cites Samson Raphael Hirsch, an influential German rabbi and contemporary of Darwin, bringing a Rabbinic concept of Olam Ke’Minhago Noheg (the universe goes its accustomed way). God did not simply create the world and step back. Aviezer explains that God works within nature.

“This important principle explains how God interacts with His world,” wrote Professor Aviezer in his book. “It follows from this principle that no scientific discovery can cast doubt on the existence of God.”

Freedom of Religion - Gay Rights War Hits Brazil

Brazilian LGBT Community Looks On In Fear 

At Rise Of Evangelicals

Social conservatives have taken control of Brazil’s Congress and are trying to reverse marriage equality and other progressive victories. 

J. Lester Feder                                                       Freedom of Religion - Gay Rights War
BuzzFeed News World Correspondent                  needs a new name - any suggestions?
from Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro

Disclaimer: This article was written by a Buzzfeed Correspondent. It leans considerably in the favour of the LGBT community and attempts to evoke fear of the growing evangelical influence in the government of South America's biggest country. Bear that in mind and read this with the knowledge that it is not unbiased, objective reporting. Nevertheless, it's well worth the read.

BRASILIA — A group of hard-faced young men marched military style through a cheering crowd, giving straight-armed salutes. ”Thank the Lord, we are here today ready for battle, and determined to serve you — We are Gladiators of the Altar,” they declared, in a video that went viral in February.

The video wasn’t a clip from an army training exercise or propaganda for some sort of militia.

I have to admit - this is pretty disconcerting.
I am hard-pressed to see anything good coming out of this movement.

According to the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, which posted the video, the Gladiators of the Altar program essentially amounts to a Bible study class for at-risk young men. The video, posted in February by a Universal Church in the northern coastal city of Fortaleza, got around one million views in the 24 hours before the church took it offline, following widespread uproar.

The video caught fire in part because it embodied the ideological battle now playing out in Brazil’s capital. Backed by the country’s rapidly growing evangelical population, a large number of religious conservatives won election in October as part of a broad conservative coalition that now controls Congress. They have taken office bent on reversing recent gains for LGBT rights, including a 2013 decision by a judicial panel that established marriage equality nationwide. Progressives have struggled to draw public attention to the implications of the vote, in part because even President Dilma Rousseff — who supports LGBT rights — courted evangelical support for her reelection.

“The photo is shocking,” wrote Brazil’s only out gay member of Congress and best-known progressive standard bearer, Jean Wyllys, in a long comment on an Instagram post of the Gladiators. The threat of “religious fundamentalism” has gone ignored as Brazil’s major parties have scrambled for the votes of conservative evangelicals who now make up more than 20% of the population, he wrote. This “Christian fundamentalism” is every bit as dangerous as “Islamic fundamentalism” in the Middle East, and now threatens “individual liberty, sexual diversity, and secular culture” in Brazil, he said.

“When will we wake up to the true nature of the monster emerging from the lake,” he asked.

The Gladiators’ militaristic march became such a lightening rod partly because the Universal Church already casts a large shadow over Brazilian politics. Founded 37 years ago and headquartered in São Paulo, it is one of South America’s fastest growing denominations and now claims well over 8 million adherents in Brazil and millions more in countries including Argentina, Angola, and the United States. Its founder and patriarch, Edir Macedo, subscribes to a kind of “prosperity theology” that suggests the faithful are rewarded with wealth and encourages believers to give large gifts to the church. He has amassed a personal fortune estimated to be more than $1 billion while head of this growing religious empire. Much of that comes from his ownership of Brazil’s second largest television network, Rede Record.

Rumors persist that he controls the Brazilian Republican Party, a small party created in 2005 under the leadership of his nephew, Senator and Universal Church bishop Marcelo Bezerra Crivelli. The party, however, officially maintains it is independent and secular. (Through a spokesperson, Macedo declined to be interviewed for this story.)

Brazil President Dilma Rousseff

The Brazilian Republican Party won 21 seats in last October’s election, almost all of whom are reportedly Universal Church members. They are among the more than 80 evangelicals elected to Congress, a gain of around a dozen over the previous congress. An informal grouping known as the “Evangelical Bloc” now forms the backbone of a newly emboldened social conservative faction.

“I think we have the most conservative congress yet,” said Deputy Alan Rick, a freshman from the Republican Party who was tapped to lead a 330-member “Family Front.” In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Rick said that the Front was organized in part to block a nondiscrimination law known as the law to “criminalize homophobia.” This law was a long-standing priority for LGBT rights advocates because Brazil has one of the highest reported rates of anti-LGBT hate crimes in the world. (The human rights arm of the Organization of American States counted 347 assaults or murders of LGBT people in Brazil in the one year period ending March 31 of 2014 alone.) The Front also hoped to pass its own legislation giving protections to fetuses from the moment of conception, potentially expanding Brazilian law that limits abortion only to cases involving rape or if it is the only way to save the mother’s life.

Many progressives are stunned to find a Congress that not only has a larger number of social conservatives, but also has stronger factions allied with the military, police, and cattle-ranching interests — a conservative coalition known as the “BBB Bloc” for bibles, bullets, and bulls. This majority is painful for them because widespread 2013 protests against economic inequality had raised hopes for a progressive election wave. But this failed to materialize, and the progressive favorite for president, environmentalist Marina Silva, finished third after she backtracked on support for LGBT rights and made other other concessions to the right to appeal to evangelicals and other conservatives.

Warning cries from progressives about the threat to LGBT and women’s rights have fallen on deaf ears, in part because of a sprawling corruption scandal involving the state oil company, Patrobras, that threatens to bring down the Rousseff government.

In March, investigators named 49 politicians suspected in a kickback-for-contracts scheme. Rousseff, who oversaw the company for many years as a member of the board of directors and as minister of energy, was not named and has denied any knowledge of wrongdoing while she ran the company. But there have been large-scale protests calling for her impeachment.

One of those named by investigators is Eduardo Cunha, the president of Congress’s lower chamber, the House of Deputies. Cunha has still managed to eclipse Rousseff as the most powerful politician in Brasilia. In one emblematic episode, he got Rousseff’s administration to oust the education minister and then announced his firing from the House floor before the administration had time to prepare a formal announcement.

Cunha is an evangelical who thumbed his nose at progressives when he took office by proposing bills to create a “Hetero Pride Day” and to criminalize “heterophobia.” He also told abortion rights supporters they would “have to go over my dead body to vote” on legislation to decriminalize the procedure. Brazilian political observers routinely compare him to House of Cards’s Frank Underwood, a comparison Cunha told one newspaper he dislikes because Underwood “is a thief, gay, and a cuckold.”

Through a spokesperson, Cunha declined to speak with BuzzFeed News.

Social conservative lawmakers said they were feeling bullish under his leadership.

Marco Feliciano Lester Feder / BuzzFeed News

Marco Feliciano is a megachurch leader and gospel singer who was elected to the House from São Paulo state in 2010 and won reelection in 2014 with the highest number of votes of any evangelical member of Congress. In his words, Cunha “is a political genius.” Feliciano is known as one of the most bombastic of Congress’s social conservatives. In 2013, after winning the chairmanship of the House human rights committee, he tried to advance a bill reversing a ban on mental health professionals practising “conversion therapy” to make gay people straight. When the outcry against his chairmanship began in the spring of 2013, Feliciano said even members of his own party wanted him to step down, but Cunha told him to hang on.

“You’ll get a political gain out of this,” Feliciano said Cunha told him. “You’ll be a symbol to any Christian running for office.”

The proposal that most worries social progressives in Cunha’s Congress is a new family code. The bill’s opponents view it primarily as a way to undermine a 2013 decision by a judicial panel that established marriage equality nationwide. If the bill passes, “the LGBT family will lose the legal protection of the state,” said Wyllys, the out deputy.

Wyllys and many others on the left complain that churches have an unfair advantage in the political arena: their earnings are tax exempt, even when they come from church-owned businesses that have nothing to do with worship. Many deputies are also stars of religious broadcasting or well known gospel singers, and their publicity gives them a leg up.

The chairman of the committee writing the family law, Sostenes Cavalcante, is a prime example of what they complain about. His third largest source of campaign funds is one of Brazil’s wealthiest and politically influential religious leaders, Pastor Silas Malafaia of the Assembly of God Victory in Christ Church in Rio de Janeiro.

Cavalacante could not be reached for comment after several attempts by BuzzFeed News. Campaign financial records, show Malafaia contributed $31,000 to Cavalcante’s campaign via his Gospel Central publishing company in 2014 with an additional $17,000 via Malafaia’s brother. Malafaia’s endorsement alone carries tremendous weight: when he tweeted a demand that Marina Silva retract LGBT rights language from her presidential platform last August or lose his potential support, she cut it immediately.

Pastor Silas Malafaia Lester Feder / BuzzFeed News

During an interview at his church in the western part of Rio de Janeiro, Malafaia disputed that he and other evangelicals were using the political arena to go after LGBT people. They are simply fighting back against a movement he said wanted to send them to jail for practicing their religion.

“Gay activism is the most intolerant movement of postmodernity,” Malafaia said.

Malafaia, also a licensed psychologist, said he’s faced four unsuccessful suits by LGBT activists trying to have his license revoked, and said the anti-homophobia law was simply an attempt to “censor” churches.

“Soon they will make a law to forbid us to preach in our churches against practices we don’t believe in,” Malafaia said. Recent proposals in Brasilia such as a bill to allow minors a path to legal gender reassignment, he argued that evangelicals were fighting against “the state overruling the family,” a kind of “cultural Marxism” that will “destroy family and society and civilization.”

The only thing that’s changed in this Congress, Malafaia said, is that “Congress represents people’s ideology and thinking.”

At base, Malafaia argued, Brazilian politics are changing in line with Brazil’s population. Census data shows that evangelical protestants now account for more than 22% of Brazil’s population, up from around 10% in 1991. (About one-third of these belong to Malafaia’s denomination, the Assemblies of God.) The rate of growth is staggering that many demographers believe that a country that was more than 90% Catholic in 1970 could soon be majority evangelical. This could lead to a continuing decline in support for marriage equality; polling data shows that only 25 percent of Brazilian protestants support marriage equality as opposed to 51 percent of Catholics.

“That’s where our power comes from,” Malafaia said. “We are more than 50 million — 50 million evangelicals who go to church.” And unlike other politicians, he said, “evangelicals do not separate the church and practical life.”

His opponents see something much more sinister: an alliance between social conservatives and those who are nostalgic for Brazil’s dictatorship, which only fell in the 1980s. For them, the most emblematic evangelical leader is Deputy Jair Bolsonaro, who infamously said in 2011 that he would rather one of his sons “died in an accident” than to be gay. Bolsonaro also recently proposed a bill that would name the waters off the Brazilian coast the “President Medici Sea” after Brazil’s former dictator.

“We live a crisis moment in Brazil,” said Erika Kokay, a deputy who represents Brasilia in Congress and is a progressive stalwart on the Human Rights Committee. “The fundamentalist bloc is making arrangements with other conservative blocs in Congress … That’s a fascist logic.”

The Romantic Christian

Are you a romantic Christian? No, I’m not asking if you buy your wife flowers, or make your husband intimate suppers. I’m asking if you have romanticized Christ.

To romanticize means to deal with or describe in an idealized or unrealistic fashion. It’s hard to romanticize Jesus; He’s our creator, He is, was, and always will be perfect. But somehow many of us have come to distort the church that Jesus started, and to make it into something so user-friendly, so soft and furry, so undemanding, that it is nothing like the faith the He initiated.

So, what does a romantic Christian believe? For one, a romantic Christian may believe that when times get tough, Christians get outa here. I had a pastor one time who liked to shout from the pulpit, "Jesus might come at any moment, maybe before this service is through, and take us all away to Heaven. " That he was articulating the beliefs of many Christians and some of our largest evangelical denominations, is a tragedy that would turn the early church fathers apoplectic.

The theory of the pre-tribulation rapture will be explored more fully later, but, for now, I will say that it is probably the chief cornerstone of the romantic Christian. What could be better than to get out of here before things get really nasty?

One of the big problems with that is that most people who look closely at Christian demographics will tell you that somewhere between 3 and 10% of people who believe they are saved and going to Heaven, are genuinely saved. The remainder show little or no change in their lives; no discernable moral difference from secular people.

Consequently, 90 to 97% of “Christians” will likely be left behind if we have a pre-tribulation rapture. Not a very romantic thought, is it? Certainly not what Tim LeHaye would have you believe.