Florida Pastor Receives Threats for Separating State-Worship from God-Worship

In a sad story, a Baptist pastor in Florida has taken leave pending an investigation into threatening notes he received. What did he do to incur such hateful, un-Christian animus? Rev. Sean Allen dared to remove the American and Christian flags from the church altar. When did devotion to flag become more important than - or, maybe worse still, equated with - devotion to God?

http://www.bjconline.org/cgi-bin/200...

Hagee:  Jews have dead souls  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju_8S... and http://www.therevealer.org/archives/...

More heartbreak below.

You never know who's pouring around here, do you?

I'll take a Brandy Old-Fashioned, sour, please. What'll you have?

We haven't heard much recently from Zack Exley's  Revolution in Jesusland blog, but this bit from Sarah Posner should serve as a reminder of the appeal of some of the Emerging Churches:

This past weekend, Jay Bakker, son of the televangelist Jim Bakker and the late Tammy Faye Bakker, visited Joel Osteen's Lakewood megachurch in Houston, Texas, in an effort to enlist the church's participation in the civil rights organization Soulforce's effort to foster dialogue between churches and LGBT people. Bakker, who pastors his own Revolution Church in Brooklyn, New York, became an openly "gay-affirming" pastor three years ago. Revolution Church's website proclaims, "As Christians, we're sorry for being self-righteous judgmental bastards."

In Houston, Bakker chatted with Osteen and other church officials after the Sunday service, and although he described Osteen as "very genuine" and "welcoming" of LGBT people into his church it became clear that Osteen wasn't going to take any big stands on LGBT rights. Bakker chalks up much of the resistance to fear of losing influence and financial support. When he took his stand, Bakker added, he lost big donors and speaking engagements.

I seem to remember hearing about Bakker's move to welcoming gays and lesbians and its attendant fallout a couple of years back. In any case, it doesn't surprise me a bit that he's run into some flak for his stance. That's not a slam at Evangelicals, by the way - he could have had the very same problems in any number of mainline denominations.

But yeah, "we're sorry for being self-righteous judgmental bastards" pretty much gets to the heart of Christian problems these days, doesn't it?

You have to say who's in and who's out:

The authors affirm that they oppose abortion and same-sex marriage in order to demonstrate that they belong, to demonstrate that their voices are legitimate voices in their community, to demonstrate that they are "Evangelicals." And what is the key, the touchstone, the Shibboleth for that demonstration? Two, and only two, political opinions. To be anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality may not be sufficient to demonstrate that one is an Evangelical, but it is necessary -- far more necessary than any given theological or confessional belief.

The manifesto's splendid language about reaching out to "the poor, the sick, the hungry, the oppressed, the socially despised, and being faithful stewards of creation and our fellow-creatures" belongs to a different category. Such opinions are acceptable, perhaps even admirable, but they are not Shibboleths that demonstrate one's valid membership in the community.

Here, then, is the "Evangelical Manifesto." It is an often persuasive and eloquent argument that political and cultural definitions of "Evangelical" are illegitimate. Yet even here -- in the midst of that argument -- the authors cannot avoid bowing to the demands of exactly those political and cultural definitions.

The authors of the Manifesto are learning the same hard lesson mainline Protestants have learned the same hard way. There just is no splitting the difference with some people. Sometimes you have to be the church you are called to be and to hell with the rest of them. That's not very fun for anyone committed to unity in anything more than the most superficial way. It certainly doesn't lend itself to intellectually consistent statements of purpose or self-definition. But it may be the single most important lesson for the body of Christ to learn these days.

Hey, Ma - I made the front page! Of Religion Dispatches, that is.

Just to tease you without giving anything away, Jacques Berlinblau agrees with me in general, but also in the particulars of seeing certain Episcopal-like tendencies among the authors of the Manifesto:

I encounter many of the types of people who composed the Manifesto at scholarly conferences and assorted college campuses. What are they like? Generally, quite a lot of fun. Many come from thoroughly respectable drinking cultures and welcome into alcoholic fellowship believers and non-believers alike.

In private conversation, they tend to be fiercely critical of the demagogues whose simplifications they view as an embarrassment to, and degradation of, their theological tradition. Far less doctrinaire than prevailing Blue-State stereotypes may suggest, they tend to be very open to discussing alternative viewpoints.

In any case, what I think we are seeing in the Manifesto is a coming-out party of sorts. A more professorial and thoughtful strain of Evangelicalism is finding its public voice (Please note that “professorial” and “thoughtful” are not necessarily synonyms for “liberal”).

Really. Go read the whole thing. Heh.

Please join our community in prayer.  Just leave your prayer requests and pray for the requests of the community. I welcome all people to join in as the power of prayer/good energy is undeniable.

If you have any favorite prayers or passages or quotes or meditations, please send them to me to share, meeshka1@msn dot com

Please do not argue about the requests of others--you may do that elsewhere!!! If you wish to offer comments of support--please do so! If you choose to rate prayer requests, I like to use a "4" as an AMEN! If you disagree with a request, please just refrain from rating--this is a place where people need to feel they can reveal and unburden their hearts without being criticized. Should any trolls come our way, just surround them with prayer.

Prayer requests remain on the list based upon my judgment.  Removing requests is my decision.  I have no hard and fast rules--I simply act when the list seems to get too long or it seems the request no longer applies.  If I take one off which you would like to remain, please simply request it again.  If the request can be removed earlier, please let me know.  I'm sure we all would appreciate an update.

Thank you!

There's more:

Women perhaps, but I'm not so sure about the churchgoer part:

Female voters...were particularly generous to Clinton with their ballots on Tuesday. According to CNN exit polls, 71 percent of female voters backed Clinton, with a healthy 59 percent of men also supporting her.

Cultural issues also loomed large on voters’ minds. Thirty percent of those surveyed said Obama shared the views of his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, at least “somewhat,” according to the exit surveys. Exit pools also had Clinton winning the support of 66 percent of those who said they attend church “more than weekly” and 60 percent who go to services weekly.

I never was a math whiz, but it seems to me that if Clinton won the state by roughly two-thirds to one-third, and she won churchgoers by the same ratio, that proves pretty much nothing, right? They weren't a particular strength or weakness for her - she just won them like she won everybody else. Somebody who understands statistics, straighten me out.

But there are other problems here:

Barely one-third of Clinton supporters said they would vote for the Illinois senator over McCain in the general election, according to exit polling conducted for the Associated Press and television networks. Just as many said they would vote for the Republican over Obama, while about 25 percent said they would not cast presidential ballots.

More than anything else, economic factors influenced voters in West Virginia, where the median family income is roughly $12,500 below the national median of about $58,500.

If economic factors influence voters "more than anything else," how can women and churchgoers "fuel" Clinton's victory?

More important than sloppy headline writing, what's the elephant in the room here? Race? Culture? Seems to me that such a stunning lack of support for an Obama candidacy among Clinton voters fairly cries out for more interpretation.

But then I'm just a pinhead pastor.

As many as 128,000 dead, with 2.5 million more at risk. It actually makes the Chinese government look downright compassionate.

It's a beautiful spring afternoon. In a few minutes, I'll have to scoot over to school to pick up Sissy, and then we're off to gymnastics.

Earlier this afternoon, I set up the tent Aunt Becky bought the little boy for his birthday. He's out there now, alternately playing with his toys and shrieking whenever a bug comes anywhere near him.

It's going to be a long summer if this keeps up.

'Sup?

In a monumental victory for the gay rights movement, the California Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on gay marriage Thursday in a ruling that would allow same-sex couples in the nation's biggest state to tie the knot.

Domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage, the justices ruled 4-3 in striking down the ban.

Outside the courthouse, gay marriage supporters cried and cheered as the news spread.

Jeanie Rizzo, one of the plaintiffs, called Pali Cooper, her partner of 19 years, and asked, "Pali, will you marry me?"

"This is a very historic day. This is just such freedom for us," Rizzo said. "This is a message that says all of us are entitled to human dignity."

Amen and amen - and before anybody asks, I'm not available to travel.

The good Congressman puts the situation plainly.

This is the vote from January 16 on war funding.  Since that time, according to Democrats.com, these Congressmembers have said they will vote against further funding of the war (which they did not do on the earlier vote):

As someone who works for a living on campaigns I know first hand of the value of volunteers and the hours that they put in on behalf of the candidate.  They are the gears that make a campaign move forward.  The more you have the faster your campaign is going to move and progress towards an Election Day victory.  

That’s why I am thoroughly impressed with the new campaign initiative from Tom Perriello’s bid for Congress.  They just launched a 10% tithe of volunteer hours to go back towards the community and service projects around the district (Devilstower beat me to it).  The campaign kick started the idea with 42 volunteer hours over the past weekend by constructing a house for Habitat for Humanity in Charlottesville, participated in a food drive and serving food to the hungry at a church.

In the interview that I had with Tom a few weeks back I was struck by this:

Q: How has your faith tradition helped shaped your political and social views?

A: I grew up in a church that preached the social justice message of the Gospels and called me to the teaching of Mathew 25. Sunday was a time that we heard about poverty, torture, and war and our moral obligation to care for and love our neighbor. My political views and my efforts to live a life of service were shaped by the prophetic call in Micah to serve the least among us and to "do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." As a Catholic, I know I will always fall short of this aspiration, but it remains my guiding light.

With this new initiative it seems that Tom and his campaign are further practicing what they preach.  They are actually taking time away from campaigning to help out in the community.  Granted the community service is good publicity for the campaign and is in a way campaigning the overall effects are moving towards the common good in Virginia’s fifth district.  I think it's a testament to the kind of representative that he would be in D.C.