Month: June 2022

Praying and Singing Hymns to God

~ phroneticchristian ~ 1 Comment

You’d think by the title that this refers to Acts 16, where Paul and Silas were jailed in Philippi. But it’s about a 27 year-old named Tyler Dinsmoor. “He is in a concrete box, but is holding strong. He has his bible, and is singing Psalms!”

Dinsmoor had regularly been posting anti-LGBTQ+ death threats. “All homosexuals are child-rapists in wait, and all (every single one) should be put to death immediately”. What caught the authorities’ attention was his plan to attend a Pride Parade on the following day, “with the implication that he’s going to do something violent unless someone stops him”.

He was charged with felony civil rights malicious harassment with a hate crimes enhancement. Essentially, crimes motivated by bigotry which threaten reasonable fear of harm. (It so happens that he emblazoned the words “Bible Bigot” on his truck). Dinsmoor, who owns “a small Bible Christian family tannery”, remains in jail under a $1 million bail.

You read the words “Bible Christian” correctly. Dinsmoor is a fervent Christian, attending a church where the pastor preaches that homosexuals should be shot in the back of the head. If he had been able to carry out his fantasies, it would have received “the encouragement of those who share his religious and political views”.  Like the Christian Right-dominated Texas GOP, which just declared that President Biden was not legitimately elected, and that homosexuality is “abnormal”. Closer to home, a Give-Send-Go defense fund was started, claiming his only crime was hurting the feelings of a homosexual. Donations are now up to $27,000, with many Christians expressing sympathy with this God-fearing political prisoner.

Juxtapose this hero-worship – à la the martyred Ashley Babbitt – with the resentment directed towards the enemies of Christian Nationalism. Like at a Michigan local right-to-life organization, where someone busted glass windows and defaced the building with pink spray paint. “That “people that would do such a thing … what a sad state of affairs that groups like this ….can resort to terrorism and hate crimes,” the angry Director stated. I’m not condoning law-breaking, but can’t help noticing how Charisma News and other fishwrap are full of these White Christian victimization pieces.

A few months back, I blogged that evangelical churches have increasingly become nurseries of sedition – not simply against an Administration they hate, but more importantly, against the Jesus of the Gospels. This home-grown surge of Christian extremism is largely fomented by religious leaders – there are thousands and they are interwoven with extremists of all types. These pastors, teacher and “apostles” have long practiced stochastic terrorism from the pulpit are seeing their seeds of incitement come to fruition as real world violence. “We’re a mighty army. They’ve gotta listen. They can’t ignore us,” says Pastor Greg Locke – who was at the Capitol while it was being stormed. Inflammatory speech just hasn’t been enough – it seems the time has come to make people listen to God from a gun barrel. It reminds me of Harry Chapin’s ballad, “Sniper”:

The first words he spoke took the town by surprise.

One got Mrs. Gibbons above her right eye.

It blew her through the window wedged her against the door.

Reality poured from her face, staining the floor.

And evangelicals of all persuasions are praying and singing praise to God

Clear as White and Black

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A young black man was on his daily commute one morning recently, when a Miami patrolman pulled him over. Coming to the window, the (white) policeman took his keys away. He informed the motorist that his seatbelt hadn’t been fastened. “This is how you guys get killed out here”, Officer Friendly helpfully pointed out. The story doesn’t include whether the driver left a brown stain on his seat. But it shows how mightily scared he was. In a classic case of driving while black, he had every suspicion to suppose his drive to work would be taking a detour to eternity. Funny how traffic stops for minor violations have resulted in some 600 deaths in the past 5 years – with black victims disproportionately represented.

“We got a guy walking around with a gun that he could hurt a lot of people with, but he’s not breaking the law,” an Oklahoma sheriff remarked. A scruffy young white male had been reported meandering around a strip mall, armed with a loaded AR-15 and a revolver. He walked into an AT&T store, scaring employees and customers, who dialed 911 while running for their lives. The courthouse had already locked its doors when he tried to get in. Local police advised concerned citizens that its perfectly legal in Oklahoma to scare the shit out of normal people. In most places, it is legal provided the gun-nut doesn’t start shooting. He did have a set of brass knuckles and .50 caliber pistol. (Doesn’t everyone?) and those are illegal so he was arrested for that. “Terrified people called 911 again and again on the scary looking dude carrying a small arsenal, but it was all legal until cops found the brass knuckles and the .50 caliber handgun.”

Before you answer the following, think it over carefully:

Would the result be the same if their races were reversed?

Donald Trump assumes the legacy of Jack Hyles

~ phroneticchristian ~ 2 Comments

This post is about Jack Hyles, and it isn’t. It’s about all us within evangelical Christianity. I think it makes more sense to present the story in reverse order:

Jack Schaap just got out of Federal prison, where he did nine years of hard time for sexually abusing an underage girl. Schapp was lead pastor in one of America’s biggest churches. I went to Hammond, Indiana to his 15,000-member church in a Scooby Doo van with a bunch of laid-back Wheaton grad students just to observe an evening service. At the time, I didn’t know much about IFB (Independent Fundamentalist Baptist) churches, but learned all I needed from that evening. It was still when his father-in-law and predecessor Jack Hyles was pastor. We were advised to dress well – and although we left our tattered jeans at home, we stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the suits and ties, and ankle-length dresses. We were seated right in front of the “Preacher Boys”, apparently their version of spiritual apprenticeship. We learned later that the favored pet among them was Dave Hyles – the pastor kid. Brother Hyles harangued the congregation for half an hour or so, occasionally alluding to the Bible – and calling out people by name he reckoned weren’t paying close enough attention. Then came time for the “appeal” and mass baptism. One after another entered the alligator pit – but only after long-haired hippie types were shorn of their locks. It was surreal. Hyles died in 2001, rebuking sinners till the end while refusing to confess his own.

Schaap repeatedly used his authority as pastor and personal “counselor” to groom the minor – repeatedly initiating sex in his office, during a church youth conference, and at a secluded cabin. The court denied his two attempts to reduce his sentence, noting that he demonstrated little remorse in “trying to cover up and eradicate evidence”.  Neither did it go over well when his attorneys maintained the 16 year-old victim was just a slut. The church joined in shredding her reputation, submitting over one hundred letters asking for clemency – effusive in praise of their pastor-felon, yet not a word of compassion for the young girl. “You hurt my entire family,” she wrote. “We all trusted you. We went to church for our entire lives. Now, I am in counseling to deal with the constant anger, sadness, guilt, and shame that I feel.” So Jack did his time, albeit losing some good conduct reduction when reportedly caught with his hand fondling a woman’s crotch. His plans following release are not known. But with many still willing to “lift him up back on his feet”, I assume he will be restored to a pulpit somewhere.

A corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. It didn’t start with Schaap. The senior Hyles was a long-time adulterer until his death. Hyles the junior – still living and ministering faithfully within the IFB bubble – was an alleged serial rapist, reportedly being hustled off by his influential father to from one church to another in the wake of recurring scandals.  In 2020, reports emerged of screenshots a woman in her 20’s took purporting to show the 67 year-old – balding and pudgy – man bragging about his penis and wanting to masturbate online with her. “I’m the boss; I can do whatever I want”, he allegedly wrote. IFB churches may be conducive to this depravity, but they are not unique to it. As one victim stated, the experience made her “understand that these people exist everywhere,”

Like his father-in-law who demanded “100% Hyles” obedience and issued denials while rumors were swirling around him, Schaap exercised command control over his congregation. They absolved themselves from accountability to anyone but God. It’s not a rare occurrence among many within the evangelical cult. All of us nurture our own gardens of rotten fruit, and I point these out not to heap scorn, but to emphasize a truism of evangelicalism, with which Trumpism shares many cultic elements:

  • A strong authoritarian Leader unaccountable to anyone.
    • Invincibility of the Leader as “anointed”, who is never wrong..
    • Leader espouses morality, but does not live it inwardly.
    • Belief in the Leader’s word, regardless of reality.
    • Unquestioned loyalty to the authoritarian Spiritual Father.
    • A strong us-versus-them mentality.

Once during a sermon, Jack Hyles held up a cup embossed with skull and cross-bones, and clearly marked “Poison”. He called over a deacon and asked him to drink it. He gulped it down without hesitation. “People keep wondering why the evangelical church has been one of the staunchest supporters of Donald Trump”, asks Karen Spears Zacharias . She answers her own question: “Why not? Donald Trump is the legacy of Jack Hyles’s life and ministry.”

Why not? Because they are all personality cults. And dangerous. Because they gladly get drunk on kool-aid brought forth from an evil tree.

Jesus, Why Are You Standing In Our Way?

~ phroneticchristian ~ 3 Comments

Meet Ryan Kelley. He seems nice enough. A family man, small business owner, and most recently a Michigan candidate for governor arrested on Jan. 6 riot-related charges. Among other things, he is accused of:

“… being an active participant in the riot, climbing onto portions of the Capitol, encouraging yelling, gesturing to participants and removing a covering from a temporary structure outside the Capitol… At approximately 2:20 p.m., Kelley continued to gesture to the crowd, consistently indicating that they should move towards the stairs that led to the entrance of the U.S. Capitol interior spaces.”

Video captures him (allegedly) encouraging the crowd with: “Come on, let’s go! This is it! This is, this is war baby!”

Oh, forgot to mention. He’s an evangelical Christian. “A lot of prayer went into where to specifically go. God’s number one in my life, as well as my relationship with my wife, and the Lord being the center of our marriage. So, lots of prayer, lots of talking between my wife and I, and there was a path that led this direction, so I’m following it as long as God keeps opening up those doors.” Ironically, Kelley was referring to his gubernatorial run, not the prayer-anointed white nationalist insurrection that ransacked the Capitol. Sadly, his arrest may just give his campaign the boost it needs among White Nationalists.

“It’s time for an American Revival”. God is number one in Marjorie Taylor Greene’s life, too. Marge, according to herself, “only wants us to share the Gospel.” She answers his call to follow Christ’s example:  “That’s why I will continue to share my message of unity, family, and faith in our great nation to every corner and every group within America”. She loads her Twitter account up with Christianese Hallmark-isms:  

  • Jesus was a friend to sinners; we are called to follow his example.
  • Our faith calls for charity & forgiveness.
  • I’ll keep fighting against identity politics.
  • No one is fooled by the name calling, and everyone is sick of the hypocrisy.

QAnon, Frazzledrip, “false flag” school massacres, Jewish space lasers, MTG is the Queen of crackpot theories and screwball beliefs that would have put her into an asylum a generation ago. And yet, today she is not alone, especially in church. She has a vast conservative following – predominantly white evangelical Christians. Or, as she calls herself, a Christian nationalist.  “It’s the only thing that can stop school shootings, crime, and sexual immorality”, the gun-toting, (alleged) serial adulteress said. “Anyone who opposes it is a domestic terrorist.” They are the REAL Americun Christians, fueled by fear, deception and hatred of the Other.

Take Jake Lang for example, an arrested Jan. 6th rioter. An appellate court upheld his continued detention, noting “he also slammed a door against one officer’s head and struck other officers first with a stolen riot shield and later with a metal baseball bat.” Video shows him deep in the melee saying “I ain’t done yet.” Charisma News carried their version of his story: “From Washington, D.C., Jail, Patriot Jake Lang Gives All Glory to God”. It blissfully describes “how the peaceful crowd surrounded the Capitol… to pray and seek the face of God to save the stolen election, then walked down to the Capitol to provide moral courage and strength for the disputed counting of electoral votes.” In the aftermath, “over 800 godly men and women have been charged in a completely fraudulent series of arrests.” Among the falsehoods in Charisma article was the claim that Capitol Police invited people into the Capitol. It fails to mention that this Army of God left police bloodied and wounded. Like Officer Caroline Edwards, who was left with a TBI after one of these holy patriots threw a metal barricade at her, knocking the officer unconscious. She had been challenged by rioters, “Why are you standing in our way?” Faith has wrapped itself into a web of lies. It’s happened many times before… Writing on one well-known German context, Milton Mayer notes:

“Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God.”

Evangelicalism’s previous identity is being repeatedly destroyed; the Jesus of the Gospels – the Stone the builders have rejected – has lost all validity in a “biblical worldview” that screams, “JESUS, YOU’RE STANDING IN OUR WAY!”. THESE seeds of hate were planted within the church long ago. We’re already quite a ways down this road, and THESE are the result. THESE are what evangelical Christianity has to show for itself. THESE are the spoiled fruits of that rotten spirit. As Christ says through John the Revelator, ““I see right through your work. You have a reputation for vigor and zest, but you’re dead, stone-dead.” (MSG)  

Evangelicals: Repent and do the things you did at first.

Pissing Into The Wind

~ phroneticchristian ~ 5 Comments
Train up a child in the way he should go:
Advert featuring Proverbs 22, used by the Uvalde massacre gun manufacturer

“The time to stop the next shooting is right now”. This past week, I’ve noticed a prophet in the biblical tradition speaking out against American gun idolatry. Beto O’Rourke confronted Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at his press conference after Uvalde. . “Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed,” he said. Amidst jeering and shouts for O’Rourke to shut up, Dan Patrick – Texas Lt. Governor, Southern Baptist, outspoken Christian, and politician with an  “A+” rating from the NRA–  stood up to tell O’Rourke, “You’re out of line and an embarrassment.”  Super-Christian and gun-lover Ted Cruz shamed Beto’s behavior as crass, embarrassing; “it was disgusting”, accusing him of a political stunt. O’Rourke was not dissuaded: “Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.”

It is the prophet’s duty to proclaim a message from God. It doesn’t always involve fore-telling; but forth-telling. The present is the kairotic moment of the prophet’s message. It is this day, and also for this today, that we are to listen, not to hang on predictions concerning tomorrow. There is an immediacy; an urgency in the prophetic word to respond by retracing our steps towards the Jesus waiting for us in the Gospels. Today, we need more people who speak honestly about our own blind spots – prophets to tweak the conscience of evangelicals and recapture the prophetic mission of the church. “The task of the prophetic imagination,” writes Walter Brueggemann, “is to cut through the royal numbness, to penetrate the self-deception so that the God of endings is confessed as Lord.” [i] That’s exactly the prophet’s calling! It’s not a choice; it’s a divine obligation.

“Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting.” Unlike St. Stephen in Acts 7, Beto wasn’t stoned, but he was escorted out with the mayor screaming he was “a sick son of a bitch”. Likewise, a quick review of biblical prophets discloses that their prophetic utterances did little more than piss off those mired in persistent disobedience. “Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.” (Acts 7:52-3)  Jesus suffered and died on the cross, having exposed the moral hypocrisy of the religious elite – the Pharisees – who appeared on the outside “to people as righteous but on the inside are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” (Matt. 23-28).

A quick glimpse through Google for “white evangelical prophets” returns the glaringly obvious. Most of this soothsaying issues forth from the religious flotsam sitting at Donald Trump’s feet. False witnesses aside, I’ve known a few prophetic voices among evangelicals – most of which were scorned, vilified or cast out of the camp. Jim Wallis. Beth Moore. Shane Claiborne. Tony Campolo. And many others who spoke against guns through the centripetal urgings of the Holy Spirit. Divine Truth was entrusted to human truth-bearers. Like the late Sen. Mark Hatfield, who used his National Prayer Breakfast speech to condemn President Nixon for prolonging the Vietnam War. (And managing to piss off Nixon’s golf buddy, Billy Graham in the process). These modern day evangelical prophets gave voice because God spoke first. The words they spoke were of Someone Else. Confrontation was not something they set out to do, but something they had to do.

I place Beto O’Rourke squarely in that prophetic tradition. Beto spoke truth to power; to those who would rather cradle their AR-15 babies than elementary school children. “Stay cool. Run out the clock.. But don’t worry: this moment will be over soon”, was the advice Republican advisors were giving the wake of Uvalde mass shooting. Now here’s a fresh thought: let’s reduce mass shootings by getting more guns! In other words, do nothing in the shadow of death; then do more of the same. Like the Pharisees, evangelical moral perfectionists persist in their sanctimonious refusal to listen – or act in the slightest against gun idolatry. They are too busy Making America Great Again to bother about making childhood childhood again. And the waiting list of children to be blood-sacrificed on the evangelical altar to Moloch grows each day. Nothing stands in the way of AR-15 bullets– except those moved of the Spirit to speak truth to power. Pray that God raises up more prophets to expose the moral depravity of the religious elite! Bold prophets – who aren’t afraid to “spit” into the wind and proclaim “the time to stop the next shooting is right now”!.

[i] Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001, p. 45.