βIreland is no longer a Catholic country. We are now a pluralist country with Catholic laws that we are gradually dismantling. The most important next step is removing the anachronistic control that the Catholic Church has over the education of our children*,β* it said in a statement.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 63%. (I'm a bot)
> The Evangelical Church in central Germany has been accused of violating a ban on the use of Nazi symbols by continuing to use church bells emblazoned with Nazi inscriptions, public prosecutors in the central state of Thuringia have said.
> The criminal complaint accuses the church of using six bells in five churches throughout Thuringia, including on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
> A church spokesman told the KNA news agency that regional leaders had written to churches using the bells and organized a meeting in April to discuss the issue.
> The state's finance minister and vice premier, Heike Taubert, said the state could help finance the installation of replacement bells if churches decided to do away with their Nazi ones.
> The plaintiff told KNA that he had also filed a criminal complaint against the town of Herxheim am Berg in western Germany after it allowed a local church to continue using a Nazi bell.
> At least 23 Nazi bells were still hanging in churches throughout Germany last year, according to a survey by Der Spiegel magazine.
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This is an automatic summary, original reduced by 77%.
> DW: Why has the Evangelical Church in Germany made its statement about the genocide , which took place at the turn of the last century, now?
> In January, we met with our Namibian partners to ensure our apology would not be received as an insult of any kind as well as to lay out specific measures: A Namibian-German Institute for Reconciliation and Development as well as identifying and creating memorial locations for the genocide in both Namibia and Germany.
> The churches in Germany and Namibia will meet a second time at the end of the summer.
> As the Evangelical Church, we have a strong interest in the victims being heard and their concerns leading to political action.
> We as Protestants had an impact in Namibia to an extent the Catholic Church did not in southern Africa, South Africa and Namibia.
> Bishop Petra Bosse-Huber has been the vice president of the Evangelical Church in Germany since 2014, and heads the Department for Ecumenical Relations and Ministries Abroad. The interview was conducted by Wolfgang Dick.
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Compared with other ardently evangelical, major Abrahamic sects I've studied over the last half century both directly and indirectly, modern day Adventism is clearly among those that seem to have achieved the most "respectability" among those looking on from outside.
Which would be remarkable to me considering the early days with EGW being little different from what is regularly seen in, for example, the Pentecostal and Southern Baptist... IF I didn't know a bit (but only a bit) about the efforts of several early and mid-20th-century SDA leaders' efforts to clean up the church's (public) act.
BUT... a Cultic Pyramid is still what it is, and one need only understand the dynamics of such things from conceptually informed, direct observation of what goes on at the middle and upper levels to see how the "good looking" cults get away with what they do and continue to grow. (Which is something I have been able to do in investigating several other Abrahamic sects.)
In my experience around the Adventist Church since 2003, it's as plain as the nose on my face that Groupthink, Social Proof, Implicit Social Contract & Unquestioning Acceptance of Authority are no less conditioned, in-doctrine-ated, instructed, imprinted, socialized, habituated, programmed and normalized into a neural network of cognition in the Adventist's brain than is the case with any Hasidic Jew, "holy roller" charismatic Pentecostal, theocratic Southern Baptist, militant Jesuit Catholic, Smithian/Youngian Mormon, Watchtower Society Jehovah's Witness, Shi-ite Islamic, or Russian Orthodox Christian.
But compared to a
... keep reading on reddit β‘
Also, they may invest in beer but not in hard liquors.
source: http://www.bild.de/newsticker-meldungen/home/05-16-kirche-bier-20313580.bild.html (in German, sorry)
The complete article: THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH IS BREAKING APART
Lifts therefrom:
"'Nearly everyone tells me there is at the very least a small group in nearly every evangelical church complaining and agitating against teaching or policies that arenβt sufficiently conservative or anti-woke,' a pastor and prominent figure within the evangelical world told me. 'Itβs everywhere.'"
"...when peopleβs values are shaped by the media they consume, rather than by their religious leaders and communities, that has consequences. 'What all those media want is engagement, and engagement is most reliably driven by anger and hatred,' Jacobs argued. 'They make bank when we hate each other. And so that hatred migrates into the Church, which doesnβt have the resources to resist it.'"
"...Trump did not appear ex nihilo. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a history professor at Calvin University and the author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, argues that Trump represents the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of many of white evangelicalsβ most deeply held values. Her thesis is that American evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism."
"'Evangelical militancy is often depicted as a response to fear,' [DuMez] told me. 'But itβs important to recognize that in many cases evangelical leaders actively stoked fear in the hearts of their followers in order to consolidate their own power and advance their own interests.'"
"Claude Alexander, the senior pastor of the Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, told me we must come to terms with the 'southernization of the Church.' Some of the distinctive cultural forms present in the American South β masculinity and male dominance, tribal loyalties, obedience and intolerance, and even the ideology of white supremacism β have spread to other parts of the country, he said. ... 'Southern culture has had a profound impact upon religion,' Alexander told me, 'particularly evangelical religion.'"
"*We live in 'an era of acute anxiety and great fear,' Mark Labberton, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary, told me. 'As a result, too often Christians end up wrapping Jesus into our angry and fearful distortions. **We want Jesus to validate everything we believe, often as if he nev
... keep reading on reddit β‘
To say that these people want to make 'A Handmaids Tale' a reality is no longer hyperbole. With megachurch pastors and televangelists now more and more openly calling for Christians to use their "second Amendment rights" to take America back for God, people still want to make excuses for this brand of fundamentalist Christianity or downplay the threat we are facing.
I grew up in an extremely anti-gay IFB church where the pastor would literally preach, and often at that, that a civil war would happen if same-sex marriage was ever legalized. He said Christians wouldn't stand for it and would rise up to restore God's order in society. With that in mind, nothing that has happened over the past five years has surprised me. What does surprise me is that so many people want to act like everything is fine and that this isn't a national emergency. They want to take comfort in changing demographics and want to have faith that the system will prevail just by chugging along as it always has. Unfortunately, these are NOT normal times and these Christian terrorists are actively dismantling the system that keeps them in check from within. We are one Reichstag fire away from the next Nazi (or Stalin) Regime and this time, it will happen in the USA. These Christians want total domination over society and to force everyone to submit to their worldview. Anything less than that, in their eyes, is "persecution."
If "not all Christians" is really a thing, when are we going to start seeing "mainstream" Christianity, if it exists, strongly and forcefully denouncing this Christian nationalism that seeks to dismantle over two centuries of sacrifices by American patriots? All I see is them making excuses for the evangelicals/Republicans and trying to make the case that they really aren't that bad or that it's just a few bad apples. Growing up in a church where talk of rounding up gays and sending them to gas chambers was casual conversation in the fellowship hall, I think it's more than just a few bad apples.
America better start taking this seriously before there are tanks rolling in the streets with giant crosses on them enforcing Biblical law.
A very good read and applicable in this community Read the entire article but below is a summary of actions. https://reasonsforgod.substack.com/p/the-unacknowledged-crisis-in-the
First, the Christian life starts and continues with repentance. That's at the heart of the gospel announcement, and it is the path to maturity. Of all people, we have the theological basis for owning our sin and lamenting it.
So if we publicly celebrated these leaders for their ministry gifts, then the least we can do is publicly rebuke them for their egregious character failures.
If you see a fire, it's irresponsible not to alert people to the danger.
This criticism doesn't mean we are joining the cancel culture movement. Instead, it means we are learning to speak the same language as those abused. We're saying: βWe see you, you matter to us, and we're with you. What happened to you was wrong β and we're not afraid to say so.β
Our prayer is for abusive leaders to repent of their sin now, to stop hurting people in the name of Jesus, to make restitution, and to be reconciled to God.
Second, we can see if these leaders harmed anyone we know. Instead of leaving survivors to cope with the pain on their own, we can journey with them. We know how to bring food to sick people; let's be just as intentional to listen to and care for those who were traumatized.
Third, after significant earthquakes, building codes get updated to prevent more buildings from collapsing. Thatβs just common sense.
Likewise, we can respond to this crisis by taking steps to make our churches and organizations resilient and healthy.Β Consider reading Somethingβs Not Right by Wade Mullen or A Church Called Tov by Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer.
Fourth, remember that we have a biblical basis for taking action. The Apostle Paul set a similar example for the church leaders of his day. We read his words in Acts 20,
>I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.
*We never should have fallen asleep to abuse in the church. But we did. And now we know that mill
... keep reading on reddit β‘I ask and encourage you to pray for peace among our Christian brothers and sisters. I am all too disturbed that I rarely hear about Christians moving towards peaceful solutions amongst ourselves especially regarding current political divisions that have infiltrated our churches. We worship the Prince of Peace himself so we should be envoys of that very peace. Paul instructs us this in 2 Timothy 2:23-26
βHave nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lordβs servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.β ββ
