When I was a kid at church they told us to help the poor

[CreekDog]

Now I can't even count how many pastors have talked about the poor in ways so cold that it would embarass Ayn Rand.

What has happened to this country?

x(

[NoSheep]

1. Prosperity Theology. (Pigs)

[Joe Bacon]

18. Yesirree, you got to keep the Crouches in their mansions!

Just think where your money goes when you make those sacrificial "love offerings" to Trinity Broadcasting to keep Paul "Helmet Head" and Jan "Mascara Junky" Crouch on the air. Yeah think about the $400,000 that was paid in hush money to Paul's gay lover...

[firedupdem]

2. Helping the poor has been tossed out of the window!

Now the poor are enemies using up your tax money! Sad but true.

[Fire1]

22. On BOTH sides of the isle. n/t

[firedupdem]

25. I agree! n/t

[Clio the Leo]

3. Too much Fox "News," not enough Bible. NT

[Amos Moses]

4. good point

K&R

[TreasonousBastard]

5. I guess the interfaith homeless program here...

never makes the news. Or the soup kitchens, legal clinics, medical clinics, and other services sponsored and assited by our local churches.

Or, maybe we're spending so much time providing these services that we don't have enough time to get our clegy on TV.

[CreekDog]

6. I'm criticizing my own conservative church and the movement that has consumed it

I admire the generosity of other churches and individuals who know and teach that it is our responsibility to care for those that need help and also when we are down, for others to care for us.

I'm just very sad tonight that on a discussion board made up largely of pastors, that this ethic, which Christ himself taught, is practically mocked.

I'm grateful that they don't represent all of us or all pastors there, but those voices are still too numerous to feel good about.

:cry:

[Double T]

7. WE are becoming 'the poor'.

Many organized religious leaders are total frauds. The 'country' my friend is actually going to HELL!!

[CreekDog]

8. And yet there are lots of us

ready to change it.

but maybe not enough.

[Double T]

9. The 'meek' used to inherit the earth.

Today, the only ones inheriting the earth are the super stinking filthy rich. Only when the masses are really squeezed will their numbers be sufficient for a serious revolution. See you on the front lines.

[SidneyCarton]

34. The meek will inherit the earth.

After we get rid of the bloodsuckers.

[Joe Bacon]

10. Ayn Rand is the new God

John Galt is the new Jesus
Atlas Shrugged is the new Bible
Galt's Gulch is the new Heaven
The Invisible Hand is the new Holy Ghost
Look Out For #1 is the new FIrst Commandment.

[CreekDog]

11. exactly

:wtf:

[Joe Bacon]

12. What is so sad is when I remember when churches didn't give me nausea

As a kid, I remember kids singing "Jesus Loves Me" at churches. Then in the 70s, the Republicans infected the churches and Jesus Loves Me became Jesus Hates (Gays, Blacks, Latinos, Lesbians, Liberals, Democrats,Take your pick) The churches that had open doors in the 60s closed their doors and spat out hate instead, especially towards Gays and Lesbians. Preachers and Priests then started to spit out the latest GOP talking points and the Christian Coalition put their stuffers in the church bulletins.

Now, on Sundays, I just turn off the alarm clock and stay in bed instead of sleeping in a church pew as a preacher pours out the latest hate.

[SidneyCarton]

32. So it would appear.

If this is the case, count me among the infidels.

[brentspeak]

38. Well put

[Apollo11]

13. Pastors are like hookers

They need to find ways of keeping their customers interested and coming back for more.

Especially if you are starting a new church in a crowded market, the best way to get attention is to preach crazy shit. Some idiot is sure to buy into it and before you know it you will have a flock of hundreds ready to drink the Kool Aid.

[tomm2thumbs]

14. the rich never look back when they are GOP'ers

[RichGirl]

15. Share this with your heartless, greedy Christian friends.

(Jesus says to his disciples) "For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me."
Then they will answer and say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?" He will answer them, "Amen, I say to you, what you do to the least of these, you do to me."

Matthew 25:42-45

[Joe Bacon]

19. But Rich Girl, you forget the NEW Gospel a la Ayn Rand!!!!!

Republicans talk the Jesus talk BUT they ALL walk the Ayn Rand Walk. They mutated Jesus into Je$u$ and added a couple more chapters to their Bi-BULL named "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shurgged".

And lets remember those RepubliCON Je$u$ talking points!

I was hungry and you told me to get off my "lazy ass" and work. You didn't care that I was elderly, disabled or orphaned.

I was thirsty and you said the "invisible hand" of the free market would stimulate an entrepreneur to invest in a beverage company that would relieve my thirst.

I was a stranger and you despised me because of the color of my skin or I was gay or lesbian.

I was naked and you had me arrested for lewdness.

I was ill and you told me that I should have bought a better health insurance policy, even though nobody would sell me a policy because of my pre-existing condition

I was in prison and you cheered because it was my third strike.

That's what RepulbiCONs believe. That's NOT what I believe!

[treestar]

16. They've completely lost sight of the religion they claim to profess

Yet would likely condemn Islam, which has charity as one of its pillars.

[Joe Bacon]

20. Gee, no they haven't

With Ayn Rand, it'a ALL ABOUT THE "I"!

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.
("Objectivist Ethics," The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 28)

One is that a man doesn't want people to know he's rich. Another is that he doesn't want them to learn how he got that way.

So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose- because it contains all the others- the fact that they were the people who created the phrase to make money. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity- to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created.

There is a stage of worship which makes the worshipper himself an object of reverence.

I am a man who does not exist for others.

I have come here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life.... It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.

To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I.'

I am. I think. I will.

And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I.'

There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.

The highest thing in a man is not his god. It's that in him which knows the reverence due a god. You are my heighest reverence.

America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.

Businessmen are the one group that distinguishes capitalism and the American way of life from the totalitarian statism that is swallowing the rest of the world. All the other social groups- workers, farmers, professional men, scientists, soldiers- exist under dictatorships, even though they exist in chains, in terror, in misery, and in progressive self-destruction. But there is no such group as businessmen under a dictatorship. Their place is taken by armed thugs: by bureaucrats and commissars. Businessmen are the symbol of a free society- the symbol of America.

Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday... The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production.

I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows.

[ksoze]

17. RW version of help: Keep any change you find when vacuuming my car

[Mudoria]

21. The vast majority of churches and Christians still do..

they just don't make the headlines...

[chrisa]

23. Who was it that said...

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist?

[nyc 4 Biden]

24. Mayber you're going to the wrong church.

My parish priests are all liberals.

[CreekDog]

31. my parish is okay

when people found out i volunteered for Obama, they were happy to hear it.

my denomination, on the other hand...

[Jennicut]

26. My pastor at my more progressive Lutheran church went to Africa for his summer vacation.

He brought along his 20 and 18 year old kids. Our church talks about it all the time. He has been to Haiti as well.
I wish more churches were like this.

[CreekDog]

28. ELCA?

i'm LCMS and my own congregation is fine (San Francisco), but the one i left and the denomination itself is rife with what i'm complaining about.

[Odin2005]

27. Calvinism, Ayn Rand style.

[livetohike]

29. Ronald Reagan happened

He made it acceptable to hate the poor. To squash any program that would help the disadvantaged. He made it acceptable to laugh at the less fortunate. He made it acceptable to deride unions and to break unions.

He was the worst President in my lifetime as far as lack of social justice.

[Overseas]

30. Focus on the Family said it's all about Personal Responsibility.

So don't bother them with all that stuff about what Christ is reported to have said.

[Critters2]

33. This pastor cares for the poor.

So much so that the other pastors in town aim the poor to my doorstep when they don't want to help them. Sometimes that gets irritating, but I do think it's my responsibility. I help them out of my discretionary fund, I volunteer at the homeless shelter, I encourage my congregation to do the same, and I preach about caring for the poor A LOT!!

I'm fed up with my "collegues" who don't do the same.

[CreekDog]

36. I know you do

:hug:

[Gman2]

35. God please damn those assholes.

[butterfly77]

37. During the Bush years..

they infiltrated the churches and paid off the pastors or leaders,that what when I left..