Wow. I see Hemant published early this morning. Not sure I blame him. I don't think I could stay asleep after having read about this jackass MacArthur.
So we have yet another cult / church which leans heavily on patriarchy, insists that women fall in formation and obey, and don't much care if those same women are abused by their husbands. Gee, power play much? Apparently, they don't care about child abuse, either. The only thing that Grace Community Church and the chauvinist hierarchy concern themselves with is male power and its exercise over everyone that isn't them, and if some of their congregants get hurt in the process, that's just too bad.
Considering the abusive and imperious attitude that I see in MacArthur and his fellows at GCC, I sorrow that an organization like that can't be investigated and preferably dismantled for its actions. It certainly deserves to be.
So they say the newest church members these days consist of all young men and very few young women. I wonder why? Sadly, this is bleeding out into our society as a whole. We have always been patriarchal, but now it’s patriarchy on steroids.
That marks a change from decades ago when it was the women who went to church and brought in their husbands. As society is moving towards more equal rights for women, the men who are afraid of losing their control are flocking to the institutions that have traditionally given them power.
It's fascism, plain and simple. That's what's attracting them. I knew a guy who used to do deep dives into the dark web and report back what he saw and how he trolled them, and that was like 15 years ago before it got even worse. And it's so weird to me now when I talk to people about it they don't know what I'm talking about. Elle Reeve's book Black Pill is not bad--a bit tedious but lots of data, if you're interested.
Oh no! The "male loneliness epidemic"! Seriously, though, this new book I just started reading, called Take Back Your Life by Janja Lalich, I haven't gotten very far into it, but she presents research showing how many American cults are at their core pyramid schemes, just like the Manosphere. Boys are being recruited into spending tons of money for terrible guaranteed-to-fail dating advice. It's really sad. My own son is 19, and learned how to debunk that stuff in middle school. He was really lucky to have had a 6th grade class focusing on research methods and identifying disinformation. I hope his school still teaches it, but it's in Florida, so they probably replaced that class with Viktor-Orban Hillsdale-College PragerU Propaganda 101.
My parents' religion (Swedenborgian) just tells women to "try harder" and twist themselves into what their husband wants them to be. I remember reading a letter in their women's journal about how "once my kids grew up, he was nice to me again" with zero awareness that men who are jealous of their own children should be dumped in the trash. (Hello "Saint" Augustine.) In the Swedenborgian religion, women are supposed to be nothing more than a mirror to reflect their husbands' greatness. Women aren't supposed to have their own identity, hence all the unmarried women teachers at their schools go by Miss First Name. They gotta leave that last name slot empty until they find their perfect god-chosen man to create a toxic codependent relationship with. [Seriously, read the book Conjugial Love by Emanuel Swedenborg and try not to vomit.] All the burden for a relationship falls on the women--but they're "proud" of that because their god made them special. If their god exists, he made me allergic to religion. I get violent reactions when exposed. Oh and if you've never heard of Swedenborgianism, it's the religion of Mehmet Oz's wife--where do you think he got the woo and anti-vax nonsense from? Swedenborgians have been anti-vax since they protested to the Governor of Pennsylvania about the "un-Christian" smallpox vaccine mandates over 100 years ago. And remember that calling vaccines "un-Christian" is code for White Supremacy, so, yeah....
100 years before Joseph Smith cribbed some of his ideas, Swedenborg had psychic experiences where he claimed the Bible god let him go talk to angels in heaven and reveal the secret code in the Bible. People may not have heard of him, but lots of grifters copied his ideas over the years.
I don't even know where to begin, but this is a classic example of preachers spewing nonsense about the gospels and the glorious afterlife only because they want to control people on this earthly plain. The herd instinct runs deep in the human species and I suspect it was part of our survival strategy. Puny little humans survived through cooperation and the division of labor, not every man for himself. Somewhere along the line a primitive holy person realized there were far easier ways to make a living than hunting wild animals with spears, and we've been dealing with that decision ever since. I find the idea of having to resign from the church absurd given the fact they have no legal authority over her. Even if her law suit fails, there are going to be some people who see it for what it's worth and vote with their feet.
All religions have repeatedly shown that they (religions) are against progress and human rights/civil liberties. All religions have tried to stop or slow to an ice age crawl the development of human rights and civil liberties.
In fact, all religions want to go back to the social norms of the 11th century where they (all religions) were the arbiters (religious clergy) who decide what are the social norms and how to punish those who violate the society rules.
All religions want power and control over our society, and when they (all regions) don’t get it that is when they (religious followers) become radicalized and violent.
Those followers who remain at this church will become more extreme and double down on their religious dogma,
From an anthropological perspective, which is my academic background, religion has always been considered to be about social control. Not even in a negative way, just as a bare fact. People get so upset when you point that out to them. Organized religion arose when humans settled down and started producing surplus goods that allowed for social stratification. Leaders (bullies) used religion to justify their position. It's pretty clear. But then, facts have a liberal bias and must be denied.
It's far worse than just "spewing nonsense." It's manipulating people, revealing what should have been confidences, and using those revelations to castigate individual members, for no more reason than to exercise their power over them.
This MacArthur character is despicable on his face, and he could sure as hell use a dose of his own medicine. What skeletons do you have in YOUR closet ... or your browser history, Johnny?
My $0.02 worth? They're SCARED. They've been taught to be scared, indoctrinated into that mindset. The clergy are, of course, the ones doing the teaching, and they love this situation, because it puts them IN TOTAL CONTROL. Their congregants won't dare put a toe out of line for fear of correction or retribution from those in charge. That's certainly the way that MacArthur and GCC read to me.
And it's why them and their ratbag church deserve to be ripped apart at the seams.
Not a drag queen. This church has a proven track record of holding their men blameless for anything they may do, to the point of publicly denying crimes against children, just so they can maintain their nearly absolute power over their women. Disgust, rage, and contempt are not strong enough words to describe the emotions reports like this elicit.
I hope Ms Zielinski wins. I hope the jury is allowed to award her all of the church's assets. Bankrupt these sick people so their financials match their morality.
What we need is an agency that represents children only. An agency that fights to keep pedo’s in jail. An agency that represents the children themselves and not the loony bin church they are unfortunately affiliated with.
The US is the only country that has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child--precisely because of these churches. And because of White Supremacists' belief that the UN is a Jewish plot to promote "Black and Coloured people" over "responsible White people," in Elon Musk's grandfather's words. Even in Yemen, the marriage age is officially 18 and girls, if they can manage to find a lawyer, can get divorced. (There's a book I read called I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.) In the US, if you're under 18, you can't sign divorce papers, and there are plenty of states that allow child marriage. In a few, including California, there's no minimum marriage age, but no access to divorce until age 18. Instead of children's rights we have the "parents' rights" movement, which was started by Christian homeschool parents who didn't want DCF knocking on their doors to investigate abuse anymore. As a secular homeschool mom, who had to do it for my kids' health reasons, I was on the front lines. They WANT to abuse their children. Emotional abuse IS abuse. Forcing your kid in to a cult IS abuse.
I was in an abusive marriage (he broke my nose 4 days after the wedding) while in a church with similar views. The “Biblical” view on marriage is the only two “forgivable” reasons for divorce are adultery (my church even added “unrepentant” in front of that word - if you confronted them and they promised to get rid of the girlfriend, you had to keep them) and “abandonment by a non-believer.” The counsel from my church was “be a better wife so he doesn’t have to punish you. Are you serving him well enough?” When he began to assault his oldest son, they asked why I wasn’t parenting better.
The truth? My ex was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Yeah. Same thing as serial killers.
As someone raised in the cult (3 pastors on my mom’s side of the family), I followed the rules until he left me for an 18-year-old because she was much more malleable than I was by age 36.
I was still in church. The youth pastor took a job elsewhere and recommended I serve as interim youth director. When I followed up about it, I was told the deacons and elders refused the idea because I was “guilty of adultery by proxy” because my ex was living with a teenager.
I smiled sweetly and informed the pastor that, if they were so concerned about it, they could follow Biblical law, take my ex and his girlfriend to the edge of town and stone them, so I could be a virtuous widow in their eyes.
More BS was the last straw and I left.
Patriarchy runs deep in fundamentalist (oops! “Evangelical”) Christianity — oops! They renamed that. It is “complementarianism” now. 🙄
Well. Maybe you don’t understand the irony. They were condemning me for my husband’s “sin.” This church was one that taught the entire US legal code should be thrown out and replaced by OT law because, “God made us and knows the best laws to govern us.”
Not that it mattered. They only condemn the woman. They also teach that men can have more than one wife, Biblically. 🤦♀️
It was, in fact, the irony that started my discursive train of thought.
At the risk of killing what little spark of wit hid itself in my post, my pseudo-Markian mock quotation was meant to compare (and contrast, as the best exam papers used to say) the Jesus saying, which might well be apocryphal, intimating that people cannot be entrusted to administer rigid justice because they lacked the necessary perfection with the, definitely non-Biblical, Catholic and Orthodox concept that Mary, Mum in the joke, was necessarily perfect and therefore could cast the first stone, but shouldn't because that would spoil her perfection.
Incidentally, I cannot even remember whether the incident is reported in Mark but some scholars claim that it was a later interpolation, anyway.
However, the mention of Mark and the possibility of chapter 2 turned my thoughts to Jaguar and the Mark II specifically. This was one of Jaguar's best cars and much-loved by the criminal fraternity as it was as fast as the police favourite, the Wolseley 6/90 but lighter and better-handling so able to escape in most chases. Pretty soon after that the police started buying Jaguars as well and evened the advantage. From experience I can say that the Wolseley was a very good and comfortable car but the Jaguar definitely handled better.
Ah! I thought the put the stone down was directed possibly at me. I never expected them to stone my ex or his girlfriend, and my recommendation (which I actually did share) was meant also as an irony in the same vein as your comment. They were more than willing to punish me for his excesses when I had done nothing wrong. Ironically, he was even baptized in their church, and under the fundamentalist doctrine, the elders should have approached and disciplined him long before, but chose to instead censure me once they had a chance. 🤦♀️
Does he? I have been raised my whole life that Jesus loves sinners but we are damned to hell no matter how forgiven if we are sexual sinners. I know it isn’t intentional, but the church focuses an outsize amount of attention on sexual sin while forgiving murderers, liars, blasphemers and thieves with graceful equanimity.
Does Jesus really love me? Or does he only love people who never break his rules once conditionally forgiven?
You were the one who asked if he still loved me. 🤔
Jesus supposedly intervened with the woman caught in adultery. If all since are equal and he is some kind of immortal being, one could assume he still would have that mercy. Fundamentalist Christians, however, do not.
Certified by whom ? Do they have a legitimate diploma or is it hocus-bullshitus from a bible "college" ?
Let's be crazy and say it's the former. Can a contract stating "private and confidential informations will be shared with the congregation" trump HIPAA laws ?
My daughter's elementary school best friends' family got caught up in one of those churches. They prey on people who have suffered abusive childhoods. I tried staying friends with the mom for years--we had an agreement that for every minute she offered to pray for me I got the same amount of time to talk to her about evolution. Anyhow, once they tried to force their girls to get married at 18, I couldn't take it anymore. Their oldest daughter was "studying counseling" at a place called Life Christian University--which is affiliated with Ken Copeland. Once I found that out, I was DONE. I feel sorry for the girls--they were often left alone at home to homeschool themselves while their parents worked, because the husband "wasn't allowed" to be around other women without his wife. The girls watched Doctor Who while the parents weren't around, so there is hope for them, I guess. But I couldn't abide it anymore. When we'd go to the local public pool, she made her ELEMENTARY age girls wear clothes over their swimsuits! SICK!
People who are worried about what undetectable Jeebus is going to do to their undetectable soul if they get sent to undetectable Hell fall into these cults and the McArthurs of the world are there with a glad hand and a collection plate. Stupid is as stupid does.
"Earlier this year, the 86-year-old MacArthur was in the hospital for a variety of health issues, including the need for a heart-valve replacement, which was news to those of us who didn’t think he had one of those."
Why did he go to to the hospital. Wasn’t it goddyboy’s plan that this guy have a defective heart valve. Yet, this guy went to the hospital (where the hospital practice HUMAN BASED MEDICAL SCIENCE) to get better. This guy should have prayed for a new heart, seems to me a lack of faith on his part. Then again, the religious leaders never seem to follow the rules like everyone else.
Yeah, this kind of thing drives me crazy. If you believe in faith healing, then stay out of the hospital! During the height of the COVID pandemic, these types were cluttering up emergency rooms. Pity the triage nurses weren't allowed to tell them to go back to their pastors and be prayed over. It proves that none of it is real, yet they refuse to connect the dots.
When they utter that "Putting God back in schools will stop shootings" crap, I'm quick to point out Oikos University in East Oakland California. This is a Christian college that saw a mass shooting on April 2nd 2012 at around 10:30 AM Pacific that left 7 dead and 3 wounded. The shooter was One L. Goh, a former student. A believer.
"god's plan" was to make me a hated pariah, persecuting and damning me foreverThey said it was a shame when I failed at suicide. They cried when I finally became comfortable in my own skin. Now their goddamned jesus is unhappy with all my travails and promises me eternal hell for my. FUCK YOU Pope Leo xiv. WE now consider kkkatliks extremely dangerous. c'mon popie web crawlers, forward this to your hate-monger in chief.
I treat all religious folk as suffering from extreme mental delusion, and I am prepared to defend myself at a moments notice, just in case the religious listens to the voice in their (religious folk) head telling them to attack me because I am evil/demonic or am the devil in disguise!
It is a thin line for the religious to talk to their imaginary friend (praying), to their imaginary friend telling them (voices in the religious folk’s head) to attack someone/group of people because that someone/group of people are evil!!!
I'd honestly rather they whipped their dick out at me, rather than their religion. Of course I'm a nudist, so seeing a dick is not as disturbing to me, as it might be to someone else.
To the church, spousal abuse is not a thing; it's just doing what God wants. If they would just read their Bibles (pronounced buy-bull), they would understand that women are the inferior species. I mean, all one has to do is look to the Bible story that portrays that Eve is the cause of all mankind's faults, and she should be treated as such until God disposes of this disposable planet. If they would only read it all... S/
Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I told my parents I liked guys. My mother talked to her pastor and a few days later told me that he said they could get me help for my problem. Help was psychiatric treatment, likely from a quack. My dad looked at her and said "You can't change that anymore than you could change his eye color."
Women are usually the strong reigionistas in households. Men get in pretty much only when they can use it to their advantage. Then they go all gung ho.
If I had been in Boreal's place, sperm donor would have been the one to throw a tantrum. DM didn't care what I did and with whom as long as I limit myself to humans my age (under 18) or adults.
Hemant's right this lawsuit with probably go nowhere. We can't usually sue a private entity for civil rights violations. Add that it's a church? Add to that she signs a contract? Yea, telling all her secrets while threatening to 'shun' her is probably not actionable. The courts are just going to say, "Then leave." The divorce court will hopefully throw the book at the husband though.
Pro tip: if your church makes you sign a contract, run!
𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑑𝑑: I don't want to negate the problems of battered women and the gaslighting, abuse and in this case peer pressure that is put on them to stay in an abusive marriage but this woman 𝑑𝑖𝑑 find the strength to leave and then the church took action. Granted, she may have signed this contract under duress or she trusted her husband or someone else and didn't read it. It still goes back to why would a church need a contract though?
Wow. I see Hemant published early this morning. Not sure I blame him. I don't think I could stay asleep after having read about this jackass MacArthur.
So we have yet another cult / church which leans heavily on patriarchy, insists that women fall in formation and obey, and don't much care if those same women are abused by their husbands. Gee, power play much? Apparently, they don't care about child abuse, either. The only thing that Grace Community Church and the chauvinist hierarchy concern themselves with is male power and its exercise over everyone that isn't them, and if some of their congregants get hurt in the process, that's just too bad.
Considering the abusive and imperious attitude that I see in MacArthur and his fellows at GCC, I sorrow that an organization like that can't be investigated and preferably dismantled for its actions. It certainly deserves to be.
So they say the newest church members these days consist of all young men and very few young women. I wonder why? Sadly, this is bleeding out into our society as a whole. We have always been patriarchal, but now it’s patriarchy on steroids.
That marks a change from decades ago when it was the women who went to church and brought in their husbands. As society is moving towards more equal rights for women, the men who are afraid of losing their control are flocking to the institutions that have traditionally given them power.
It's fascism, plain and simple. That's what's attracting them. I knew a guy who used to do deep dives into the dark web and report back what he saw and how he trolled them, and that was like 15 years ago before it got even worse. And it's so weird to me now when I talk to people about it they don't know what I'm talking about. Elle Reeve's book Black Pill is not bad--a bit tedious but lots of data, if you're interested.
Oh no! The "male loneliness epidemic"! Seriously, though, this new book I just started reading, called Take Back Your Life by Janja Lalich, I haven't gotten very far into it, but she presents research showing how many American cults are at their core pyramid schemes, just like the Manosphere. Boys are being recruited into spending tons of money for terrible guaranteed-to-fail dating advice. It's really sad. My own son is 19, and learned how to debunk that stuff in middle school. He was really lucky to have had a 6th grade class focusing on research methods and identifying disinformation. I hope his school still teaches it, but it's in Florida, so they probably replaced that class with Viktor-Orban Hillsdale-College PragerU Propaganda 101.
🤣 Who needs anything when you can have Viktor Orbán.
With a congregation like that, I would bet on that church raising a bunch of incels, which will do them and their community no good at all.
Yep, they'll be those creepy guys that say disgusting things to the girls, and wonder why they can't get a girlfriend.
My parents' religion (Swedenborgian) just tells women to "try harder" and twist themselves into what their husband wants them to be. I remember reading a letter in their women's journal about how "once my kids grew up, he was nice to me again" with zero awareness that men who are jealous of their own children should be dumped in the trash. (Hello "Saint" Augustine.) In the Swedenborgian religion, women are supposed to be nothing more than a mirror to reflect their husbands' greatness. Women aren't supposed to have their own identity, hence all the unmarried women teachers at their schools go by Miss First Name. They gotta leave that last name slot empty until they find their perfect god-chosen man to create a toxic codependent relationship with. [Seriously, read the book Conjugial Love by Emanuel Swedenborg and try not to vomit.] All the burden for a relationship falls on the women--but they're "proud" of that because their god made them special. If their god exists, he made me allergic to religion. I get violent reactions when exposed. Oh and if you've never heard of Swedenborgianism, it's the religion of Mehmet Oz's wife--where do you think he got the woo and anti-vax nonsense from? Swedenborgians have been anti-vax since they protested to the Governor of Pennsylvania about the "un-Christian" smallpox vaccine mandates over 100 years ago. And remember that calling vaccines "un-Christian" is code for White Supremacy, so, yeah....
Unholy SHIT! Hadn't heard of Swedenborgian until you mentioned it ... and not certain I want to hear it again! 🤢🤮
100 years before Joseph Smith cribbed some of his ideas, Swedenborg had psychic experiences where he claimed the Bible god let him go talk to angels in heaven and reveal the secret code in the Bible. People may not have heard of him, but lots of grifters copied his ideas over the years.
It sounds like a parody religion, "we are from Sweden, prepare to be assimilated."
Maybe he got up super early for Bastille day 😁
Bonne fete Nationale! Sorry. I still don't know how to switch to a French keyboard.
c/p that in a folder on your computer
à - â - ä - é - è - ê - ë - î - ï - ô - ö - ù - û - ü - ÿ - ç
I don't even know where to begin, but this is a classic example of preachers spewing nonsense about the gospels and the glorious afterlife only because they want to control people on this earthly plain. The herd instinct runs deep in the human species and I suspect it was part of our survival strategy. Puny little humans survived through cooperation and the division of labor, not every man for himself. Somewhere along the line a primitive holy person realized there were far easier ways to make a living than hunting wild animals with spears, and we've been dealing with that decision ever since. I find the idea of having to resign from the church absurd given the fact they have no legal authority over her. Even if her law suit fails, there are going to be some people who see it for what it's worth and vote with their feet.
All religions are humanity’s worst idea EVER!!!!!
They are why we can't have nice things.
All religions have repeatedly shown that they (religions) are against progress and human rights/civil liberties. All religions have tried to stop or slow to an ice age crawl the development of human rights and civil liberties.
In fact, all religions want to go back to the social norms of the 11th century where they (all religions) were the arbiters (religious clergy) who decide what are the social norms and how to punish those who violate the society rules.
All religions want power and control over our society, and when they (all regions) don’t get it that is when they (religious followers) become radicalized and violent.
Those followers who remain at this church will become more extreme and double down on their religious dogma,
From an anthropological perspective, which is my academic background, religion has always been considered to be about social control. Not even in a negative way, just as a bare fact. People get so upset when you point that out to them. Organized religion arose when humans settled down and started producing surplus goods that allowed for social stratification. Leaders (bullies) used religion to justify their position. It's pretty clear. But then, facts have a liberal bias and must be denied.
Could you recommend some books for me that you have read that I might find interesting. Please and a very much thank you!
Anything by David G McAfee
^^^Ever so much this.
True enough, but some are definitely worse than others.
There’s always a pecking order.
It's far worse than just "spewing nonsense." It's manipulating people, revealing what should have been confidences, and using those revelations to castigate individual members, for no more reason than to exercise their power over them.
This MacArthur character is despicable on his face, and he could sure as hell use a dose of his own medicine. What skeletons do you have in YOUR closet ... or your browser history, Johnny?
I will never understand why people delegate their thinking to the clergy.
My $0.02 worth? They're SCARED. They've been taught to be scared, indoctrinated into that mindset. The clergy are, of course, the ones doing the teaching, and they love this situation, because it puts them IN TOTAL CONTROL. Their congregants won't dare put a toe out of line for fear of correction or retribution from those in charge. That's certainly the way that MacArthur and GCC read to me.
And it's why them and their ratbag church deserve to be ripped apart at the seams.
One of the first things a cult does is tell people they can't think for themselves.
Exactamundo!
Nicely done, oraxx. You used “clergy” and “thinking” in the same sentence. Very rare.
LOL
Especially when the clergy are so bad at it!
"But the church wouldn’t allow her to leave. "
What bullshit. Walk out the door of the church and into a divorce lawyer's office. These cultists are the dumbest of the dumb.
Welcome to the Grace Community Church in California, ... you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
ISWYDT !
This church must be cross-invested in an 80s style fitness club. I remember in those days you had to sue to get out of membership, lol.
Either that or the church has a side hustle selling timeshares.
𝐼𝑛 2004, 𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑎 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑟 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎𝑔𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑚𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑎𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑛𝑗𝑢𝑟𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑—ℎ𝑒’𝑠 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑙𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑗𝑎𝑖𝑙 𝑎𝑠 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 21-𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟-𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒—𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑖𝑚. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑓𝑒, 𝑤ℎ𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑠𝑒𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 ℎ𝑖𝑚 𝑖𝑛 2002, 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠.
Not a drag queen. This church has a proven track record of holding their men blameless for anything they may do, to the point of publicly denying crimes against children, just so they can maintain their nearly absolute power over their women. Disgust, rage, and contempt are not strong enough words to describe the emotions reports like this elicit.
I hope Ms Zielinski wins. I hope the jury is allowed to award her all of the church's assets. Bankrupt these sick people so their financials match their morality.
What we need is an agency that represents children only. An agency that fights to keep pedo’s in jail. An agency that represents the children themselves and not the loony bin church they are unfortunately affiliated with.
The US is the only country that has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child--precisely because of these churches. And because of White Supremacists' belief that the UN is a Jewish plot to promote "Black and Coloured people" over "responsible White people," in Elon Musk's grandfather's words. Even in Yemen, the marriage age is officially 18 and girls, if they can manage to find a lawyer, can get divorced. (There's a book I read called I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.) In the US, if you're under 18, you can't sign divorce papers, and there are plenty of states that allow child marriage. In a few, including California, there's no minimum marriage age, but no access to divorce until age 18. Instead of children's rights we have the "parents' rights" movement, which was started by Christian homeschool parents who didn't want DCF knocking on their doors to investigate abuse anymore. As a secular homeschool mom, who had to do it for my kids' health reasons, I was on the front lines. They WANT to abuse their children. Emotional abuse IS abuse. Forcing your kid in to a cult IS abuse.
Well stated, Sarah. No minimum age for marriage in Cali? How Tennessee like.
👏💯
I was in an abusive marriage (he broke my nose 4 days after the wedding) while in a church with similar views. The “Biblical” view on marriage is the only two “forgivable” reasons for divorce are adultery (my church even added “unrepentant” in front of that word - if you confronted them and they promised to get rid of the girlfriend, you had to keep them) and “abandonment by a non-believer.” The counsel from my church was “be a better wife so he doesn’t have to punish you. Are you serving him well enough?” When he began to assault his oldest son, they asked why I wasn’t parenting better.
The truth? My ex was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Yeah. Same thing as serial killers.
As someone raised in the cult (3 pastors on my mom’s side of the family), I followed the rules until he left me for an 18-year-old because she was much more malleable than I was by age 36.
I was still in church. The youth pastor took a job elsewhere and recommended I serve as interim youth director. When I followed up about it, I was told the deacons and elders refused the idea because I was “guilty of adultery by proxy” because my ex was living with a teenager.
I smiled sweetly and informed the pastor that, if they were so concerned about it, they could follow Biblical law, take my ex and his girlfriend to the edge of town and stone them, so I could be a virtuous widow in their eyes.
More BS was the last straw and I left.
Patriarchy runs deep in fundamentalist (oops! “Evangelical”) Christianity — oops! They renamed that. It is “complementarianism” now. 🙄
"...take my ex and his girlfriend to the edge of town and stone them...."
From Jaguar Mk. II
Let who among you is without sin cast the first stone. Put that down, Mum.
Well. Maybe you don’t understand the irony. They were condemning me for my husband’s “sin.” This church was one that taught the entire US legal code should be thrown out and replaced by OT law because, “God made us and knows the best laws to govern us.”
Not that it mattered. They only condemn the woman. They also teach that men can have more than one wife, Biblically. 🤦♀️
It was, in fact, the irony that started my discursive train of thought.
At the risk of killing what little spark of wit hid itself in my post, my pseudo-Markian mock quotation was meant to compare (and contrast, as the best exam papers used to say) the Jesus saying, which might well be apocryphal, intimating that people cannot be entrusted to administer rigid justice because they lacked the necessary perfection with the, definitely non-Biblical, Catholic and Orthodox concept that Mary, Mum in the joke, was necessarily perfect and therefore could cast the first stone, but shouldn't because that would spoil her perfection.
Incidentally, I cannot even remember whether the incident is reported in Mark but some scholars claim that it was a later interpolation, anyway.
However, the mention of Mark and the possibility of chapter 2 turned my thoughts to Jaguar and the Mark II specifically. This was one of Jaguar's best cars and much-loved by the criminal fraternity as it was as fast as the police favourite, the Wolseley 6/90 but lighter and better-handling so able to escape in most chases. Pretty soon after that the police started buying Jaguars as well and evened the advantage. From experience I can say that the Wolseley was a very good and comfortable car but the Jaguar definitely handled better.
I now declare this joke dead.
Ah! I thought the put the stone down was directed possibly at me. I never expected them to stone my ex or his girlfriend, and my recommendation (which I actually did share) was meant also as an irony in the same vein as your comment. They were more than willing to punish me for his excesses when I had done nothing wrong. Ironically, he was even baptized in their church, and under the fundamentalist doctrine, the elders should have approached and disciplined him long before, but chose to instead censure me once they had a chance. 🤦♀️
I'm sorry you had to suffer like this.
It gave me perspective and informs my current views, so at least it had purpose.
Does Jesus still love you? That's all that counts, right?
One more thought - who gets to say that Jesus loves me? And if I go to hell, what kind of love was it? 🤔
Well. 🤔
Does he? I have been raised my whole life that Jesus loves sinners but we are damned to hell no matter how forgiven if we are sexual sinners. I know it isn’t intentional, but the church focuses an outsize amount of attention on sexual sin while forgiving murderers, liars, blasphemers and thieves with graceful equanimity.
Does Jesus really love me? Or does he only love people who never break his rules once conditionally forgiven?
Jesus, if he even existed, has been dead for around 2000 years.
You were the one who asked if he still loved me. 🤔
Jesus supposedly intervened with the woman caught in adultery. If all since are equal and he is some kind of immortal being, one could assume he still would have that mercy. Fundamentalist Christians, however, do not.
𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑔𝑢𝑦 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑚𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑎 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑛 𝐿𝑢𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝐾𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝐽𝑟. 𝑖𝑛 2018 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡𝑜𝑙𝑑 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑢𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑀𝐿𝐾 𝑤𝑎𝑠 “𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙” 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑙 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑤𝑎𝑠 “𝑎 𝑛𝑜𝑛𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑙.”
He's a racist asshole on top of the misogyny. Is anyone surprised?
Hmph. What's to be surprised about?
Not at all. He's also a science denier who depends on medical science to keep his worthless ass alive.
That is reprehensible. No wonder he has risen to power in the church.
https://tenor.com/92m6.gif
"Certified Biblical Counselors"
Certified by whom ? Do they have a legitimate diploma or is it hocus-bullshitus from a bible "college" ?
Let's be crazy and say it's the former. Can a contract stating "private and confidential informations will be shared with the congregation" trump HIPAA laws ?
By jesus, of course. 🤣
You can get almost anything from Amazon these days.
Amazon is the real life "ACME Corporation".
Still waiting on my anvil and oversized fireworks.
I want the flying batsuit.
Make mine that BIG CATAPULT!
My daughter's elementary school best friends' family got caught up in one of those churches. They prey on people who have suffered abusive childhoods. I tried staying friends with the mom for years--we had an agreement that for every minute she offered to pray for me I got the same amount of time to talk to her about evolution. Anyhow, once they tried to force their girls to get married at 18, I couldn't take it anymore. Their oldest daughter was "studying counseling" at a place called Life Christian University--which is affiliated with Ken Copeland. Once I found that out, I was DONE. I feel sorry for the girls--they were often left alone at home to homeschool themselves while their parents worked, because the husband "wasn't allowed" to be around other women without his wife. The girls watched Doctor Who while the parents weren't around, so there is hope for them, I guess. But I couldn't abide it anymore. When we'd go to the local public pool, she made her ELEMENTARY age girls wear clothes over their swimsuits! SICK!
Are they certified on the tRumpian Bible? Can they spew Lee Greenwood lyrics at the drop of a hat?
Woof, a spouse becoming an atheist AND deserting you. You’d think the deserting part would be enough grounds for divorce in that godforsaken place.
Churches love to play doctor, counselor, and whatever else they are completely unqualified for. One stop shop for zero accountability, bravo!
People who are worried about what undetectable Jeebus is going to do to their undetectable soul if they get sent to undetectable Hell fall into these cults and the McArthurs of the world are there with a glad hand and a collection plate. Stupid is as stupid does.
😂
"Earlier this year, the 86-year-old MacArthur was in the hospital for a variety of health issues, including the need for a heart-valve replacement, which was news to those of us who didn’t think he had one of those."
Ba-dum-tssss!!
Why did he go to to the hospital. Wasn’t it goddyboy’s plan that this guy have a defective heart valve. Yet, this guy went to the hospital (where the hospital practice HUMAN BASED MEDICAL SCIENCE) to get better. This guy should have prayed for a new heart, seems to me a lack of faith on his part. Then again, the religious leaders never seem to follow the rules like everyone else.
Yeah, this kind of thing drives me crazy. If you believe in faith healing, then stay out of the hospital! During the height of the COVID pandemic, these types were cluttering up emergency rooms. Pity the triage nurses weren't allowed to tell them to go back to their pastors and be prayed over. It proves that none of it is real, yet they refuse to connect the dots.
Even when the dots are fired directly at them from a cannon.
He defied his god's will. Onan did that and got a lightning bolt enema for his troubles.
Just like trans folk who want surgery, people like MacArthur refuse to accept the body God gave them!!!!!
/sarc for thems that don’t know me.
OT
Another church shooting that results in the deaths of two women
apnews.com/article/kentucky-church-shooting-suspect-dead-c31e1c1c050ba96416fbd2082e4866d4
Once again, the xtian god fails to save its own faithful in its own house of worship.
Xtians claim "putting god back in schools" will stop shootings but their own inept deity can't even stop them in its own shrines to ignorance.
When they utter that "Putting God back in schools will stop shootings" crap, I'm quick to point out Oikos University in East Oakland California. This is a Christian college that saw a mass shooting on April 2nd 2012 at around 10:30 AM Pacific that left 7 dead and 3 wounded. The shooter was One L. Goh, a former student. A believer.
All part of "god's plan" is what the deluded mutter to themselves.
"god's plan" was to make me a hated pariah, persecuting and damning me foreverThey said it was a shame when I failed at suicide. They cried when I finally became comfortable in my own skin. Now their goddamned jesus is unhappy with all my travails and promises me eternal hell for my. FUCK YOU Pope Leo xiv. WE now consider kkkatliks extremely dangerous. c'mon popie web crawlers, forward this to your hate-monger in chief.
I treat all religious folk as suffering from extreme mental delusion, and I am prepared to defend myself at a moments notice, just in case the religious listens to the voice in their (religious folk) head telling them to attack me because I am evil/demonic or am the devil in disguise!
It is a thin line for the religious to talk to their imaginary friend (praying), to their imaginary friend telling them (voices in the religious folk’s head) to attack someone/group of people because that someone/group of people are evil!!!
I'd honestly rather they whipped their dick out at me, rather than their religion. Of course I'm a nudist, so seeing a dick is not as disturbing to me, as it might be to someone else.
Clearly, the victims weren't Jesusing hard enough.
I have a very dear friend who goes to the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and thankfully MISSED the horror that happened there. [sigh]
To the church, spousal abuse is not a thing; it's just doing what God wants. If they would just read their Bibles (pronounced buy-bull), they would understand that women are the inferior species. I mean, all one has to do is look to the Bible story that portrays that Eve is the cause of all mankind's faults, and she should be treated as such until God disposes of this disposable planet. If they would only read it all... S/
I dunno, Jerry. Jeebus was born and Mary didn’t even have labor pain to deal with. That’s something, right?
But he sure has given serious pain to very many males and females swamped by his form of THEISM over the last 2K years.
True. All things were magical and mythical back in the Bible days — women’s pain? Nah, it’s just a fairytale.
Monday morning snark with muh coffee.
"...which was news to those of us who didn’t think he had one of those."
As a reaction to this news, the department of justice wil now sue the Grace Community Church for breaking the secret of confession /s
Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, I told my parents I liked guys. My mother talked to her pastor and a few days later told me that he said they could get me help for my problem. Help was psychiatric treatment, likely from a quack. My dad looked at her and said "You can't change that anymore than you could change his eye color."
"It's not a problem, mom. Not for me, anyway."
Big-time kudos to your dad!
It was surprising to me that it wasn't the other way around.
Women are usually the strong reigionistas in households. Men get in pretty much only when they can use it to their advantage. Then they go all gung ho.
If I had been in Boreal's place, sperm donor would have been the one to throw a tantrum. DM didn't care what I did and with whom as long as I limit myself to humans my age (under 18) or adults.
Did she try *hand wave* "This is not the sexuality you are looking for."
Hand waves were usually slaps.
Yikes.
...and then she proceeded to poke out your eyes.
Use your favorite search engine and look for keratopigmentation. Remember that this procedure existed long before the invention of anesthetics.
Kudos to your dad.
Hemant's right this lawsuit with probably go nowhere. We can't usually sue a private entity for civil rights violations. Add that it's a church? Add to that she signs a contract? Yea, telling all her secrets while threatening to 'shun' her is probably not actionable. The courts are just going to say, "Then leave." The divorce court will hopefully throw the book at the husband though.
Pro tip: if your church makes you sign a contract, run!
𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑑𝑑: I don't want to negate the problems of battered women and the gaslighting, abuse and in this case peer pressure that is put on them to stay in an abusive marriage but this woman 𝑑𝑖𝑑 find the strength to leave and then the church took action. Granted, she may have signed this contract under duress or she trusted her husband or someone else and didn't read it. It still goes back to why would a church need a contract though?
NDAs are very popular with criminals.