Linkathon!
My friend Bill Kinnon on narcissistic church leaders…
The problem with crying to Christians…
Why Brian Williams lies mean more than you think they do…
Former pastor collects womens underwear…for a good reason.
Putting the fundamentalist/modernist controversy to bed…
The allure of embellishing the truth…
Was Obama right about the Crusades?…
Five Bible verses you need to stop misusing…
Where Biologos fits in the origins debate…
New York church taking WalMart to court over gun sales…
The act of rigorous forgiving…
Changing our thinking on same sex marriage…
What “Mr. Know It All” doesn’t know…
No surprise that I’d respond to the church vs walmart article.
Walmart sells baseball bats, hammers, and knives, all of which are used to murder more people in the US than rifles.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8
Nothing yet here on the Linkathon so let me jump right in on the political one because that should keep things nice and docile. 🙂 I ranted about this topic on Facebook yesterday as I’ve been seeing posts all over my Facebook feed condemning Obama and so I decided to post a contrarian article where the author loved what the President said. Not that I agreed with everything in the article or everything Obama said in his speech, but sometimes you just get sick of seeing someone constantly being demonized over everything they say or do (or don’t say or don’t do).
Now copying from my Facebook rant: Over the history of his presidency, I do think Obama has regularly gone to lengths too far to downplay the role of Islam in the many atrocities that have occurred and continue to occur in this world related to this religion, to downplay America, and to apologize for the sins of America and/or Christianity (sins that conveniently rarely relate to him or his political party, but rather more times than not to his political opposition). I also think his moralizing does not play well because there have been too many instances/issues where he has forsaken the moral high ground in pursuit of political gain, expediency, and ideology. That being said, my goodness, why must we attack this man over every single perceived opportunity we get? We must be used to his rhetoric by now. Do we expect him to suddenly change his tune? And so, if we can lay politics aside for a second and take what he says in this speech at face value, we might actually find some good in it and an appreciation of the Christian humbleness being expressed.
When I said nothing yet here on Linkathon, I wasn’t trying to disparage Jim. 🙂 I thought I was going to be first. Instead, I now claim SECOND!
KevinH,
How many times have you been unfriended so far? 🙂
Jim,
That link was Steve Wrights contribution to the cause this week…I assumed it would draw some comment. 🙂
Pure link-bait 🙂
Let’s consult the rabidly pro-gun NPR regarding firearm violence.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/05/07/181998015/rate-of-u-s-gun-violence-has-fallen-since-1993-study-says
“Christianity’s weirdness” – Good reminders. Thanks for the link.
P.S. – Is there a way to keep up with the latest with El Pastor? Does he share updates about his ministry?
JoelG,
Thank you for asking about El Pastor.
Since the death of Charles Bowden it’s been a little harder to get updates.
I’m going to be trying to set up a direct line of communication in the near future.
You made my day…
Michael your posts and comments have made many many of my days… not to get all gushy on you. : ) Thank you for highlighting Bowden and El Pastor.
Michael, surprisingly no friends lost yet. Of course, I didn’t check my friend count before posting, so maybe I have lost some and don’t even know it. But my somewhat infrequent Facebook rants usually aren’t too explosive or attention grabbing, so I think most people just ignore me. 🙂
Jim, I think I was more offended that the church would be holding on to such a large, multi-million dollar endowment savings…. 🙂
Seriously though, while I can’t possibly get my mind around that sort of money savings for a church (what are they waiting for?) , and while if a church is going to hold onto that level of money and act like a college or corporate endeavor, I guess it does make sense to have some of it in stocks…at the end of the day, what possible justification is there for owning INDIVIDUAL stocks (and not just index funds). Frankly, 2000 shares of Walmart is chump change for that level of money which makes me wonder if the shares have not been bought solely in order to make waves as a shareholder to advance a political purpose (in the name of Jesus of course).
As I always say, the religious left is just as numerous and active as the religious right.
Unfortunately, Eric Mueller, the brother of Kayla Mueller…is our gun rep for one of our major distributors. I’ve talked to him often when ordering etc.
We got word he was taking a leave of absence and just found out today why.
Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family. What a terrible tragedy and loss. An angel like Kayla there to help people…and those butchers take her hostage. I really hate Islam and all of its extremists and have a special hatred for them for this particular matter.
May they reap what they sow.
Steve,
$2000 worth of stock, not 2000 shares. It’s laughable.
The red meat for me is the use of the gun ban lobby vernacular. According to the DoD, an assault rifle is select fire, meaning, semi auto/3 round burst/fully auto. AR 15’s are semi only, meaning one round per trigger pull. They use standard capacity magazines. They are commonly used in shooting sports.
“The church has singled out high-capacity assault rifles as the sort of product that should require board approval before hitting store shelves, questioning in its proposal “whether these guns are well suited to hunting or shooting sports” and recalling that such weapons “enabled many mass killings” in Newtown, Aurora, Tucson and elsewhere.”
Alex,
I find it hard to control my emotions on this murder.
We need to be making much of the life and death of this woman…
And the shooter in the Tucson shooting used a pistol….
Fact: 2nd Amendment is not there to protect shooting sports, it’s been affirmed by the SCOTUS as a Right in the Bill of Rights for SELF DEFENSE.
Fact: “Assault Rifles” were used in less than 100 deaths per year out of a Nation of 300 Million. You are more likely to get struck by lightening than get killed by an “Assault Rifle”.
3,500 people die from accidental drowning per year…nearly half in backyard Swimming Pools.
Hammers, Fists and Blunt Objects kill nearly 2,000 per year.
Slip and Falls account for 1,800 deaths per year.
Abortions account for 1.2 Million deaths per year.
Autoerotic Asphyxiation accounts for 500-1,000 deaths in the US per year.
16,000 deaths per year by Texting and Cell Phones Talking.
“Assault Weapons” less than 100 deaths per year.
Let that sink in…
That bra idea is actually quite a good one!
Jim, my mistake. Yep, $2000 worth of stock. That confirms it for me. They want standing as an “owner” of the company.
Of course, even that little stock pays a dividend of the profits each quarter, and a portion of those profits are from the gun sales.
I trust the church’s financial advisor has advised the bishop of the blood money going into their treasury….
I live in a republican county of 500K in the gunshine state and I’ve never seen a walmart that sells firearms. I wonder what percentage of their stores carry them.
Wal-Mart sells AR-15’s and other Long Guns (rifles and shotguns) here in Idaho and in many States. They also sell ammo.
They don’t sell handguns.
Wal-Mart is in fact the biggest Gun Seller and ammo seller by gross sales of any retailer in the World.
5 verses we should stop misusing ..only 5?
This isn’t a link but I could easily write an article about this…if that lunatic in NC had killed 3 Christians or shot up a church our FB news feeds would be on fire. But I’m hearing very little if nothing about it from all the prophesy wizards and doom and gloomers. I wonder if my fundie friends are actually rejoicing?