#Christian speakers

[kpg-3cclesia-center]

Invite Apostle Simba and/or Minister Remi to come and speak at your church, university, Bible Study, and any other speaking event. Learn the ways of the Lord, and learn how to be activated in walking in power by the Holy Spirit.

[tozettastone]

People keep posting about how bad they feel in December and I'm sure for many people in the northern hemisphere that IS a wintertime thing, sure enough, but

Have you considered?

December is also Big Routine Disrupt Time.

Everyone wants a piece of you in December. Public holidays. Family events. SOMEONE is bound to be drunk. You have to travel. Your workplace either goes into overdrive or becomes a ghost town. You have a list of obligations as long as your arm all happening at once.

Your routine is being disrupted by outside forces and it won't slow down until. Like. Mid January at best. 💀

[whilomm]

oh okay heres one:

"sleepaway camp"= you go there for at least a few days, a week, sometimes several weeks, and sleep there, as opposed to a """camp""" where you go for the day and your parents or whoever picks you up afterward (those arent really camps, but like. idk when i went to "space camp" it was a weeklong but not sleepaway). in the U.S. at least, the typical image of a sleepaway camp involves staying in cabins, dunno how common it is/what it looks like in other countries.

for the first few i just mean like. not necessarily a stealth church camp, just like. idk, a camp where theres also an Assumption Of Christianity and just general vibes without being actually church camp. So, there might not be daily services and jesusy dedicatwd activities, but maybe theres still a prayer said over meals and shit. Which i assume might exist...

(oh and @reblogforsamplesize if u wanna)

[garden-of-thoughts-fruit-of-lips]

"Open reproof is better than concealed love."

Proverbs 27:5

[skitskatdacat63]

I'm looking at 2005 rn for a project I'm working on but omg why is Christian Klien kinda????????

I guess Red Bull's always had a habit of signing German speaking twinks...

[tomorrowusa]

House Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson is a cross between the imaginary "intelligent Trump" and the non-existent "pleasant DeSantis" which Republicans like to fantasize about.

When his views come to light, MAGA Mike represents what people outside the MAGA-sphere thoroughly dislike about Republicans.

To understand him, it's necessary to look at where he comes from.

New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow grew up in MAGA Mike's congressional district (LA-04). Members of his family still live there. He tells us that we shouldn't be deceived by MAGA Mike's nice manners.

He is from a part of the country where your nemesis will smile at you and promise to pray for you, where people will quickly submit that they "love the sinner but hate the sin," where one hand can hold a Bible while the other holds a shackle. He is from a place where people use religion to brand their hatred as love so that they act on it cheerfully and without guilt. He is what many have feared: an example of second-wave Trumpism — politicians rising in Trump’s wake who come with the same policy priorities and ideological proclivities, but in a far more congenial and urbane package, propelled by something more than personal grievance. [ … ] Where he and I are from, even would-be oppressors can be affable. It’s not just good manners, it’s the Christian way, the proper Southern way. And it is the ultimate deception.

[leroibobo]

kidane mehret church in jerusalem, palestine. this church is one of the more recent in the city, having been completed in 1893. as with most ethiopian orthodox churches, the interior consists of three concentric rings centered on a meqdes (sanctuary) which only priests are allowed to enter.

it was built on land purchased by ethiopian emperor yohannes iv, who'd used money he'd gained in his conflict with the khedivate of egypt. he died in battle a year after having made the purchase.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Despite the challenges he had faced in the United States, Marshall Gauvin managed to attract sizable audiences in Winnipeg for fourteen years. How did he draw them in? His most popular stock in trade was condemnation of religious superstition. And he actively sought out conflict by challenging clergymen to debates. He was a showman as well, with considerable theatrical flair. “In addition to his oratorical style,” wrote Gray, “Gauvin was a natural born-mimic” who delighted in mocking travelling revivalists. “His imitations of their eye-rolling, arm-throwing styles rocked the theatres with laughter.”

During Gauvin’s first five years in Winnipeg, advertisements for his lectures were carried in the city newspapers’ crowded “church pages” on Saturdays, alongside announcements of the next day’s sermons and services. Thus, the advertisement of a preacher’s upcoming topic might be accompanied by an ad from the rationalist, explaining that he was going to demolish that preacher’s sermon from the previous week. He attended numerous church services to take notes and had agents who knew shorthand do the same so that he could rebut sermons point by point.

Gauvin also acted as the local debunker, attacking pseudoscientific ideas such as phrenology. An entrepreneurial guru whom Gauvin tackled was Orlando Miller, who promoted a combination of popular psychology, faith healing, and “visualization,” that is, causing reality to change by thinking positively. Gauvin also took aim at “new religious movements” led by charismatic figures. One such opponent was the mystic teacher Eugene Fersen, who claimed to be an exiled Russian baron and the nephew of Leo Tolstoy. Fersen styled himself “Svetozar, the Lightbearer.” In 1930 Gauvin debated him before an audience of 1,600 people and, according to all three judges and two-thirds of the audience, emerged the victor.

Where did he get his ideas? Gauvin loved books. They had been his university, and they, along with magazines, were his means of keeping abreast of useful developments in rationalism, science, politics, and biblical studies. In one lecture he explained:

The men who have done mighty things in the world have not done them because they were educated in colleges. The great have been great because they were great naturally and because they fed their greatness from the wellsprings of the world’s thought as it is found in books.

Visitors to Gauvin’s home commented that it was overflowing with volumes on every topic imaginable. His lectures were frequently extended reviews or summaries of books he had read; they profoundly shaped his discourse and his understanding of the world. It should also be remembered that, as a professional speaker, Gauvin was dependent on financial contributions from his listeners. Some variations in emphasis – or outright contradictions – that one finds between certain of his lectures reflect his need to cater to the current interests and tastes of his audiences. Religious controversy seems never to have gone out of style. As Gray commented in 1935, although Gauvin

puts on such a superlative performance in his jousts with priestcraft, his audience refuses to support him if he lapses into secular subjects. Even before the breadlines, socialism, communism and C.C.F.-ites carried off too many of his followers[,] he had difficulty in making ends meet when he turned from Yahweh to science.

...

Despite Gauvin’s interest in demonstrating what secular people could or should believe in, he had trouble attracting audiences for such themes and, as it turned out, created serious controversy by addressing topics on which he was not an expert. As Gray implied, Gauvin had been forced to cut short lecture series on “Economics” and “Psychology” partly because of a lack of interest, and partly because his somewhat liberal view of economics did not always align with the views of the many socialist members of his audience. Attacks on Christianity and the Bible therefore remained his bread and butter. In order to dethrone Christianity, the dominant Canadian faith, Gauvin would on occasion speak on other world religions like Islam or Buddhism. While he believed that all religions were ultimately misguided, he would at times say positive things about such non-Christian faiths, to combat the notion that Christianity was somehow superior.

In many ways Gauvin acted as a minister would with a congregation. On occasion his talks were even preceded by an organ recital. More generally, Gauvin spoke every Sunday (except in summer), passed a collection plate, delivered funeral addresses (albeit secular ones), wrote letters of recommendation, and served as a patron for rationalists who needed help. In early 1929, for instance, Gauvin intervened with the authorities on behalf of a woman who regularly attended his lectures. Her husband, W.A. Craig, was a bank employee who found himself in straitened circumstances. He had stolen a large sum of money but then, according to Gauvin, returned it of his own accord. Some 1,200 Winnipeggers (both members of Gauvin’s Rationalist Society and sympathizers) passed a resolution urging clemency for Craig, and Gauvin corresponded with various government officials on the man’s behalf. Not forgetting his raison d’être, he took the opportunity to accuse the churches of remaining silent on the case."

- Elliot Hanowski, Towards A Godless Dominion: Unbelief in Interwar Canada. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2024. p. 43-46

[thebirdandhersong]

grabbing stuffy, politicised, echo chamber academia by the shirt collar and pulling it uncomfortably close to my face as I give it a ferocious glower and then shaking it violently and shouting in its face: "where is the delight! WHERE IS THE DELIGHT!!!"

[sleepyyghostt]

if anyone's like, interested in wisely understanding/interpreting/analysing the bible, i seriously can't recommend this book enough one billion million times. You CAN Handle The Truth by Chad M Mansbridge (hes got a legendary name)

The title is based on the verse from 2 timothy - "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15)

so its saying, like: you ARE cabable of parsing and interpreting and wisely handling the truth (bible). and here's the tools to equip you with how. i like that a lot.

its got 3 main sections: what does it say, what does it mean, and what does it matter, each containing a whole bunch of smaller sections (a few pages long) covering lots of good topics.

Its important foundational stuff for everyone, really, and its written in a way that feels really engaging and accessible (in a very conversational tone!!) so YEAH! highly recommend this book c:

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Marci A Hamilton: The new House speaker, Mike Johnson, knows how he will rule: according to his Bible. When asked on Fox News how he would make public policy, he replied: “Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview.” But it’s taking time for the full significance of that statement to sink in. Johnson is in fact a believer in scriptural originalism, the view that the Bible is the truth and the sole legitimate source for public policy. He was most candid about this in 2016, when he declared: “You know, we don’t live in a democracy” but a “biblical” republic. Chalk up his elevation to the speakership as the greatest victory so far within Congress for the religious right in its holy war to turn the US government into a theocracy. Since his fellow Republicans made him their leader, numerous articles have reported Johnson’s religiously motivated, far-right views on abortion, same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ rights. But that barely scratches the surface. Johnson was a senior lawyer for the extremist Alliance Defending Fund (later the Alliance Defending Freedom) from 2002 to 2010. This is the organization responsible for orchestrating the 303 Creative v Elenis legal arguments to obtain a ruling from the supreme court permitting a wedding website designer to refuse to do business with gay couples. It also played a significant role in annulling Roe v Wade.

The ADF has always been opposed to privacy rights, abortion and birth control. Now Roe is gone, the group is laying the groundwork to end protection for birth control. Those who thought Roe would never be overruled should understand that the reasoning in Dobbs v Jackson is not tailored to abortion. Dobbs was explicitly written to be the legal fortress from which the right will launch their attacks against other fundamental rights their extremist Christian beliefs reject. They are passionate about rolling back the right to contraception, the right to same-sex marriage and the right to sexual privacy between consenting adults. Johnson’s inerrant biblical truth leads him to reject science. Johnson was a “young earth creationist”, holding that a literal reading of Genesis means that the earth is only a few thousand years old and humans walked alongside dinosaurs. He has been the attorney for and partner in Kentucky’s Creation Museum and Ark amusement park, which present these beliefs as scientific fact, a familiar sleight of hand where the end (garnering more believers) justifies the means (lying about science). For them, the end always justifies the means. That’s why they don’t even blink when non-believers suffer for their dogma.

Setting aside all of these wildly extreme, religiously motivated policy preferences, there is a more insidious threat to America in Johnson’s embrace of scriptural originalism: his belief that subjective interpretation of the Bible provides the master plan for governance. Religious truth is neither rational nor susceptible to reasoned debate. For Johnson, who sees a Manichean world divided between the saved who are going to heaven and the unsaved going to hell, there is no middle ground. Constitutional politics withers and is replaced with a battle of the faithful against the infidels. Sound familiar? Maybe in Tehran or Kabul or Riyadh. But in America? When rulers insist the law should be driven by a particular religious viewpoint, they are systematizing their beliefs and imposing a theocracy. We have thousands of religious sects in the US and there is no religious majority, but we now have a politically fervent conservative religious movement of Christian nationalists intent on shaping policy to match their understanding of God and theirs alone. The Republicans who elected Johnson speaker, by a unanimous vote, have aligned themselves with total political rule by an intolerant religious sect.

[The Guardian]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jonathan Nicholson at HuffPost:

In Shreveport, Louisiana, across the street from House Speaker Mike Johnson’s hometown church, an unusual billboard would pop up occasionally.

During weeks when Congress was out of session and Johnson was home, it showed a picture of a bombed-out church in the southeastern Ukraine city of Berdyansk, next to a caption: “Speaker Johnson, ‘For a time such as this.’ Esther 4:14.” While the debate raged in Washington over whether to approve another round of aid to Ukraine or pair it with an immigration overhaul, the billboard ― part of a campaign to remind Johnson of the price his fellow evangelical Christians were paying for American inaction ― stood as a mute reminder to Johnson, a Southern Baptist. The inaction lasted for six months, only ending after President Joe Biden signed a law Wednesday giving Ukraine $60.8 billion in additional aid that passed Congress only days before. Over the half-year time frame, advocates for Ukraine made argument after argument aiming to sway Republicans like Johnson: Inaction would reward Russia President Vladimir Putin and embolden other enemies of the U.S. Sending the weapons would reboot the industrial base needed to supply our own military. The U.S. owed it to Ukrainians who gave up their nuclear weapons in 1994, at the behest of the United States.

But the arguments appeared to make little impact on Johnson, who insisted on linking aid and border security until about two weeks ago. Two pro-Ukraine groups, the Ukraine Project Freedom and Razom for Ukraine, settled on a much narrower, and ultimately maybe more potent, argument ― arguing Russian invaders were systematically and intentionally destroying churches belonging to evangelical Christians. [...] Johnson’s activism in conservative Christian circles also meant he could be exposed to the stories of what was happening in Ukraine, whose two main religious traditions are Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism.

Guess what Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) did to finally secure much-needed Ukrainian funding? Hearing about the persecution of Christians in Ukraine, especially Evangelicals.

[ethaneldritch]

"i don't like to tear my opponents down, it's unsportmanlike."

*proceeds to spend the next 30 minutes shrieking about how irredeemably evil said opponent is*

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

People will leave the fundamentalist religious cult they grew up in and then fall for white supremacist grifters who offer the scapegoat of blaming the harm caused by patriarchy on trans people and get suckered into another high control cult with an ideology driven by despair, and call that feminism.

[commiepinkofag]

[tomorrowusa]

Do you need more proof that Republicans are becoming even more homophobic by the week?

Whenever you hear somebody thinking of sitting out the election or ruminating about wasting a vote on some automatic loser third party, remind them of the insidious evil which the Republican Party has become.

MAGA Mike Johnson is now the highest ranking Republican in the US. He received every single vote of GOP House members, including the alleged moderates, to become House Speaker.

15 Not-Fun Facts About Speaker Mike Johnson

1. He masterminded Trump’s election coup. 2. He's the least-experienced House Speaker in 140 years. 3. He worked for the conservative legal group behind the case that ended Roe v. Wade. 4. He wants to ban abortion nationwide. 5. He blamed abortion for school shootings. 6. He also blamed abortion for Social Security and Medicare cuts. 7. He blamed mass shootings on the teaching of evolution. 8. He fought to make taxpayers fund a Noah’s Ark theme park. 9. He fought to ban same-sex marriage in Louisiana. 10. He led an anti-gay campus movement. 11. He wrote a lot of homophobic op-eds. 12. He introduced a national version of Florida's "Don’t Say Gay" bill. 13. He was an advocate for "covenant marriage," which makes it harder to divorce. 14. He blamed post-Katrina looting on America turning away from God. 15. He doesn't believe in the separation of church and state.

^^^ click the link to New York Magazine just above the list for details.

The 2024 election pits the 17th century against the 21st century. Republicans don't accept any of that newfangled thinking from The Enlightenment.