#REFORMED CHRISTIAN PREACHERS

[battleforgodstruth]

Defending the Gospel: Sound Doctrine Essentials

Titus 1:9-16 (NASB20) 9 holding firmly the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to *exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict [it.] 10 For there are many rebellious people, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11 who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they…

[tmarshconnors]

"It will be a sad day for the church and the world when there is no distinction between the children of God and those of this world."

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was an English Particular Baptist preacher. Spurgeon remains highly influential among Christians of various denominations, to some of whom he is known as the "Prince of Preachers."

Born: 19 June 1834, Kelvedon Died: 31 January 1892 (age 57 years), Menton, France

Prolific Preacher: Charles Spurgeon was one of the most prolific preachers of the 19th century, delivering thousands of sermons. His powerful and eloquent preaching earned him the title "Prince of Preachers."

Metropolitan Tabernacle: Spurgeon became the pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London in 1861, where he preached to large congregations. The Tabernacle became one of the most famous churches in England under his leadership.

Published Works: He authored numerous books, including "The Treasury of David," a commentary on the Psalms, and "Morning and Evening," a popular daily devotional. His sermons were widely published and remain influential to this day.

Philanthropy: Spurgeon was also known for his philanthropic efforts. He founded several charitable organizations, including an orphanage and the Pastor's College (now Spurgeon’s College) to train future ministers.

Calvinist Theology: Spurgeon was a staunch Calvinist and held firmly to Reformed theology. His preaching and writings emphasized doctrines such as the sovereignty of God, salvation by grace, and the perseverance of the saints.

[onearthwerebrieflygorgons]

[whencyclopedia]

Two Accounts of Zwingli's Death

Huldrych Zwingli (l. 1484-1531) died in the second of the Kappel Wars in 1531, a conflict between Catholic and Protestant forces. Afterwards, two accounts of his death emerged – one Catholic and one Protestant – differing in detail and notable as examples of the schism between the two groups caused by Zwingli's reformation.

Zwingli, leader of the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland at the time, had instigated the First Kappel War and agreed to a blockade of Catholic provinces between 1529-1531 in an effort to forcibly convert the Catholic cantons (provinces) to his Reformed vision of Christianity. To the Protestants of Zürich – and then other cantons that converted to his faith – he was a God-inspired hero and champion of Christian truth while, to the Catholics, he was a dangerous heretic. When he was killed in the Second Kappel War, a Catholic victory, the differing faiths were succinctly summarized in the two accounts of his death.

The Catholic account was written by the playwright and mercenary Johannes Salat (d. c. 1561) who was present at both the First and Second Kappel War and could easily have been an eyewitness to the event. The Protestant version was the work of Zwingli's admirer, and successor to his position in Zürich, Heinrich Bullinger (l. 1504-1575), who was still in his hometown of Bremgarten in 1531 and could not have been a witness to the events he describes.

After the Second War of Kappel, Swiss cantons were given the freedom to choose Catholicism or Protestantism and kept an uneasy peace which did nothing to address the animosity each side felt for the other. The two accounts of Zwingli's death are among the best documents of the time expressing how each side understood their own beliefs and how they viewed the other.

Kappel Wars

The Kappel Wars were the result of increasing tension between Protestant and Catholic Christians in Switzerland, which had been growing since Zwingli began preaching for the reform of the Church in 1519. The Protestant Reformation, though it had earlier advocates, began in 1517 in Germany through the efforts of the priest and theologian Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546), and by 1519, Zwingli was rejecting church liturgy and calling for reform in Switzerland. In 1522, Zwingli challenged the traditional practice of Lent, and in 1523, in a public disputation, Zwingli's 67 Articles expressed the tenets of his faith and denounced the Church's policies as unbiblical.

Zürich embraced Zwingli's vision and, by 1529, a number of other cantons had as well. Five Catholic cantons refused to renounce their faith, however, and Zwingli, formerly a pacifist, advocated for war to change their minds. He believed that a united Protestant Switzerland would represent God's true will for the Church on earth and that Catholics who refused to recognize this were not only standing against Zwingli and his teachings but against God himself. Accordingly, he mobilized the Protestant cantons to attack the Catholics in the First Kappel War of 1529.

This engagement ended before it could begin when a delegation from the Protestant canton of Bern negotiated a peace. Although the First Peace of Kappel held off hostilities, it did nothing to address the underlying issues and, further, was not clear on certain points, notably how Catholic cantons were to receive – or allow – Protestant preachers in their regions. To speed the Catholics' conversion, Zwingli called for war a second time but was forced to agree to the less severe measure of a blockade of the Catholic cantons in May 1531.

Although the blockade was lifted later, the Catholics felt they needed to respond before Zwingli suggested a further attempt, and so they marched on Zürich in October 1531, catching the city by surprise. The Protestants were badly outnumbered, poorly mobilized, and lacked strong leadership, leading to their defeat in under an hour. Zwingli was among the 500 casualties of the Protestant forces.

Continue reading...

[ds9promenade]

Podcast episode discussing DS9 "Past Tense" & "Far Beyond the Stars"!

My friend Laura invited me onto their podcast to unpack Deep Space Nine episodes 3x11 & 12: "Past Tense" and 6x13: "Far Beyond the Stars," using them for a broader discussion on the role of science fiction in dreaming better futures into reality.

In our conversation, we:

compare the 2024 of "Past Tense" to our 2024

share our theories about historical events that may have inspired both episodes, as well as their relationship to other works of speculative/science fiction

point out and offer revisions for parts of "Past Tense" that somewhat undercut the story's intended messages about the evils of capitalism, ableism, police / military violence, and anti-homeless laws

gush about the artistry of the filming and acting in "Far Beyond" (Avery Brooks monologues my beloved)

and more — with a dash of humor as we go!

Give "Sanctified Imagination Far Beyond the Stars" a listen wherever you get podcasts — or read along with the transcript!

(CW: Christianity) — please do go in forewarned that Laura's Autistic Liberation Theology podcast centers around reinterpreting the Bible from a trans & disabled lens. If you skip to 44 minutes in you'll miss most of the religious commentary, except for when it makes sense to bring it up re: Joseph Sisko's 1950s incarnation as a street preacher.

If you are interested the full episode, some of the places we go in our winding conversation are:

Womanist midrash & sanctified imagination, which enact this call to imagine possibilities for the oppressed — to "make a way out of no way"

How Jesus's use of parables to teach about his envisioned "Kingdom of God" —where there's access for all, oppressors reformed and oppressed liberated, all needs met and all gifts celebrated — invites people to engage their sanctified imaginations to join in the work for a more just world, here and now

AutScape's & Crip Camp’s modeled possibilities for a fully accessible, disability-centered world

various directors / show writers who, through writing, discovered something new about themselves (think the Wachowski sisters & The Matrix, Dan Harmon and Community)

If you give it a listen (or read), I'd love to hear what you think! Did you connect with the concept of imagining better futures into reality? Any other Star Trek episodes you think encapsulate that well?

____

Transcript of the above audio clip:

Avery: I definitely think the writers of this episode were thinking about how When Deep Space Nine was coming out, people's response to seeing Sisko was, Yeah, is, you can't have a black space captain. A black man can't be the hero of Star Trek!

Which just shows, like, for the viewers, like, Yeah, we've come a long ways here in the 90s. But we still think it's ridiculous to imagine a black space captain and it's only just becoming possible now.

Laura: yeah the um, , editor of the magazine says "put it in a drawer for like a couple of decades and might be--" it's like, yeah, that's

Avery: Yeah.

Laura: inside joke.

Avery: At the end, when, um, Benny Russell breaks down after being fired and everything, the street preacher comes back and, Benny says, "Tell me, please, who am I?"

Don't you know?" "Tell me." "You're the dreamer and the dream."

Laura: ah, this is so amazing.

Avery: And, like, yeah, that fits on so many different layers with, uh, Benny Russell is dreaming Sisko and dreaming Deep Space nine, and also Sisko is dreaming him, and also breaking the fourth wall,

Laura: yeah, because they're, neither of them are real, they're both fiction and yet they're, yeah. real.

Avery: Yeah. Yeah. Breaking the fourth wall, the writers and Avery Brooks are the dreamers, and the dream. This is, this is what, people have been dreaming of, this even the possibility of this. And they're making it true.

Laura: and at the end, you see him looking out the window and seeing Benny Russell in the reflection of the glass and

Avery: it's such a good shot. It's so good. It like gives me chills

Laura: you Have to cast something into the space you're not there yet to-- that becomes you.

Avery: Yeah. dream yourself into being.

[alandemoss]

Uncover the Hidden Truths: Why Questioning Everything Could Be the Key to Your Spiritual Liberation

Questioning is at the heart of human progress and spiritual discovery. From the beginning of time, our survival and growth have depended on asking the right questions:

“How did you achieve that?”

“What if we tried a new approach?”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Can we replicate that?”

“What does this truly mean?”

These inquiries not only fuel scientific advancements but also shape our entire civilization. Questions have given rise to religion, medicine, music, professions, and educational systems. However, when it comes to faith—especially in systems rooted in fear—questions are often discouraged.

But what happens when you start to question the very doctrines that are meant to guide you? This is a question I personally faced on my own spiritual journey.

The Role of Questions in Spiritual Freedom: How Questions Sparked the Protestant Reformation

History shows us how crucial questioning can be. Protestant Christianity was born from Martin Luther’s courageous questions about the practices of the Catholic Church. Luther’s questioning sparked the Reformation and paved the way for new understandings of faith. Without these bold inquiries, many of us might still be trapped in oppressive religious systems.

Personally, I remember the first time I questioned the religious structure I grew up in. I was sitting in a church pew, listening to a sermon that emphasized obedience without question, at risk of death and hell. Something inside me snapped. I could no longer accept blind faith and started to ask questions, much like Luther did centuries ago.

Breaking Free: Questioning Faith in Modern Times - When Prayers Seem to Go Unanswered

I spent years praying fervently, hoping for change. Week after week, I would pray, serve, and worship in church, expecting some sign that my prayers were being answered, but nothing came. Instead, I felt more lost and disillusioned. I began to wonder, “Why are my prayers not being heard? Am I doing something wrong?

”Feeling like you're the problem when faith demands belief without question is common. This internal struggle, known as cognitive dissonance, is actually a positive sign of critical thinking. As I questioned more, I realized the issue wasn't with me but with the Calvinistic doctrine I had trusted. My prayers seemed futile under a theology that marginalizes and excludes, contradicting basic human decency. This doctrine impacted those I loved most—neighbors who joined us for Sunday lunches and volunteered together. Such exclusion directly contradicts the greatest commandment Jesus said supersedes all others, representing a serious deviation from the true Gospel. For more insights, explore Calvinism critique and Jesus' teachings.

For many people, questioning faith begins after years of attending church without seeing real change. You might have poured your heart into prayer, only to find your struggles worsen. When collective prayers seem to make your problems heavier, it’s only natural to ask if something is wrong.

Yet, in some churches, questioning is discouraged. I recall a preacher who would regularly caution against skepticism. He would say, “Don’t come to church with a skeptical heart,” as though doubt were some kind of sin. What he really wanted was blind acceptance. But when I began questioning everything, I realized that this lack of inquiry was crippling my spiritual growth.

The Manipulation of Doctrines: Protecting the Ego

Over time, I started to see what was really happening. Preachers fear questions because they worry that if people start thinking for themselves, they’ll lose their grip on control. Whether they admit it or not, these leaders are often protecting their own egos. They hide behind the guard of pride, which is “the essential vice, the utmost evil,” convincing people that questions are dangerous when in reality, they are afraid of losing their influence.

I remember asking one preacher, “But what if Jesus didn’t mean it this way?” His face grew tight, and I could see the discomfort in his eyes. It was a simple question, yet it challenged everything he had built his ministry on. It was clear to me in that moment that he didn’t want to confront the truth behind the doctrines he preached.

When clergy with narcissistic tendencies discourage questions, they rob their followers of the opportunity to find the truth for themselves. The end result is spiritual enslavement, where individuals are living by someone else’s interpretation of faith rather than discovering God personally. Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to religious trauma syndrome as we simply can’t reconcile our values and principles with what we’ve learned is the way, truth, and life.

Jesus' Words vs. Pauline Doctrine: What Do We Follow? - A Personal Spiritual Experience

Recently, I had an experience while meditating and questioning my faith even more deeply. I felt a profound sense of clarity and purpose, something that seemed to fill every corner of my mind and heart. It was almost as if something divine was pulling me forward, leading me into a deeper understanding of my own beliefs. Others noticed a change in me, and I felt different—more certain in some ways, but also more aware of the questions still lurking in the background.

Was this a divine encounter? It felt like one. It reminded me of moments I’ve had in the past, moments that made me think, “Maybe God is guiding me somewhere new.” But those experiences also led me to one important question: What does Jesus really want me to focus on?

In this particular moment, I was struck by the Spirit, overwhelmed into submission, and more certain than ever that God is indeed guiding me. I cried in relief for a good while and shared my experience during this emotional revelation with my aunt. Jesus saves, after all. He cured my nihilistic and craving soul in an instant.

The Conflict Between Jesus and Paul

This experience opened my eyes to a common issue in Christian theology: Why do we focus so much on Paul’s teachings when Jesus’ words seem so much clearer and more compassionate?

When I read the Gospels, I see a message of love, grace, and inclusion. But Paul’s writings, which form the backbone of modern Christian doctrine, often seem to conflict with that message. In many fundamentalist churches, Paul is quoted far more than Jesus, and I started to wonder: Has Christianity lost its way?

For me, the risk of following the wrong path is too great. If my eternal soul is at stake, I cannot base my life on teachings that may not align with what Jesus actually said. It’s clear to me now that Jesus’ words are enough. His message stands on its own without the additional weight of Pauline doctrines that seem to complicate and even contradict His words of grace and love.

Finding True Spiritual Freedom Through Jesus' Words: The Courage to Question

If you’ve ever felt trapped by a belief system that limits grace, it’s okay to question it. In fact, it’s essential. When I started asking, “Is this truly what Jesus wanted for me?” I found a sense of freedom that I never knew before.

Jesus welcomed questions. He challenged the religious leaders of His time, those who used fear to control others. His message was one of love, inclusion, and grace. And if He questioned the rigid systems of His day, why shouldn’t we do the same?

The Path Forward: A Call to Action

For me, I have chosen to follow the words of Jesus alone. His message of inclusivity, love, and grace resonates deeply with me. Like Thomas Jefferson, I believe that Jesus’ words are actionable and true. Jefferson famously said of Jesus, “In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to them.” Jefferson focused on the reason the Bible exists: The Savior.

And so, I will continue on this faith journey, asking questions and following Jesus’ words until I have further questions. If you find yourself in a similar place, I encourage you to embrace your questions and explore a path of true spiritual freedom—one that leads not to fear, but to grace.

Final Thoughts: Break Free from Doctrinal Control

Questioning is sacred. It opens doors to new understanding, challenges outdated beliefs, and leads to spiritual freedom. Whether you’re questioning the doctrines of Calvinism, Pauline theology, or any other restrictive belief system, know that your questions matter. By embracing your questions, you can break free from manipulative doctrines and rediscover the true message of Jesus—a message of love, grace, and spiritual freedom.

In Grace and Hope.

I formed The Living Stones at a Calvinistic church. I honestly do miss performing.

Such a cool band logo!

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Prayer is the Christian’s heartbeat, pulsing continually. What keeps it going so constantly is the Holy Spirit, or as Paul calls Him, the Spirit of adoption, who has taken up residence in the believer. Life itself and all the signs of life come from the Spirit. In a sermon on Romans 8:15, “Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father,” the gifted young preacher Hugh Binning identifies three characteristics of Spirit-given prayer.

The chief principle and origin of prayer is the Spirit of adoption received into the heart. Many of you cannot be induced to pray in your family (or, even more seriously, on your own personally), because you say you aren’t accustomed to it, or haven’t been taught, or something like that. But, beloved! Prayer doesn’t come through education or learning — it comes from the Spirit of adoption. If you say you can’t pray, then it means you do not have the Spirit — and if you do not have the Spirit, you are not the sons of God. Please be aware of the logical conclusions of what you say.

But I hasten on to the characteristics of this divine work: fervency, reverence, and confidence, in crying...

[justforbooks]

Fethullah Gülen

Imam who sponsored dialogue between Christians and Muslims but was accused of terrorism by the president of Turkey

In 1962, a 21-year-old imam, Fethullah Gülen, arrived in the southern Turkish port of Iskenderun to finish his military service. He also gave sermons in the town’s main mosque. This was the heyday of secular Turkey, and he quickly ran into difficulties from a secularist commanding officer who, seeing his sermons as a threat to the republic, ordered that he should be detained for two weeks.

Another officer, however, had a different approach. Spotting that the young soldier was highly intelligent and well-read in Islamic religious texts, but with almost no formal education inside the conventional school system, he recommended that Gülen should start reading western literary classics as well. The young recruit began to read, and enjoy, Dante, Camus and Dostoevsky, eventually developing a taste even for the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

This was perhaps the moment when the career pursued by Gülen, who has died aged 83, began to deviate sharply from that of most Turkish imams. In the next six decades he became internationally famous, feted especially in the US, while writing about 50 books, sponsoring dialogue between Christians and Muslims, and heading a global religious brotherhood with a great number of schools in five continents and a vast international business network. However, this trajectory would end in mortal conflict with the Turkish state, with Gülen accused of terrorism by the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and tens of thousands of his followers in jail, stripped of assets or in exile.

To his admirers, including US members of Congress and Christian theologians, Gülen remained a virtual saint, a Muslim cleric on friendly terms with the western world. In Turkey, among many Turks other than his own following, Gülen was a deeply sinister figure whose efforts to capture the state culminated in 2016 in a botched military coup in which more than 200 people died.

One of eight children, Gülen was born in the village of Korucuk in north-eastern Turkey at a time of severe wartime hardship. His father, Ramiz, was a village imam connnected with the conservative Naqshbandi Sufi brotherhood, while his mother, Refia, combined raising livestock and a family with teaching Qur’an classes for girls.

Gülen had only three years of formal primary schooling. However he knew parts of the Qur’an by heart at the age of four and the whole of it when he was eight. At 13 he became a pupil for five years at an underground theological school at the Kurşunlu mosque in Erzurum. In his mid-teens he joined a new brotherhood, the Nurcus, who supported the adoption of western science while vehemently opposing the republic founded by Kemal Atatürk and its westernising reforms. Gülen worked with the Nurcus until he set up his own brotherhood in the early 1970s.

In 1959, Gülen received his icazetname (Islamic studies diploma) as a preacher, making him an official of Turkey’s presidency of religious affairs, a state Sunni organisation, which posted him to a mosque in Edirne. He remained a government imam until 1981. His powerful emotional sermons quickly won him a wide reputation, and he was known as “the weeping imam”. His followers wept with him. He began organising teaching and discussion meetings, usually before prayers. These marked the first beginnings of his global movement.

Around 1966, Gülen was transferred to a mosque in Izmir on the Aegean, and it was there that his career took flight. In 1971 he suffered a severe setback when the military threw out Turkey’s civilian government and he was arrested and imprisoned for seven months. By the mid-70s, though, Gülen had become a well-known lecturer as well as preacher, travelling across the country to talk on topics such as the gift of prophecy, the Qur’an and science, and Darwinism.

Nevertheless, he learned to live discreetly and to disguise his actions. Even though he publicly supported Turkey’s 1980 military coup because it crushed communism and opened the way to religious education, he lived under cover for six years because some in the pro-military establishment saw him as an Islamist.

“You could say I was protected by high friends in Ankara,” he told the Turkish journalist Mehmet Ali Birand in 1998. After a tipoff during a pilgrimage to Mecca, he returned to Turkey by hiring a smuggler to take him over the mountains, minefields and barbed wire of the Syrian border. Another time he was detained and taken to a military barracks, to be released only after then prime minister Turgut Özal held a midnight cabinet meeting about the case.

Gülen’s teachings extracted universal values from Islam, accepted their commonalities with those of other cultures and religions, and promoted the study of western science. His genius lay in doing so without being so specific as to offend pious Muslim values. “I tried to show the way. It’s as if a crystal broke into little pieces, scattered left and right. I’m trying to bring this society’s pieces back together again, to provide education, and as much as I can, to advise people to serve what I believe in,” he said.

His rise was assisted by the steady growth in the numbers of Turkish students studying in Islamic vocational schools, partly as a result of moves by the military after the 1980 coup to stem the growth of leftist movements by encouraging religious education. In towns across Turkey, businessmen joined the brotherhood, prayed with it, and paid up to a fifth of their income to it, apparently in return for a promise that they would never be allowed to fail commercially.

The movement was eventually a founding influence on more than 1,000 schools in Turkey and abroad as well as several universities of its own. Some had high academic standards and were especially popular in under-served countries in Africa and Central Asia. For a time they were even standard-bearers of expanding Turkish commercial and cultural influence. However, the Gülenist movement is also suspected of using the schools as a means to recruit high-performing new members.

The way in which these various activities were organised and financed remained very mysterious. Though there seem to have been “imams” in charge of different parts of Turkey and “abis” (big brothers) issuing strict orders at the local level, no hierarchy or plan was ever revealed. Gülen himself claimed that he had only set up a few model institutions, which were copied and spread spontaneously. The Gülenist movement has long preferred to call itself “Hizmet”, or service.

Gülen lived modestly as a celibate cleric beside a teaching centre and mosque. He maintained that the Prophet Muhammad had come to him in a dream and told him not to marry. By the 90s his health was failing because of diabetes and heart problems, but he had become an internationally leading figure in Islamic-Christian dialogue, even meeting Pope John Paul II in 1998.

In March 1999, he received a tip-off, apparently from sources within the government of Bülent Ecevit, that the security forces and the country’s intelligence services were about to arrest him, and he escaped in haste to the US. In Turkey the military put him on trial in his absence.

The most damning piece of evidence produced by the security services was a clandestine video of Gülen telling his followers to capture state power by waiting and “moving within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centres”. The accusations against him did not prevent Gülen from being given a green card to reside in the US, in 2002.

At the end of that year, Turkey’s Islamists finally took power in Turkey and Erdoğan’s Justice and Development party (AKP) formed a strong government. Gülen stayed in the US, despite sharing much of the AKP’s religious-nationalist world view and repeated invitations to return to Turkey. He declined to do so even after the court charges against him collapsed.

Meanwhile the influence of his followers grew steadily. The Gülenists had very few ministers in AKP cabinets, but they increasingly dominated the police, the ministry of justice, parts of the foreign ministry, and many government agencies, as well as much of the press. Their main obstacle was the army, until then supremely powerful in Turkey.

In 2008 prosecutors from Gülen’s movement began a series of arrests against army officers, journalists and others, on what proved eventually to be completely bogus terrorism and conspiracy charges, relying on faked evidence. By 2011, the crackdown had forced into submission the old military elite, long dominant as the country’s self-appointed guardians of Atatürk’s secularist legacy.

In 2012 Gülenist prosecutors attempted to question the head of the security services over secret truce talks with Turkey’s Kurdish terrorists. The incident rang alarm bells in the government, and in 2013 relations between the ruling AKP and Gülen and his followers turned into undisguised conflict. In a bid to impede Erdoğan’s government in December that year, Gülenist prosecutors ordered two rounds of arrests of figures close to ministers on corruption charges.

Erdoğan and Gülen were locked in a power struggle, but by the end of 2014 the government had broken the power of the movement in the police and the judiciary. Many senior Gülenist officials began fleeing abroad and Gülen’s press and media empire came under pressure.

One institution where the Gülenists retained secret supporters was the armed forces. This is why Erdoğan’s government blamed Gülen’s movement for the bloody but curiously clumsy attempt at a military takeover on 15 July 2016. Gülen denied the accusations against him, claiming that Erdoğan set up the coup as a false flag event in order to seize sole control of the country.

Whatever the real cause, Erdoğan has ruled supreme since then. The Gülenist movement has never recovered. Gülenists were purged throughout the country. Even in villages, followers were detained, lost jobs, saw property confiscated, suffered discrimination from state institutions or were ostracised. Ankara moved sharply to seize control of or close down as many of the Gülenist schools as possible.

The Turkish government issued a “red” international arrest warrant for Gülen and made numerous attempts to have him extradited to Turkey, but all were rejected by the US authorities. Though stateless, he continued to live in Pennsylvania.

He is survived by some of his seven siblings, and many nephews and nieces.

🔔 Mohammed Fethullah Gülen, religious leader, born 27 April 1941; died 20 October 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[3rdeyeblaque]

On November 26th we venerate Elevated Ancestor & Hoodoo Saint Mama Sojourner Truth on the 140th anniversary of her passing 🕊

An abolitionist, Womens’ Rights activist, & itinerant evangelist, Mama Sojourner Truth truly lived up to her name as one of the fiercest, relentless, & unstoppable pro-abolitionist voices of the 19th Century.

Given the name, Isabella, at birth, Mama Truth was born around 1797 to Dutch-speaking enslaved parents on Colonel Ardinburgh Hurley's plantation in Ulster County, NY. The actual date of her birth remains unknown. At the age of 9 she was sold away from her parents. She was passed through the hands of several slavers across NY State before ending up with the Dumonts. As was the case for most enslaved folks in the rural North, Isabella was forcibly isolated from other slaves and suffered physical & sexual abuse at the hands of the Dumonts.

Alone in the nearby woods, she found peace. Here, she'd speak to Spirit/God. Inspired by her many conversations with Spirit, one day in 1826, she walked away from Dumont Farm to freedom. Although the journey tempted her to return to the Dumonts, she stayed the course after she was struck by a vision of a man she identified as Jesus, during which she felt "baptized in the Holy Spirit," and thus gained the strength & confidence to push on. Like countless Ancestors before her, Isabella called on Spirit & supernatural forces for the power to survive her conditions.

Eventually, she married & birthed 5 children. On July 4, 1827, the NY State Legislature emancipated the enslaved, including Isabella & her children. Yet the Dumont family who "owned" her, refused to comply. Before dawn the next morning, with her youngest baby cradled in her arms, she sought refuge 5 miles away with an abolitionist family. During her time there, she converted to Pentecostal and joined their local Methodist church.

She later then moved again, this time with one of her eldest sons, Peter, in NYC wherein by day she worked as a live-in domestic. Here she found & joined a religious cult called, The Kingdom. It's leader, Matthias, beat Isabella and forced her to take on the heaviest workload. Soon thereafter she became a Pentecostal preacher. Her faith and preaching along with her life story as an emancipated slave drew the attentions of abolitionists & women's rights crusaders. Her speeches were not political by nature. They were based on her unique interpretation - as a woman and a former slave -of the Christian Bible.

On June 1st 1863, Sojourner Truth was born. Isabella took on this new name for herself as she headed East to, “exhort the people to embrace Jesus, and refrain from sin". She lived in a utopian community called, The Northampton Association for Education & Industry, which was devoted to transcending class, race, & gender. She preached at camp meetings for a few years before the community was dissolved. Even though the community lasted less than five years, many highly influential & reform-minded individuals visited the Northampton community; including prolific abolitionist leaders such as Frederick Douglass & William Lloyd Garrison.

Through these connections, she began to speak at public events on behalf of slave abolition and women’s rights. Eventually, this compelled her infamous 1851,“Ar’nt I A Woman” speech at a Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, OH. This was a significant moment in the sociopolitical climate of the country at the time because, for the first time for most, "slave" became equated to women & "woman" became equated to Black. She became increasingly involved on the issue of Women's suffrage, but eventually separated her voice from leaders such as Susan B. Anthony & Elizabeth Cady Stanton one they asserted that they would not support the Black vote if Women were not also granted the same right.

In 1857, Mama Truth purchased a house with the help of friends in a small Spiritualist community called, Harmonia, near Battle Creek, MI. Here she lived thriving the years of supporting hwrself thrift paid speaking events, selling photographs of herself, publishing her book titled, "Narrative of Sojourner Truth" which was written by an amanuensis, as she was illiterate.

Once the Civil War began, Mama Truth pushed for the inclusion of Blacks in the Union Army, which was not intitially the case. She then poured her energy into gathering food & clothing supplies for the underserved volunteer regiments of Black Union soldiers. This is when the plight freed slaves captured her attention, as many of whom were living in refugee camps in Washington D.C.. Mama Truth embarked on a round-trip journey from her home near Battle Creek,MI to D.C. to meet with President Abraham Lincoln to discuss the conditions of the freedmen refugees in D.C. & across the North.

After the Civil War, she championed the idea of a colony for freed slaves out West where they could galvanize their desires to become self-reliant. Mama Truth garnered numerous signatures for her petition urging the U.S. Government to provide land for this endeavor. Although she presented this petition to then President Ulysses S. Grant, her mission never materialized. Nevertheless, in the Fall of 1879, a large migration of Southern freedmen ventured westward to start begin life anew. Mama Truth saw this as God's Divine Plan for our people. Despite her old age, Mama Truth traveled to Kansas to help them. Four years later, Mama Sojourner Truth passed away at her home near Battle Creek, MI. She was believed to be 86.

"How came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman who bore him. Man, where is your part? But the women are coming up blessed by God and few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between a hawk an' a buzzard." - Sojourner Truth @ the 1851 Ohio Women's Convention.

We pour libations & give 💐 today as we celebrate Mama Truth her selfless service and pioneering vision for the freedom & self-determination of our people. May her life be a reminder of: the power of stillness & deep meditation, to lead with Spirit, & the grit of perseverance that's alive in our blood.

Offering suggestions: woodland soil, water, Pentecostal prayers/ scripture, read/share her speeches & written words.

‼️Note: offering suggestions are just that & strictly for veneration purposes only. Never attempt to conjure up any spirit or entity without proper divination/Mediumship counsel.‼️

[dwellordream]

“Like the Christians’ Eve, the Iroquois Sky-Woman had an insatiable desire to satisfy her hunger. At first she sought her husband’s guidance, but in time she struck out on her own. Her curiosity brought her to the sacred tree at the center of the Sky-World--a place where, as she soon discovered, the floor of the sky was very thin. Losing her footing, she slipped through a hole at the tree’s base and fell headlong ‘toward the great ocean far below.’

…Like her Iroquois descendants in North America, this first fallen Sky-Woman farmed the rich earths she created, gathered its fruits, and built a hut upon it to live in. After a time, her pregnancy ran its course and, legend says, she ‘was delivered of a daughter.’ The girl and her mother continued to look after their lands till one day, ‘when the girl had grown to womanhood,’ a man appeared. He stayed only briefly--just long enough to impregnate Sky-Woman’s daughter. When her time to deliver arrived she, like many women during the premodern period, died while giving birth. Her offspring survived: two boys who would come to rule the earth their mother and grandmother had made.

…Every native group had its own account of the world’s beginnings. For the Pueblo of the Southwest, human life began underneath the earth when a woman named Tsichtinako (Thought Woman) nursed two sisters: Iatikyu, the Mother of the Corn clan, and Nautsiti, the Mother of the Sun clan. The Ottawa, an Algonquian-speaking people living in the northern Great Lakes region, traced their origins to a male figure called the Great Hare and his younger brother.

…To the Protestants of New England, the followers of the teachings of the Swiss theologian John Calvin, the devotional practices of the Catholics in New France and the Spanish colonies seemed as alien as those of the Narragansets and Wampanoags who lived among them in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In turn, the faithful in Virginia and Maryland, who followed the orthodox traditions of the Church of England, considered New England’s Puritans to be overzealous reformers.

…Even in the most physical, tangible sense religion was a constant presence. From the stark clapboard spires that capped New England’s Congregational meeting houses, to the sturdy brick of Virginia’s Anglican churches, to the poles marking the underground kivas in which the Pueblo held sacred rituals, places of worship dotted the landscape. Each and every day, the English villages lining the eastern seaboard would have been alive with the sound of church bells.

…Every part of colonial America had its own rhythms of religious devotion--rhythms that helped women and men make sense of their lives. But nowhere did religion play a greater role than it did in early New England. Almost without exception, the leaders of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, New Haven, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island were dissenters from the Church of England.

…No matter whether they enthusiastically supported or dared to question the Puritan mission, all law-abiding New Englanders gathered in their local meetinghouses every Sunday, and often once during the week as well, to hear their preacher expound upon scripture. One perennially popular sermon topic was the nature of women. Between 1668 and 1735, women’s lives were the subject of no fewer than 75 printed treatises. Some of these tracts were funeral sermons that eulogized an especially pious female parishioner; others were more general “how-to” homilies dealing with marriage or mothering.

…Pious women were praised by ministers and neighbors alike. If they resembled any Old Testament figure, it was the industrious Bathsheba (the ‘virtuous woman’ described in Proverbs 31:10-31) rather than the perfidious Eve. Where Eve tempted, persuaded, and seduced, Bathsheba planted, prayed, and spun. Her every word testified to a womanly brand of piety: faith tempered with respectful submission. More than one New England minister echoed these verses from Proverbs, exalting the woman who ‘openeth her mouth with wisdom…in her tongue is the law of kindness.’ As the biblical passage suggested, such well-spoken women were indeed more priceless than rubies.

…In fact, New England’s ‘virtuous women’ may have been even more devoted to religious practice than their husbands and fathers. At the very least they were more dedicated churchgoers. At first, men and women joined the churches in equal numbers. Within a generation, however, women outnumbered men in many if not most of the churches in Massachusetts and Connecticut. By the mid-1700s, women comprised nearly three-quarters of many congregations.

…One of the more radical groups in the entire spectrum of dissenting English Protestantism, the Quakers granted female believers an extraordinary degree of autonomy and equality. …Converts of both sexes were encouraged to preach about their religious experiences, and one of the movement’s early and most prominent leaders was an English wife and mother, Margaret Fell. …Where Quaker women were concerned, Massachusetts authorities made the links between female preaching, rejecting ministers’ teachings, and worshiping the devil even more explicit.

…Black women and men brought a very different set of religious beliefs to the southern colonies. Their traditions concerning the supernatural were as diverse as the many African peoples from which they came. There were, however, important common threads; most West Africans believed in more than one God and made the veneration of ancestors an important part of their worship ceremonies.

…Until the 1730s, southern whites made little effort to convert their slaves to Christianity. But in the late 18th century, evangelical sects such as the Methodists and the Baptists appealed to blacks and poor whites alike. …Call-and-response hymn singing and joyful shouting are examples of African forms that influenced the style of worship practiced by both whites and blacks in many southern denominations.”

Jane Kamensky, “Daughters of Eve, Daughters of Zion: Women and Religion” in The Colonial Mosaic: American Women, 1600-1760

[paperandsong]

Protestant Horror Aesthetic

Sleepy Hollow directed by Tim Burton, 1999

Villainy wears many masks, none so dangerous as the mask of virtue.

I’ve seen a few posts presenting the case that Catholicism is inherently more compatible with the Gothic than Protestantism. That the imagery found inside a Catholic church invokes feelings of Gothic horror in ways that Protestant places of worship do not. 

And I do not disagree. But there are horror stories that are predicated on a Protestant aesthetic. Stories in which the horror is specifically Calvinist in nature. Stories in which, rather than statues of Christ crying rubies and the stigmata and sexual repression, you have empty crosses in snow white sanctuaries and self abnegation and also sexual repression. So much sexual repression. 

The Witch directed by Robert Eggers, 2015

Wouldst thou like the taste of butter . . . wouldst thou like to live deliciously?

The horror of The Witch is the Puritanism itself. This most rigid version of Calvinism is presented as so bleak, so cruel, so hopeless that it becomes perfectly logical that a good girl would trade her soul for the mere offer of deliciousness. 

The Night of the Hunter directed by Charles Laughton, 1955

What religion do you profess, preacher? The religion the Almighty and me worked out betwixt us.

In The Night of the Hunter, a serial murderer and con man takes on the mantle of itinerant preacher to worm his way into the household of an unfortunate widow. In one of the most chilling scenes, the preacher scolds his new wife for expecting sex on their wedding night. The film subverts the threat of rape with chaste shame and humiliation. The preacher uses Biblical language to manipulate, scold, and confuse. The preacher’s own repressed sexuality is as frightening as if he were a rapist. 

Carrie directed by Brian de Palma, 1976

Carrie doesn’t make this list. While her mother’s rantings are perfect pitch Baptist preacher, there is also a lot of Catholic imagery happening. Margaret’s death is staged to recall the martrydom of St. Sebastian. I’m not sure what kind of Christian she’s supposed to be. The horror is definitely religious and fundamentalist, but it’s some kind of mix between Catholic and First Southern Hills Gothic Missionary Non-Denominational. Or something. 

Feel free to add to this list. I would especially like to see some non-U.S. films or novels that utilize a Protestant Horror Aesthetic. With all the wars and murder that happened during the Reformation, there must be some. 

[battleforgodstruth]

One Man vs Goliath: David's Faith in Battle - Pastor Patrick Hines Sermon

One Man, David, With God – Pastor Patrick Hines Sermon 1 Samuel 17:1-32New American Standard Bible17 Now the Philistines gathered their armies for battle; and they were gathered at Socoh which belongs to Judah, and they camped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim. 2 Saul and the men of Israel were assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah, and they drew up in battle formation to confront…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alice Herman at The Guardian:

By 9am on Monday, hundreds of worshipers who had gathered under a tent in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, were already on their feet. Praiseful music bumped from enormous speakers. The temperature was pushing 90F (32C). The congregants had gathered in north-western Wisconsin for the Courage Tour, a travelling tent revival featuring a lineup of charismatic preachers and self-styled prophets promising healing, and delivering a political message: register to vote. Watch, or work, the polls. And help deliver the 2024 election to Donald Trump. Serving as a voter registration drive and hub for recruiting poll workers, it was no mistake that the Courage Tour came to Wisconsin just three months ahead of the presidential election in November. The tour had already visited three other swing states: Georgia, Michigan and Arizona. Heavy-hitting Maga organizations – including America First Policy Institute, TPUSA Faith and America First Works – had a presence outside the tent. Inside, headlining the event was Lance Wallnau, a prominent figure in the New Apostolic Reformation – a movement on the right that embraces modern-day apostles, aims to establish Christian dominion over society and politics and has grown in influence since Trump was elected president in 2016.

“‘Pray for your rulers,’ that’s about as far as we got in the Bible,” said Wallnau, setting the tone for the day, which would feature a series of sermons focused on the ideal role of Christians in government and society. “I think what’s happened is over time, we began to realize you cannot trust that government like you thought you could trust, and you can’t trust the media to tell you what’s really happening,” he exclaimed. What followed in Wallnau’s morning sermon were a series of greatest hits of the Maga right: January 6 (not an insurrection), the 2020 election (marred by fraud) and Covid-19 (a Chinese bioweapon). Many of the attendees had learned of the event from Eau Claire’s Oasis church – a Pentecostal church whose congregants were already familiar with the movement’s goal to turn believers into activists with a religious mission. “This is wonderful,” said Cyndi Lund, an Oasis churchgoer who attended the four-day event. “I teach a class on biblical citizenship – the Lord put in my heart that we have to be voting biblically, and if nothing else, we have a duty in America to vote.”

According to the preachers who sermonized on Monday, the correct biblical worldview is a deeply conservative one. The speakers repeatedly stated their opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights and inclusion, ideas that were elaborated on in pamphlets passed around the crowd and on three large screens facing the audience. (“Tolerance IS NOT A commandment,” read one poster, propped up in front of the pro-Trump Turning Point USA stall outside the tent.) After Wallnau spoke, Bill Federer, an evangelist who has written more than thirty books weighing in on US history from an anti-communist and rightwing perspective, offered a brief and often intensely inaccurate, intellectual history of the US and Europe. During his talk, Federer dropped references to the villains of his historiography – among them Karl Marx, Fidel Castro, the German philosopher Hegel and, “a little closer to home”, the political theorist of the New Left, Saul Alinsky. The crowd, apparently already versed in Federer’s intellectual universe, groaned and booed when Federer mentioned Alinsky.

The Courage Tour led by Christian Nationalists and 7MD advocates Lance Wallnau and Mario Murillo serve one purpose: to elect Donald Trump and other Republicans into office.

[whencyclopedia]

Christian Anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages & during the Reformation

Anti-Semitism is a modern term that describes prejudice and hostility to Jews and Judaism. The origins of Christian anti-Semitism in the gospels are based on the story of a 1st-century itinerant Jewish preacher, Jesus of Nazareth, in the Roman province of Judea.

Continue reading...

[catholic-character-tournament]

I hope it's alright to ask you this but,, what's the difference between being christian and being catholic? (If there is a difference ofc) I hope I'm not being rude or anything, but I know nothing about what qualifies as what since I'm not religious myself, and I don't want to accidentally submit someone who doesn't fit the qualifications

hi friend. I got this ask and posted this on my discord and instantly it was "several people typing..."

via @vislorrturlough

All Catholics are Christian but not all Christians are Catholics (just like all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares). Super dupe quick history less from a non-historian, there was one church, then there was drama between the East and West resulting in the East–West Schism, break of communion between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in 1054. Then, Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation in 1517. And then the King of England left the Catholic Church and started his own thing because he wanted a divorce.

For this tournament, I'm allowing Orthodox Christians in because it can be hard to tell if blorbo is Catholic or Orthodox. Aesthetically and culturally, we're very similar. Churches look very similar, the priest all wear fancy dresses, and both have saints and revere The Virgin Mary. I also didn't want to exclude Arab/Middle Eastern and Eastern European Christians.

If you don't know what denomination your blorbos is and if they count:

do they pray to Virgin Mary or saints?

have rosaries? (not just the cross pendant. Needs to have beads)

Are they from a predominantly Catholic country/or have ancestors from a Catholic country(Ireland, Italy, Spain, France, Latin America, Philippines, etc.) or is Catholicism the most common denomination of Christianity? (Thailand, Vietnam. etc)

Do they go to church? Does their church look like a cathedral? Stained glass, candles, incense? Does their priest wear a fancy-looking robe?

if you don't know any of the above, does the character's arc deal with themes about guilt, forgiveness, dignity, and redemptions. Would other people agree with your headcanon?

are they working class?

(Generally, it's they're of English/Northern European ancestry/origin, they're probably not Catholic. And if their preacher has a guitar, they're definitely not catholic XD)

If your blorbo is from a fictional fantasy world:

does the religion pray to a God/Goddess and saints?

does it looks like a catholic church? (Fire Emblem and Legend of Zelda are good examples)

is the church tied with the monarchy/government?

Priest, monk, friars, or nuns?

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (July 5)

On July 5, the Catholic Church remembers Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria.

A renowned preacher and promoter of Eucharistic adoration, he founded the order of priests now known as the Barnabites.

In 2001, the future Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, wrote the preface for a book on St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria, praising the saint as “one of the great figures of Catholic reform in the 1500s who was involved in the renewal of Christian life in an era of profound crisis.”

"The Italian saint deserves to be rediscovered as an authentic man of God and of the Church, a man burning with zeal, a demanding forger of consciences, a true leader able to convert and lead others to good.”

Anthony Mary Zaccaria was born into an Italian family of nobility in Cremona during 1502.

His father Lazzaro died shortly after Anthony's birth, and his mother Antonietta – though only 18 years old – chose not to marry again, preferring to devote herself to charitable works and her son's education.

Antonietta's son took after her in devotion to God and generosity toward the poor.

He studied Latin and Greek with tutors in his youth. He was afterward sent to Pavia to study philosophy.

He went on to study medicine at the University of Padua, earning his degree at age 22 and returning to Cremona.

Despite his noble background and secular profession, the young doctor had no intention of either marrying or accumulating wealth.

While caring for the physical conditions of his patients, he also encouraged them to find spiritual healing through repentance and the sacraments.

Anthony also taught catechism to children and went on to participate in the religious formation of young adults.

He eventually decided to withdraw from the practice of medicine, and with the encouragement of his spiritual director, he began to study for the priesthood.

Ordained a priest at age 26, Anthony is said to have experienced a miraculous occurrence during his first Mass, being surrounded by a supernatural light and a multitude of angels during the consecration of the Eucharist.

Contemporary witnesses marveled at the event and testified to it after his death.

Church life in Cremona had suffered decline in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

The new priest encountered widespread ignorance and religious indifference among laypersons, while many of the clergy were either weak or corrupt.

In these dire circumstances, Anthony Mary Zaccaria devoted his life to proclaiming the truths of the Gospel both clearly and charitably.

Within two years, his eloquent preaching and tireless pastoral care is said to have changed the moral character of the city dramatically.

In 1530, Anthony moved to Milan, where a similar spirit of corruption and religious neglect prevailed.

There, he decided to form a priestly society, the Clerics Regular of St. Paul.

Inspired by the apostle's life and writings, the order was founded on a vision of humility, asceticism, poverty, and preaching.

After the founder's death, they were entrusted with a prominent church named for St. Barnabas and became commonly known as the “Barnabites.”

The priest also founded a women's religious order, the Angelic Sisters of St. Paul, and an organization, the Laity of St. Paul, geared toward the sanctification of those outside the priesthood and religious life.

He pioneered the “40 Hours” devotion, involving continuous prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.

In 1539, Anthony became seriously ill and returned to his mother's house in Cremona.

The founder of the Clerics Regular of St. Paul died on 5 July 1539, during the liturgical octave of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, at the age of only 36.

Nearly three decades after his death, St. Anthony Mary Zaccaria's body was found to be incorrupt.

Pope Leo XIII beatified him on 3 January 1890 and canonized on 27 May 1897.