The Nightmare of Christianity: How Religious Indoctrination Led to Murder

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



The Nightmare of Christianity: How Religious Indoctrination Led to Murder

By Max Blumenthal, The Nation. Posted September 14, 2009.

The authoritarian culture of the Christian right pushed a deeply disturbed young man named Matthew Murray over the edge.




Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Max Blumenthal's new book Republican Gommorah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party published by Nation Books.


A few miles down the road from Colorado Springs , in the quiet bedroom community of Eldredge, a deeply disturbed young man named Matthew Murray followed the unfolding debacle at New Life Church with an interest that bordered on obsession. Murray, a sallow-faced, bespectacled 24-year-old, had been indelibly scarred by a lifetime of psychological abuse at the hands of his charismatic Pentecostal parents. Murray's mind became crowded with thoughts of death, destruction, and the killings he would soon carry out in the name of avenging what he called his "nightmare of Christianity."

On an online chat room for former Pentecostals, Murray heaped contempt on his mother, Loretta, a physical therapist who homeschooled him to ensure that his contact with the outside world was severely limited. "My 'mother,'" Murray wrote, "is just a brainswashed (sic) church agent cun,t (sic). The only reason she had me was because she wanted a body/soul she could train into being the next Billy Graham..."

He went on:

...my mother was into all the charismatic "fanatical evangelical" insanity. Her and her church believed that Satan and demons were everywhere in everything. The rules were VERY strict all the time. We couldn't have ANY christian or non-christian music at all except for a few charismatic worship CDs. There was physical abuse in my home. My mother although used psychotropic drugs because she somehow thought it would make it easier to control me (I've never been diagnosed with any mental illness either). Pastors would always come and interrogate me over video games or TV watching or other things. There were NO FRIENDS outside the church and family and even then only family members who were in the church. You could not trust anyone at all because anyone might be a spy.

An authoritarian Christian-right self-help guru named Bill Gothard created the home-schooling regimen implemented by Murray's parents. Like his ally James Dobson, Gothard first grew popular during the 1960s by marketing his program to worried evangelical parents as anti-hippie insurance for adolescent children. Based on the theocratic teachings of R. J. Rushdoony, who devised Christian schools and home-schooling as the foundation of his Dominionist empire, Gothard's Basic Life Principles outlined an all-consuming environment that followers could embrace for the whole of their lives. According to Ron Henzel, a one-time Gothard follower who co-authored a devastating exposé about his former guru called A Matter of Basic Principles, under the rules, "large homeschooling families abstain from television, midwives are more important than doctors, traditional dating is forbidden, unmarried adults are 'under the authority of their parents' and live with them, divorced people can't remarry under any circumstance, and music has hardly changed at all since the late nineteenth century." ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/story/142605/the_nightmare_of_christianity%3A_how_religious_indoctrination_led_to_murder

[secondwind]

1. read the entire article......this is fascinating and scary to know there are more kids like Murray

out there


SEETHING.......

[Syntheto]

3. Damn straight....

...it's as bad as the imans and other fanatical Muslim religious leaders convincing kids to blow themselves up... Hey, it's the 21st Century, okay, and surely our species has evolved enough to know that there is no 'god', 'goddesses', 'prophets', 'spirits', 'magick' (oops, the spell check went off, so that means it's actually 'magic' kids, so put your Ouija boards up), or any other such supernatural bullshit... ANYONE who believes in a god who somehow influences our lives and our financial situation, while punishing our enemies is, well, for lack of a better phrase, a GODDAMNED FOOL. That means the religious Christians, as well as the Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists (yes, I know, he was the prototypical psychoanalyst, so spare me, it's still used as a fallacious appeal to authority - do you think that fucker would've gotten as far as he did if he hadn't started out as a filthy rich prince?) Let's not forget his 'holiness' the Dali Lama. What a crock of shit - a pattern of moles on his body determined his status. Well, I've got a wart on my pecker, so I guess I get to be worshiped somewhere on this rock (yes, rock, there is no 'Gaia', you fucking idiots who subscribe to that particular line of new age bullshit)as the fifteenth incarnation of some grand poobah, right?

I dare all the combined gods, goddesses, spirits, saints, prophets, Easter Bunnies whatever that foolish people use to justify themselves to strike me dead right now on their own, by their own lighting bolt, or plague of locusts as I write this, without any help from some idiotic nutjob who thinks they've been chosen as their particular deity's instrument, like the fuckhead who slashed Theo Van Gough to death, for insulting the so-called prophet.

What? Wait a minute, oh, I'm feeling something... it's, it's, it's... naw, it was just a fart, sorry;

[dgibby]

2. Chilling! Religious Derrangment Syndrome!

An excellent example of what's wrong with the Right. Certainly explains their visceral hatred of all people not like them.

[Joe Bacon]

4. My own family is infected with this garbage.

I've seen the damage that Christianity does first hand. Turned my whole family into idiots who slobber over every word that comes out of the mouth of Pat Robertson and his Republican pals. Don't even bring up the President with them, they believe he is the Antichrist.

[stray cat]

5. No one is responsible for their own actions - is that really a key progressive value?

[jfkraus]

6. Gods don't kill people...

People with gods kill people.

[formercia]

7. Rev. R. J. Rushdoony

http://www.seekgod.ca/cnp.r.htm#rushdoony

Rev. R. J. Rushdoony- (d. Feb. 2001) CNP Board of Governors 1982, member 1984, 1988, 1996, 1998; Author; founder and former President of Chalcedon Foundation 82, a Reconstructionist think tank that is funded by millionaire California banker, CNP's Howard Ahmanson; known as "the father of Christian Reconstruction; helped found John Whitehead's Rutherford Institute, served as a board member and is listed as a speaker at Rutherford conferences'; Howard Phillips gave the tribute at the 80th birthday of Rousas John Rushdoony, an event titled "The San Jose Conference of Christian Reconstruction.".

--snip--

"As the center of the re-Christianization of all society, what is Chalcedon's agenda for godly transformation? First, Chalcedon lays the theological groundwork for world transformation...Second, Chalcedon identifies and instructs key "influence agents." The Chalcedon Report, for example, is targeted for the very people positioned to reshape this and the next generation-pastors and other church leaders; businessmen; home school mothers and students; college and seminary professors and students; artists; mothers; media agents; doctors; politicians; economists; salesmen; Christian day school administrators, teachers, and students; lawyers; theologians; and many, many more. We intend soon to host regional conferences inviting many of these "influence agents," inculcating the Christian reconstructionist Weltanschauung...Chalcedon supports specific, leading world-transforming agents. For instance, Samuel Blumenfeld, identified as "Public Enemy #1" by the NEA, is a Chalcedon extension staff member. His Educational Letter, eye-opening books, and numerous lectures are generating an explosive reaction against the modern statist educational system and a re-installation of the Christian family as the prime agent of education. Peter Hammond and Frontline Fellowship traverse the war-torn African continent with the message of salvation in Jesus Christ-individual and social. They are the main Christian obstacle to Marxist and Islamic faiths in what may be the pivotal continent for the next century. John Lofton, editor of the Lofton Letter, and one of the leading Christian social commentators of our era, regularly articulates and defends the Christian reconstructionist message on TV, radio, and in news magazines. There are many others Chalcedon assists and will begin to assist (like some featured in this issue), and we intend to highlight their world-transforming work in due time." 89

Members and contributors to Chalcedon include Colonel Doner, who, in 1978, co-founded Christian Voice. He established the International Church Relief Fund (ICRF) and developed criteria for discipling the nations, which caused him to form The Samaritan Group--twelve international relief and ministry organizations that share ICRF's view of the Kingdom... 90 Colonel Doner spent three decades in Republican and Christian politics as a professional fund-raiser, media strategist, organizational consultant, and architect of the Christian Right. In the 70s his clients spanned the range from The American Conservative Union to Ronald Reagan. In the late 70s he co-founded the first wave of Christian Right organizations: The Christian Voice Lobby, which pioneered issuing "Report Cards" on how members of Congress voted on "values" issues; the American Christian Voice Foundation, publisher of the renowned Presidential Biblical Scoreboard magazine; and American Christian Cause. In 1984, he served as chairman of the national Reagan/Bush Christian voter registration campaign, and co-founded The American Coalition for Traditional Values, the broadest based coalition of major evangelical leaders ever to unite behind a political objective since prohibition.

--snip--

There's lots more to read at the link...

[rbixby]

8. Wow, how disturbing and sad

This fundamentalist christian stuff does so much damage to so many people, and many of them don't even know it.