One reason why we keep losing people that are suffering financially.

[coloradodem2005]

There are a lot of people going to church. These evangelical churches talk a lot about conservative values, and while many people are seeking answers to things and looking beyond this world. The problem is that these churches want to co-opt as many people, making them believe that they have the answers that people seek. And people, who generally don't want to think. SO they go along with it. What do evangelical preachers tell people. To support conservative values and in a roundabout way, to support conservative politicians. So, support them they do. And when things start to get painful for the regular people, the pastors start to emphasize that pain is part of life. While it is true that pain is part of life, the pastors use it as a way to make sure that things continue down that path. By telling people that they MUST be in pain, all the time, the more the better. Never fight back and always forgive those who hurt you as they continue to do so. That is how I feel about it.

I guess as someone who is seeking answers, I feel that they hoodwinked me and I don't take kindly to it. That may be part of my beef.

[Wright Patman]

1. The First Baptist Church

of my small town, as is true all over Texas, is by far the largest one in the area.

And, of course, being an SBC church, the pastor all but believes * is the new Son of God.

However, on average in recent months, the collections each Sunday are falling about $5,000 below what was projected each week. They had counted on $19K+ per week to make the budget. I forgot to mention the church owes over $1 million on a new family life center. Pledges to pay that off are stuck at $2 million, but the problem is the building cost closer to $3 million.

In secular terms, property taxes are unbelievably high around here. My combined city, school and county tax rate comes to around $3 per $100 valuation, although the effective rate is not quite that high because of homestead and ag exemptions for some of it.

The double whammy with which * has hit the poor churchgoers of rural Texas are threats to cut back Social Security and high gas prices. I don't know why the pastor does not sermonize that the folks should be willing to walk to church and give the money saved "to God" (i.e., him and the staff) rather than continue to drive to church. Maybe he has. I don't go there anymore.

There is no reasoning with these kind of people such as this pastor and his remaining flock. They will never admit they could be in error. I sort of had a premonition that *'s would be a nightmare presidency just based on observing both his old man in office and him as governor and failed baseball team part-owner. But I was prepared to change my mind if he performed well as president. Unfortunately, his presidency has unfolded in all-too-predictable a manner, with one calamity after another visited upon the middle class of America.

[kineneb]

2. My grandparents raised me, so I learned this lesson early

There are no easy answers, and no religion can solve your problems. Grandma's answer to questions of religion was very Zen-like: "God helps them that helps them selves." (Rather like the aging master who said, "If I do not work, then I do not eat.")

My grandparents had lived through the two World Wars and the Depression. They had to live in a tent house for a while because they had no money. Religion had no answers for that kind of poverty.

This is why I never really took to Christianity; I like the music and Jesus's philosophy, but the formal churches required the suspension of logic. So I call myself a Buddhist, and follow my own path within the general philosophy.

[heidler1]

3. In my opinion the whole Republican Church thing has shot it's self

in the foot by coming down on the side of the rich and powerful. The base of the Christian faith was always the down trodden. The royalty of Europe milked this by building huge cathedrals with their own likenesses in stone within these cathedrals and this faith based slavery is so obvious that the Catholics have kept losing followers, but the other churches are very little different. The rich everywhere out of fear and love of power promote the Christian faith because it makes them feel safer with thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet and your reward will be in the here after, but sharing the nations wealth now is a stronger more rational drive and it will over come.

IMO One of the things that the more innocent Christian followers are unwittingly contributing to is adding their numerical strength to those who have and are using religion to control the masses and prolong the RW power all over the world.

[OneBlueSky]

4. one of the most hideous perversions of the Christian message . . .

practiced by these reactionary pseudo-Christians is the notion that wealth is a reward from God for really good Christians . . . and to become a really good Christian, you have to believe as they say, i.e. oppose abortion, hate homosexuality, take judges to task, etc . . .

[Lexingtonian]

5. yeah, it's an escapism

These churches take advantage of people whose attitude about their lives is immature, who want/need to go back to Big Daddy to tell them what to do and console them.

There isn't much that can be done. These people do learn, after a while, that these churches are not really very charitable and not interested in improving their lives. It takes them quite a while to get over that loss of childhood trust and dependence, to mourn it, and to choose to live their own lives. The various kinds of parasitism involved complicate and confuse the stories, but at some point all the Kubler-Ross stages are overcome (well, for some substantial chunk of people) and they realize their church-dependence is an immaturity, something they have to succumb to or leave behind in the name of dignity.

But many don't have what it takes to make it through, were never taught how to overcome psychological (and in some cases, material/physical) dependence of the kind, and it takes them a long time to if ever. In the end maturity involves each person having to choose his/her own life and living it.