{"id":21241,"date":"2014-02-28T15:34:19","date_gmt":"2014-02-28T20:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=21241"},"modified":"2014-02-28T15:34:19","modified_gmt":"2014-02-28T20:34:19","slug":"an-excellent-job-at-de-evangelization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/02\/28\/an-excellent-job-at-de-evangelization\/","title":{"rendered":"‘An excellent job at de-evangelization’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

If you set out deliberately to destroy the church and pervert the gospel, you probably still couldn\u2019t come up with anything as diabolically effective as the teavangelical nonsense of the angry white religious right.<\/p>\n

William Lindsey<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not quite accurate to say that the top pastoral leaders of the Catholic church in the U.S. are doing nothing to address the exodus of younger Catholics from the church due to the church\u2019s homophobia. As a collective body, the\u00a0bishops of the Catholic church in the U.S.\u00a0are, in fact,actively contributing\u00a0to this exodus by throwing the institutional weight of the Catholic church behind homophobia.<\/p>\n

Instead of addressing the departure of younger Catholics from the church because they can no longer stomach the defense of indefensible discrimination, the church\u2019s top pastoral leaders are \u00a0placing the Catholic church in the U.S. squarely on the side of such indefensible discrimination.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

E.J. Dionne<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

To young adults, Campbell and Putnam wrote in\u00a0a 2012 article in Foreign Affairs<\/a>, \u201c\u2009\u2018religion\u2019 means \u2018Republican,\u2019 \u2018intolerant,\u2019 and \u2018homophobic.\u2019 Since those traits do not represent their views, they do not see themselves \u2014 or wish to be seen by their peers \u2014 as religious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congratulations to the Arizona Legislature for doing such an excellent job at de-evangelization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rachel Held Evans<\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite enjoying majority status, significant privilege, and unchallenged religious freedom in this country, we evangelical Christians have become known as a group of people who cry \u201cpersecution!\u201d upon being wished \u201cHappy Holidays\u201d by a store clerk.<\/p>\n

We have become known as a group of people who sees themselves perpetually under attack, perpetually victimized, and perpetually entitled, a group who, ironically, often responds to these imagined disadvantages by advancing legislation that restricts the civil liberties of other people.<\/p>\n

But living in a pluralistic society that also grants freedom and civil rights protection to those with whom one disagrees is not the same as religious persecution. \u00a0And crying persecution every time one doesn\u2019t get one\u2019s way is an insult to the very real religious persecution happening in the world today. It\u2019s no way to be a good citizen and certainly no way to advance the gospel in the world.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u00a0I fear that we\u2019ve lost not only the culture wars, but also our Christian identity, when the \u00a0\u201cright to refuse\u201d service has become a more sincerely-held and widely-known Christian belief than the impulse to give it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you set out deliberately to destroy the church and pervert the gospel, you probably still couldn’t come up with anything as diabolically effective as the teavangelical nonsense of the angry white religious right. Here is some good commentary on Arizona from William Lindsey, E.J. Dionne and Rachel Held Evans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[92,13,17,53,52,65],"class_list":["post-21241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicals","tag-church","tag-church-state","tag-equality","tag-gay-rights","tag-homosexuality","tag-tribalism"],"yoast_head":"\n'An excellent job at de-evangelization'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you set out deliberately to destroy the church and pervert the gospel, you probably still couldn't come up with anything as diabolically effective as the teavangelical nonsense of the angry white religious right. Here is some good commentary on Arizona from William Lindsey, E.J. Dionne and Rachel Held Evans.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/02\/28\/an-excellent-job-at-de-evangelization\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'An excellent job at de-evangelization'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you set out deliberately to destroy the church and pervert the gospel, you probably still couldn't come up with anything as diabolically effective as the teavangelical nonsense of the angry white religious right. Here is some good commentary on Arizona from William Lindsey, E.J. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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