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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Women Assault Men When They Dress “Provocatively” says Mike Shoesmith

Bruce Gerencser 5 Comments
jennifer aniston
Shoesmith uses this photograph — calling it soft porn — as an example of a woman sexually assaulting men

Earlier today I posted the following observation to Facebook:

“If a woman wears sexually suggestive clothing around a man is that not also sexual assault? Men are visually stimulated and unwanted stimulation should meet the basic definition of assault. I am not condoning bad behavior by men but women need to understand that by walking around in their little sister’s skirt they are guilty of indecent visual assault on a man’s imagination which does cause mental anguish and torment especially on men who really are trying to live in harmony and respect toward women; something made more difficult when every ripple and curve are exposed to the men around you. Something to think about.”

Needless to say this caused a flurry of comments both in agreement and disdain. Many – too many – concluded I was fabricating an excuse for sexual assault against women by men. But those people, men and women, willing to wade into the deep end of the pool got it, thankfully

Many married women also feel assaulted and infuriated by the provocative dress of other women in part because they know what it’s doing to their husbands. And what, exactly, does it “do” to their husbands?

When a man sees a naked or partially dressed woman a chemical reaction happens in his brain. Neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin are released, giving him an involuntary surge of pleasure… involuntary!

It does also appear that women know this affect they have on men. This is likely due to cultural conditioning over several decades. From the sexual revolution of the sixties to Hollywood’s push for more and more sexual imagery in movies girls have been conditioned to accept the normalization of using their bodies as tools to gain acceptance in society. The “look at me” addiction has led to smaller and smaller bathing suits on beaches with modesty having all but disappeared. The porn scenes made in private studios have gone public. Men are in a state of constant sexual assault by women who either don’t understand the severity of what they are doing because it’s cute and they like the attention, or worse – they do know the feelings it stirs and like the control they have over men.

There are literally millions – nay – billions of pictures we could post here but again, soft porn. Do the women know what they are doing? Yes, of course. But are they aware that it fits the definition of “sexual assault?”

….

Finally let me say, for your own sake and ours, please put some clothes on. Stop the sexual assault against men. Yes, you have the power. Yes, you are pretty. But also yes, you are assaulting us.

— Michael Shoesmith, PNN News and Media Network, The Woman-on-Man Sexual Assault Epidemic! More Serious Than You Might Think! October 19, 2017

Black Collar Crime: The Sordid Story of Catholic Priest and Sexual Predator Arthur Perrault

Bruce Gerencser 3 Comments
ken wolter arthur perrault
Arthur Perrault with one of his victims, eleven-year-old Ken Wolter

Olivier Uyttebrouck, a writer for the Albuquerque Journals details in the following excerpt the sordid thirty year story of Catholic priest and sexual predator Arthur Perrault:

St. Pius X High School leaders were hit with a “bombshell” in 1970 when they were told of allegations of sexual abuse against the Rev. Arthur Perrault, a teacher at the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s flagship high school.

Those allegations remained secret for decades, but documents released this week pull back the curtain on how those school leaders and the archbishop responded.

And the documents show that, once again, a priest was simply moved to another post where he had access to new victims. They also show that Perrault was sent to St. Pius in the first place as a “good test period” to allow the archbishop to observe the 20-something priest after he was released from a Jemez Springs center that treated pedophile priests.

He was at the school four years and was later accused of molesting 11 victims during that period, from 1966-1970.

In 1970, St. Pius board members were approached by the father of a student, who asked to meet with them because “one of his sons that was at Pius had been involved with Father Perrault,” a board member recalled in a 1992 deposition. The father said that as a result of the abuse, his son “was so messed up that he had been thinking about suicide.”

The father, who is not identified in the deposition, said he discussed the abuse with then-Archbishop of Santa Fe James Davis. The allegations were electrifying, the board member said, because Perrault was chairman of the theology department at the archdiocese’s flagship high school.

“Look, we’ll take care of this but we can’t have any publicity,” Davis reportedly told the boy’s father. “We must be Christian about this.”

New details about the careers of Perrault and two other former New Mexico priests became public this week after a judge ordered the disclosure of nearly 1,000 pages of church records that had been sealed under a previous court order.

The records contain letters written by three archbishops of Santa Fe and other church officials, legal settlements, deposition transcripts, psychological reports and other records provided by the archdiocese to Albuquerque attorney Brad Hall, who has filed more than 70 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of children by priests.

Among them is the deposition of a former St. Pius board member whose name was redacted from the transcript.

The board member said that Archbishop Davis wavered about how to respond. He at first agreed to remove Perrault, but later changed his mind. “It’s under our control and it’s our problem. Not yours,” Davis told four board members.

The father who made the allegation warned the board member that if Davis took no action, he would file a “sodomy suit” against the archdiocese, according to the deposition.

 

The threat prompted the board member to seek a private meeting with the archbishop, where he told Davis that the archdiocese faced a lawsuit if Perrault remained at St. Pius.

“I remember to this day what Archbishop Davis did,” the board member recalled. “He put his right arm on my shoulder and said, `We can’t have that. I’ll honor my commitment.’” Three days later, Perrault was dismissed from St. Pius.

Davis then authorized Perrault to work as chaplain to the student community the University of Albuquerque, a now-defunct Catholic college operated by the archdiocese.

The incident at St. Pius was not the first time, nor the last, that allegations of Perrault’s sexual attacks on boys would reach the ears of an archbishop of Santa Fe.

Perrault had been accused of sexual attacks before he arrived in New Mexico in January 1966.

The Archdiocese of Hartford, Conn., where Perrault was ordained in 1964, ordered him to undergo treatment at a facility in Jemez Springs operated by the Servants of Paraclete. The now-closed Via Coeli facility received priests from across the U.S. accused of sexually molesting children.

Perrault, then 28, was sent to Jemez Springs after “two alleged incidents of homosexual approaches to some of the young men with whom he was working,” in Connecticut, Via Coeli psychologist John Sanchez told Archbishop Davis in a 1966 letter.

….

Court records show that Perrault is accused of sexually abusing 38 children during his years in New Mexico.

Of those, 11 alleged attacks occurred during Perrault’s tenure at St. Pius High School from 1966 to 1970. The alleged attacks occurred at St. Pius, in Perrault’s home, or at two churches where he worked on weekends.

He has never been charged with a crime.

Letters written in the early 1980s show that later allegations against Perrault prompted then-Archbishop Robert Fortune Sanchez to order that he undergo a psychological evaluation.

That evaluation found that Perrault “acted out his homosexual orientation only with youngsters and has never had an ongoing, adult homosexual relationship,” psychologist Joseph VanDenHeuvel told Sanchez in a June 1981 report.

The psychologist said Perrault “made mention of the fact that he had `been in trouble’ because of illicit sexual activities with students,” VanDenHeuvel told the archbishop.

….

Just seven months after receiving the report, Sanchez assigned Perrault to a pastoral post at an Albuquerque parish.

“I am pleased herein to assign you to St. Bernadette Parish for weekend assignment to assist the pastor,” Sanchez told Perrault in a Jan. 6, 1982, letter.

“Thanking you, Father Arthur, for your service to the good people of St. Bernadette Parish, and to the Pastoral Center, while wishing you all the Lord’s Blessing throughout this New Year,” Sanchez wrote.

Perrault became the pastor at St. Bernadette in 1985 and remained there until he fled New Mexico in 1992, just days before an Albuquerque attorney filed a lawsuit alleging that he sexually assaulted seven children.

Perrault turned up last year in Morocco working at an English-language school for children, from which he was subsequently fired. It is not clear where he is now.

….

In early 2017, a judge handed down a $16 million judgment to one of Perrault’s victims. Olivier Uyttebrouck reports:

A judge handed down a $16 million judgment this week against a former New Mexico priest for failure to respond to a lawsuit filed by a man who alleges he was sexually abused by Arthur Perrault in the early 1990s.

Second Judicial District Judge Denise Barela-Shepherd handed down the default judgment Thursday after she found that Perrault had been properly served with the civil lawsuit, but failed to defend himself against the allegations.

She ordered Perrault to pay $1 million in damages and an additional $15 million in punitive damages. The Archdiocese of Santa Fe was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Perrault, who vanished from his Albuquerque parish in 1992, was tracked last year to Tangiers, Morocco, where he was teaching at an English language school for children.

Perrault was fired in May when school officials learned of the allegations, the director of the American Language Center in Tangiers told the Journal .

Kenneth Wolter, 35, filed the civil lawsuit last year alleging he had been sexually abused by Perrault at least 40 times in the early 1990s. Wolter was 10 or 11 at the time, and serving as an altar boy at St. Bernadette Parish, where Perrault was the pastor.

Unknown is whether Wolter will be able to collect any portion of the $16 million judgment from Perrault, said Levi Monagle, one of three Albuquerque attorneys who represent Wolter.

“Money wasn’t the point of this for us,” Monagle said Friday. “Ken (Wolter) didn’t do this for the money. The message made on behalf of the victims was Ken’s main priority.”

Wolter testified at a hearing in January that he wanted to send Perrault a message on behalf of his 38 known victims “and the silent people who haven’t come forward.”

He asked Barela-Shepherd to award a total of $38 million in damages, or $1 million for each alleged victim. Barela-Shepherd did not explain in her order why she handed down a $16 million judgment.

Perrault, 79, sent Barela-Shepherd a letter in November denying that he had abused Wolter, court records show. He also said that he had no assets and could not afford to hire an attorney, or to return to Albuquerque to attend the January hearing.

….

 

Black Collar Crime: Baptist Pastor George Waddles Sr. Pleads Guilty to Sexually Abusing Teenager

Bruce Gerencser 0 Comments

george waddles sr

George Waddles Sr., a former president of the National Baptist Congress and pastor of Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago,Illinois, pleaded guilty today to sexually abusing a fifteen-year-old church girl. Astoundingly, Waddles Sr. will serve NO jail time for his crimes. Waddles was investigated in the 1990s over similar allegations. No charges were filed.

ABC-7 reports:

With little of the fanfare that surrounded his charismatic preaching career, one of Chicago’s most prominent churchmen pleaded guilty on Friday to sexually abusing a 15 year-old-girl, the I-Team has learned.

The Rev. George Waddles Sr., a former president of the National Baptist Congress and ex-pastor of Zion Hill Missionary Church on W. 78th St, appeared in Cook County criminal court. Since being charged two years ago Waddles has been fighting the allegation. On Friday he pleaded guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

However, despite having abused a minor girl, he will not go to jail.

Cook County Judge James Obbish sentenced Waddles to 30 months’ probation and the 69 year old minister must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Prosecutors had asked for jail time, especially considering Waddles sexually assaulted the teenager during a counseling session at the church.

In court on Friday the young woman who was sexually abused presented an emotional victim impact statement, saying that the Rev. Waddles had tried to manipulate her family-who were longtime parishioners.

“You called my mom every Sunday to see if you could meet with me again, see if I forgave you, and not press charges” she said.

Although Waddles was charged with molesting only her, the victim told Judge Obbish that there were other girls abused by Waddles.

“I’m the only victim who has come forward since he’s been raping, molesting and assaulting minors. George thought I would give up by now, but little did he know, I can’t be suppressed” she said. “Even through my suicidal thoughts, self-loathing, dwelling, disappointments, anger, weakness, doubt and confusion, God is still so good.”

….

In September of 2015, Chicago Tribune writer Steve Schmadeke reported:

A longtime South Side pastor was charged with sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl in his office during a counseling session in 2014.

Prosecutors said the alleged victim and her mother confronted George Waddles, 67, who heads Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church, and secretly recorded his admissions to inappropriately touching the teen.

Waddles turned himself in to Chicago police Tuesday and made “a positive disclosure” to a detective that was consistent with the girl’s story, said Assistant State’s Attorney Tara Pease-Harkin. He was charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse, a Class 2 felony that carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison or probation on conviction.

Judge Donald Panarese Jr. ordered Waddles released on his own recognizance but barred him from any contact with minors.

Waddles’ wife, daughter and son attended the bond hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building along with other pastors and supporters.

Waddles’ attorney, Lewis Myers Jr., blasted the case, saying a Department of Children and Family Services investigation did not sustain the girl’s claims and that she and her mother continued to attend church and counseling after the alleged incident.

“These charges should never have been filed,” Myers later said outside the courtroom.

Myers said in court that Waddles has been preaching for 35 years and holds a master’s degree in social work. He founded a training conference for those involved in Christian education called the Biblical Exposition Conference, according to an online biography. He is past president of several Christian education groups, including the Baptist General State Congress of Christian Education in Illinois and the National Baptist Congress.

Pease-Harkin said that Waddles had been investigated in the 1990s on allegations he had sexually abused a young girl in his office but that no criminal charges were filed against him.

Prosecutors said the alleged victim has known Waddles since she was 3 and started to be counseled by him when she turned 13 in 2011.

A year later, he told her he had dreamed about her and asked her to lift her shirt up for him, but she refused, Pease-Harkin said.

He tried to give her a hug and kiss her neck on five to 10 other occasions when she was in his church office at 1460 W 78th St., according to the prosecutor.

Once, in 2014, Waddles asked the girl to sit on his lap, and when she did, he kissed her neck and touched her underneath her underwear, Pease-Harkin said. The girl then left his office and about a month later told her mother what had happened, she said.

The two then confronted Waddles in a meeting at the church. He allegedly confessed and apologized, according to the prosecutor.

At a second meeting between July 2014 and February 2015, the girl and her mother met with Waddles and his wife and recorded his alleged admission, Pease-Harkin said.

Waddles asked them not to contact police, the prosecutor said.

Matt McCall, also a writer for the Chicago Tribune, had this to say about Waddles and his latest victim:

For more than a decade the modest Gresham neighborhood church was the center of the family’s life.

The mother was a church council member, praise leader and Sunday school teacher. Her daughter was in the youth ministry.

They said they felt the Rev. George Waddles Sr., the charismatic pastor and leader of Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church, was a true man of God. Three to four days a week, the family served the church in some way.

That ended in 2014 after the then 15-year-old daughter alleged Waddles had abused her during a counseling session in his office, according to court records.

Waddles was charged in September with aggravated criminal sexual abuse after turning himself in to police, a Class 2 felony that carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison. He later pleaded not guilty. Under Waddles’ bond conditions, he is allowed to preach at the church but is barred from contact with minors when adults are not present.

The victim’s family is concerned that Waddles is still at the church and a group that advocates for sexual assault victims is asking that he step down from his leadership position while the case is pending.

The family said they have been shunned by parishioners and receive intimidating phone calls at least once a week. Waddles still preaches at the 100- to 200-member church at 1460 W. 78th St., and a little more than a month after the charges were filed, church members threw an anniversary celebration in Waddles’ honor.

“Overall, you don’t need to be a Christian to understand right from wrong,” the girl said. The Tribune is not naming her or her parents because she is the alleged victim of a sexual assault. “That’s why I feel they are doing something wrong. When you’re so wrapped up in it, it’s hard to see the truth. They see him as God. They don’t do what God says. They do what he says.”

Hunched over in a chair, she stared at the door in the corner of a closet-size room at a Chicago public library recently, an earbud nestled in her left ear. Her father, who was at work, monitored the conversation on a phone placed on the table in front of her. It crackled when he could no longer contain his frustration.

“There was no sensitivity and care for my daughter at all,” he said. “You can imagine her, a 17-year-old girl, with the weight of this on her. As a father, it adds fuel to the fire.”

Her mother, who sat beside her daughter, said the teen has been shamed by the congregation when it should have applauded her.

….

Marc Pearlman, a veteran clergy sex abuse attorney providing legal counsel to the family, said the girl has been treated as a perpetrator for tarnishing the pastor’s reputation, rather than as a potential victim of abuse.

“Tell me any other responsible organization that, when authorities would have enough evidence to charge one of their employees with this crime, that would continue to allow them to work at their place of business,” Pearlman said. “Forget a parish. What about a 7-Eleven?”

….

Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests want the pastor removed “for the safety of other kids.” But unlike the hierarchal Catholic church, Baptist churches typically are independent and only parishioners or a church council can remove their pastor.

An official with the National Baptist Convention said Baptist policy states that each church is autonomous and not subject to management from a national or regional organization.

When Barbara Blaine, president and founder of SNAP, attempted to hand out leaflets at the church on the day of the anniversary service, security guards blocked her from talking to parishioners entering the church.

“We shouldn’t take a risk with any children ever,” Blaine said earlier this month. “So at the bare minimum he should step down while the case is pending.”

Why Biblical Inerrancy is Not Intellectually Sustainable

Bruce Gerencser 16 Comments

want truth read bible

One of the cardinal doctrines of Evangelical Christianity is the belief that the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible are inspired, inerrant, and infallible. Every word, every syllable, every letter is without error. The Bible, according to Evangelicals, is different from all other books, in that it was divinely inspired and written by the Christian God. Some Evangelicals believe that God directly dictated the words of the Bible to the original writers. Other Evangelicals believe that God directed the writers to write in such a way that every word is without error. Thus, when Evangelicals say the Bible is inerrant, they mean that the text is internally consistent and without discrepancy, mistake, or error. In other words, every word of the Bible is true.

Ask Evangelical pastors exactly WHAT is inerrant, and they will likely give one of the following responses:

  • The original manuscripts are inerrant.
  • The sum of extant manuscripts is inerrant.
  • Certain extant manuscript families (i.e. Byzantine, Majority, Textus-Receptus) are inerrant.
  • The __________ (fill in with appropriate version) translation is inerrant. (One Evangelical colleague told me that ALL translations are inerrant.)

Some Evangelical pastors believe that God has preserved his Word without error down through history, right down to a particular translation — namely the 1769 revision of the King James Bible. Some of these pastors might say that the 1611 edition of the King James Bible is inerrant, but most of them use the 1769 revision, not the 1611. The fact that there are textual differences between the two means that one or the other isn’t inerrant. Other Evangelical pastors believe the King James Bible is inspired by God, right down to the italicized helper words inserted by translators.

Evangelical pastors, as they are wont to do, go to great — and often comical — lengths to explain the doctrine of inerrancy. Serving up theological word salads, these defenders of inerrancy wow congregants with their Trumpian theological prowess. Church members come away believing that whatever translation they are using is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. Asking these members if their Bible contains errors, mistakes, or contractions brings a swift and emphatic NO! However, privately ask educated Evangelical pastors the same question and they will dance all over the place as they attempt to explain that translations are not inerrant, but they ARE faithful, trustworthy, or reliable. Some pastors, realizing that defending inerrancy makes them look like an imbecile, will say that the Bible is inerrant in matters of faith and practice. For these pastors, it doesn’t matter if the Bible is wrong about history and science. The Bible was never meant to be used as a science or history textbook. All that matters is what the Bible says regarding beliefs essential to Christian faith. Good luck trying to pin down pastors on exactly what beliefs are essential.

The original manuscripts of the Bible do not exist in any shape or form. There are thousands of manuscripts from which the various Bible versions are translated. These copies of copies of copies of copies disagree with each other in thousands of places. Granted, most of these discrepancies are minor, but remember, the standard for Biblical inerrancy — WITHOUT ERROR. This means if these manuscripts contain one error, they can not be considered inerrant. The same can be said for translations. If it can be shown that a particular translation has mistakes or internal inconsistencies — and it can — then the text cannot be considered inerrant. Whatever the Bible is or isn’t, one thing is for certain: the Bible is not inerrant. I can’t think of an intellectually honest way to argue that the text of the Protestant Bible in any of its varied forms is without error.

Knowing the Biblical inerrancy cannot be intellectually or rationally sustained, many Evangelical pastors turn to sleight of hand trickery to make it seem that the Bible is inerrant. One popular trick used is harmonization. Bart Ehrman recommends reading each book of the Bible on its own without making attempts to harmonize that book with other books of the Bible. Let each author — whomever he might be — speak for himself without reading into his words what other Biblical writers said. Of course, doing so leaves readers with books that contradict each other, with Jesus, Paul, Peter, and James each having gospels different from the other, and the gospel authors contradicting each other on matters of historical fact. This is why Christian pastors teach congregants to harmonize the Bible. Harmonization makes disparate verses “fit,” supposedly providing a cohesive, consistent text. By doing this, all the alleged textual errors and contradictions disappear — at least in the minds of Evangelical preachers anyway.

Many Evangelical pastors know the Bible is not inerrant. Privately, they will bitch and complain about Bible thumpers such as Ken Ham, David Barton, Jerry Falwell, Jr, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, James Robison, Jim Bakker, and Bob Gray Sr. They wish these men would shut the darn, freaking, heck up.*   *Approved Baptist curse words used. (Please read Christian Swear Words.) However, when these very same swearing preachers enter their pulpits on Sunday, they sing a different tune, leading congregants to believe that the translations they hold in their hands are the inspired, inerrant, infallible Words of God. These liars for Jesus know that telling people that the Bible contains errors, mistakes, and contradictions would lead to conflict, unrest, membership loss, reduced offerings, and perhaps even unemployment. If there is one thing I learned as an Evangelical pastor it is this: congregants want certainty. When they read their Bibles, church members want/need to feel/know that what they hold in their hands consists of the very words of God. Without this assurance, people will lose faith in the Bible/God/Jesus/Church. Can’t have that. There is a kingdom to build, an empire to maintain. Doing so requires people of great faith, even if their faith is built upon a lie.

If you are interested in reading further about Biblical inerrancy, I encourage you to read one or more of New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman’s books. Countless Evangelical pastors have done so and now know, if they didn’t know already, that inerrancy is a house of cards. They may not admit this publicly, but when safely meeting behind closed doors with their ministerial colleagues, these men of God speak great lamentations of woe over the pervasive ignorance found among those who believe the Bible is inerrant. However, until they tell their congregations the truth about the Biblical text, what do they expect? Congregants look to their pastors to educate them about the Bible. Most Evangelicals go through life with a borrowed theology — often whatever their pastors believe. Knowing this, Evangelical pastors should speak the truth concerning the Bible and encourage people to study the inerrancy issue for themselves. What better way to do this than starting a Bart Ehrman Book Club. Let me suggest several of his books that will drive a stake in the heart of the brain-sucking doctrine of Biblical inerrancy:

Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them)

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

Forged: Writing in the Name of God — Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are

Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior

How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament

Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew

About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 60, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 39 years. He and his wife have six grown children and eleven grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Catholics T.J. Lang and Michael Voris Say Protestantism Leads to Atheism

Bruce Gerencser 5 Comments

chick tract on catholic church

In a post titled, Does Protestantism Ultimately Lead to Atheism? T.J. Lang asserts that Protestantism leads to immoral, Satanic atheism:

The Lutheran Church he founded remained the state Church of Sweden until 2000 and was the only church allowed in the country until the middle of the 19th century. Even today, it is funded by and considered a “department” of the Swedish secular government. In fact, Catholicism was illegal in Sweden for more than a quarter of a century. At times, the death penalty was invoked for the “crime” of being or becoming Catholic. It was only dropped in 1873.

Roughly 2 percent of the population of Sweden are Catholics and Orthodox, and they are almost entirely immigrants. Given that Sweden has been influenced by only the Lutheran faith for almost 500 years, the state of Christianity in Sweden should be an indication of whether Protestantism, or more specifically, the first version of Protestantism – Lutheranism — has had a positive impact on Christianity.

Statistics regarding the state of the Christian church in Sweden are, to say the least, shocking. Today, 61 percent of Swedes officially belong to the Lutheran Church, down from 95 percent in 1972. Both statistics are misleadingly high, in part because anyone born before the year 2000 was automatically enrolled in the state church regardless of religious belief or practice. For the vast majority, membership is merely a formality and doesn’t mean much in their lives. In the 1990s, 15 percent of Swedes claimed a belief in a personal God and only 19 percent believed in an afterlife.

According to various studies, between 46–85 percent of Swedes now consider themselves “irreligious,” meaning that in their lives there is an “absence of religion, indifference to religion or hostility to religion.” According to a Zuckerman poll, the same figures for a few “Catholic countries” are as follows: Portugal: 4–9 percent, Greece (Eastern Orthodox): 16 percent, Italy: 6–15 percent. These statistics are contrasted with that of Germany, the home of Luther’s Reformation, at 41–49 percent, and the United States at 3–9 percent.

The Living Church, an independent Anglican organization, reports that only about 400,000 of the 6.6 million Swedes attend church on a monthly basis (6 percent), and only 15 percent of the members of the church say they believe in Jesus Christ. It is not insignificant that an equal number of Swedes are stated atheists: “Of the 3,384 churches in Sweden only 500 or so are used, at most, once a month.”

Fifty-five percent of children born in Sweden today are born out of wedlock as compared to 9 percent in Greece, an Eastern Orthodox country, which was never really infected with Protestantism or influenced by “salvation by faith alone.” Of course, this has a tremendous impact on the percentage of children reared in single-parent families. Twenty-two percent of children in Sweden are in single-parent situations, whereas in Italy, it’s only 10 percent.

According to an article in the Weekly Standard, “A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. … Not coincidentally, these countries have had something close to full gay marriage for a decade or more. Same-sex marriage has locked in and reinforced an existing Scandinavian trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood.”

Of course, Sweden isn’t the only country that has been influenced by Protestantism or more specifically, the original Protestantism — Lutheranism. As such, it would be instructive to determine how Christianity in general and Christian moral values are faring in those countries.

Obviously, these statistics show that the greater the influence of Protestantism, the weaker the belief in God and the less the importance of religion in general. Other country by country statistics on issues such as abortion rates, marriage rates, cohabitation rates and divorce rates are all pretty shocking in the countries the are strongly Protestant. Obviously, Satan is having his greatest successes in the predominantly Protestant countries, and in fact, specifically in the Lutheran countries.

Video Link

In a video transcript titled, Donald Trump and Atheists, Michael Voris had this to say:

The entire American electorate is in massive flux and about to undergo the most significant change in the country’s history.

If current trends hold or even accelerate by just a little, this may very well be the last election where a majority of voters will be white Christians — if not this election, certainly 2020. This is due to two large factors: the decline of the Protestant majority and the rise of the religiously unaffiliated, also known as “nones.”

The nones, at least many of them, while claiming to be “spiritual” are functionally and in practice atheists. They are a-theist not so much in their cores but in their lives, where it really matters after all. We have said at various times that Protestantism leads to atheism, and here are reports back from the political front lines proving the truth of that statement.

Up until about the past 10 years, the bulk of the decline among white Protestants was largely among more liberal mainline Protestants, like Methodists, Episcopalians or Presbyterians. Since the re-election of Ronald Reagan in 1988, their numbers have been cut nearly in half to just 14 percent of the overall population.

But more surprising, in the last 10 years, there has also been a notable decline among the more conservative branch of white Protestantism —Evangelicals. Since the end of Ronald Reagan’s last term in 1988, they have dropped from 22 percent to just 17 percent. Add both those Protestant camps together and you get just 31 percent of the electorate.

What’s driving the decline over the past generation? The rise of the younger generation, 34 percent of which identify as unbelievers — not affiliated with any religious body at all.

It doesn’t take a genius to look at the numbers here. A larger percentage of millennials — 34 percent — are unaffiliated with any religion than the the overall percentage of white Protestants — 31 percent — relative to the population. All this volatile mixture needs is a little more time, perhaps one more election cycle, before white Protestant voters lose their majority status. And then, by the time, today’s millennials are in their forties, they will be the majority — and you need to stop and think about that for a moment.

What is looming just over the horizon, politically and culturally speaking, is a nation where Christians are the minority, and cultural atheists are the majority. And this is owing precisely to the Protestant ethos of the rule of the exaltation of the individual. All of Protestantism is built on this principle — the principle of individual interpretation of Scripture, of individual personal relationship with Jesus, unmediated by the Church.

Protestantism eventually gives way to atheism, because philosophically, it is atheism. What, after all, is atheism? It is a-theism, no God. What does Protestantism, with its me-centered theology, produce? That you become your own God. You determine your morality. You determine the meaning of Scripture. You determine your own theology. There is no longer room for God, because the individual assumes the throne — kind of the working definition of atheism.

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Both of these excerpts are from the Church Militant website

Physicist and Cosmologist Lawrence Krauss on Science and the Origins of the Universe

Bruce Gerencser 0 Comments

lawrence krauss

Lawrence Krauss, 63, is an American-Canadian theoretical physicist and cosmologist who is Foundation Professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, and director of its Origins Project. In the video that follows, Krauss answers questions about science, the scientific method, and the origins of the Universe. Enjoy!

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Black Collar Crime: Methodist Pastor Reid Buchanan Charged with Sexually Abusing Two Girls

Bruce Gerencser 0 Comments

reid buchanan

Reid Buchanan, a pastor at St. Luke United Methodist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, has been charged with sexually abusing two teen girls who are family members.

The Lexington Herald Leader reports:

A former associate pastor of a large Lexington church has been charged with sexual abuse of two teens, according to media reports.

Reid Buchanan, who worked at St. Luke United Methodist Church from July 2016 until August of this year, was arrested Wednesday by Lexington police. Two minors accused Buchanan, 63, of touching them inappropriately multiple times, starting when they were younger, according to WKYT, the Herald-Leader’s reporting partner.

The abuse of the youngest victim allegedly began two years ago, according to WKYT. She didn’t come forward until a recent incident.

Abuse of the other victim began many years prior with the latest incident in April, according to the report.

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As associate pastor at St. Luke United Methodist Church, he was director of missions and was involved in the planning of mission trips, said Cathy Bruce, director of communications for the Kentucky Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, headquartered in Crestwood in Oldham County.

The allegations were brought to the attention of the church in late July, Bruce said, at which point Buchanan was immediately relieved of his duties and suspended.

She said there are no allegations of misconduct on church grounds or at a church event.

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Buchanan pleaded not guilty Thursday in court. He was ordered not to have contact with the teens, and a preliminary hearing was set for 8:30 a.m. Nov. 3

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Sacrilegious Humor: Creationism by Lewis Black

Bruce Gerencser 0 Comments

 

lewis black

This is the fifty-first installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.

Today’s comedy bit features comedian Lewis Black.

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The Thoughts and Prayers App: Letting People Know You “Care”

Bruce Gerencser 11 Comments

In light of all the thoughts and prayers recently sent into the ether world over the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, I thought it would be “cool” to share an app I found that will help people share their “I really care” posts on social media. My thoughts and prayers are with you as you use this app. 🙂

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Bruce Gerencser