1. God said the 1st commandent and 2nd commandment are most important.

2nd commandment- LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR

“THE BIBLE SAYS, GOD SAID THESE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THEN ALL OTHER things HE PRIORITIZED AND SAID 1st AND 2nd commandment ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT.

And guess what the 1st or 2nd commandment is not. you shall not be gay, or you shall not have an abortion(even if you say it is murder#6). God still said the 2nd is more important.

And the bible doesn’t change, god’s word does not change
If you can’t serve god and live up to the 1st commandemt and 2nd commandent on judgement day , that between you and god

Another thing when you take away freewill and try to play god yourself, and judge yourself, unstead of letting god judge, shame on you
ex, gays , abortion

those things are sins but god said to love your neighbor is more important. so if your neighbor is gay or had an abortion it is not up to you to judge them, its up to you to love them, according to the 2nd commandent.

remember the bible says you will be judged as harshly as you judge others. do you want to be judged harshly well them stop the harsh judging please it’s gods job

and yes i think jesus would vote for obama, he has been helping him as much as the “liberal media” with the rain in pennsylvania today and mccain trying to win that state, mccain cancelled because of rain, water. not obama. he went out in the rain for a chance at hope and change we need. Thank you jesus for sending obama to unite us , we need that change , racism is hate- it violates 2nd commandment-love your neighbor

TV show downloads are so expensive at most download sites. Fortunately,

Jesus would wear a Jesus Rocks shirt!

Jesus would wear a Jesus Rocks shirt!

Stop by to check out Jesus Rocks

Stop by to check out Jesus Rocks

Stop by to check out Jesus Rocks

It is people like the ones trained at these concentration camps who beat up gay people with baseball bats, or drive their own gay children to suicide because their worldview has no room for anything outside the narrow belief system that was pounded into their skulls. Welcome to the next generation of the KKK.

The source would be the Bible. The phrase is used constantly with the usual meaning being a metaphor for evangelism. It’s also a metaphor used in Revelation, but that’s not likely to be the harvest the church in question was named after.

That was harsh and untrue. This is a great blog, and I think there is a good mix of posters and commenters here. You are not a moderate centrist and neither am I. The point is for us to all have debates here and share our opinions. When Justin expresses opinions you don’t agree with, you have a cow. And now you’re calling him a bigot? Really inappropriate. I would say if you are that upset it probably is a good thing that you stop posting here.

I think the issue that I (and maybe others) have with religious groups is that you won’t call out extremist groups in your own faith. Those kids were crying, screaming and writhing on the floor in that video! That is crazy, inappropriate and to me it is abusive. There is no reason for little kids to be acting like that unless a bunch of overzealous, abusive adults are putting weird ideas into their heads. They are brainwashing those kids, period.

Sorry, if this seems harsh, but for as much as Justin and I have disagreed, I NEVER considered him an intolerant, close-minded, elitist bigot until this post.

Oh…sure you did DP. I’m sure you’ve said those words on more than one occasion when describing a post of mine. Maybe you didn’t string them together, but you’ve most certainly suggested as much in the past.

And what’s funny is you’ve called me out on so many occasions for so much less, this is rather disingenuous of you. I’ve always been the evenhanded one in our continuning online dialogue. Anybody who wants to spend any time going through our various word wars will clearly see that.

But hey, I respect the fact that you want to leave. However, are you really telling me that somebody who is readying the young for a holy war…you’re tellling me that’s okay with you?

Make no mistake, I have no problem with people having faith, practicing their faith and loving God. However, I do have problems with extreme faith because it can lead people into some awful places. Anybody who has any sense of history knows this, and that’s why these people frighten me. Would I try to stop them from what they’re doing? No. But again, it scares me.

It’s been nice knowing you DP. Hope you find a blog that’s more to your liking.

Lazarus Long…huh? Yeah, I’ll just go right out and start calling African-Americans Negroes or Coloreds and see what happens. My guess is that an overwhelming majority would be rather angry at the use. Just a hunch…but hey, I’m a lunatic.

Okay, I’m done with this thread. Moving on…

The Left Behind series (written by Tim LaHaye) is not only enomorously popular, but it is very politicized with having the Antichrist’s father being an abortion loving gay UN head who uses science to lead people away from God (and is based out of Iraq — written a couple years before the war). They have a game coming out where you battle the forces of the Antichrist on the streets of New York and if you kill an innocent, you can make up for it by converting others. This of course, is closely tied in with “friends” of Israel — the foremost among them Jerry Falwell — that believe it needs to take over all the Biblically foretold lands so Armaggedon can commence (and which BTW, Israel has started to deem a security threat because they are worried they’ll short circuit peace attempts and hasn’t been giving visas to some of the most prominent people of the movement).

Pat Robertson blames natural disasters — and 9/11 — on our sins (and close calls were averted by prayer), Ariel Sharon’s stroke on his withdrawal from Gaza, and said “You say you’re supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.” I should note though that he actually does do a lot of great poverty/development related work and should be applauded for that.

James Dobson is based in Colorado Springs — home of the Air Force academy, which is seeing a growing religious intolerance that the military is extremely concerned about. His main focus is on homosexuality and traditional marriage. His biggest influence outside his base is to lead the rallying cry against the judicial branch.

These four men are seen as the leaders of the evangelical movement, and I think they have the numbers to back it up. I brought them up specifically because they are also very integrated as part of the Republican party — specifically this Administration. When questions arose about Harriet Myers, they arose about her legally, politcally and religiously (would she rule the “right” way). What did Bush do? He had Dobson give her an a-ok, that her religious beliefs were quite fine in his book (although he refused to be more specific)…and almost completely ignored placating anyone that had reservations about her legal skills.

Couple that with megachurches that are springing up everywhere. One near me has the main pastor doing faith healings and all you have to do is watch his TV show and touch his fingers as he gives a prayer and all your aliments will go away. Another one in Louisiana where I used to live uses bona fide cult techniques. If you go there for the first time, they get your name/number/address and separate you from anyone you came in with. Then after the sermon, you break up into small groups (again, one newcomer per group) and they work on making sure you’ve accepted Jesus their way. They will call, send letters and even go to your house if you stop going. They tell children that if their parents don’t want to go, then their parents are damning them to hell and they will secretly shuttle them to services by picking them up at public places. They took it off their website (this is a great picture to show the decadence of the building, which has to be seen to be believed), but they used to have the group meeting syllabi. At the beginning of each group meeting, they would mark (and this is a direct quote) “Souls I’ve saved this (week/month/year)” along with whether they are meeting their “souls saved” target. (And yes, it says “I’ve saved,” not Jesus and not God). I’ve heard these things directly from four different people that have been there independently of each other and they all said the exact same thing (well they called the Methodist a fake believer, which they didn’t do to the agnostics). Oh yeah, that place has 5k+ members and growing, while the healing place has 10k+.

Have I met more “moderate” (dyed in the whole born agains that believe the Bible is innerant and accepted Jesus, but don’t have the political/mystical thing going on) Evangelicals than radicals? Yes, I have. I don’t know whether that’s just the circles I run in or a true sample, but I agree that in general there is nothing inherently scary about evangelicalism. However, the self proclaimed leaders of the movement that I do find scary have influence in the highest places in government (and not in some conspiracy six degrees of Falwell game, I mean the President publicly counts them as his closest religious advisors and they stump — except for Robertson who isn’t as political — for Republicans) and the type of places that are present in this movie seem to be springing up fairly recently. Notice that the website keeps saying “revival” over and over as a mantra. I do think that it is their goal to have a revival similar to the 20s-30s where fire and brimstone sermons, coupled with end times prophecies and routine miracles swept the nation. Maybe you disagree, but I don’t think that is really about accepting Jesus at all. But I have yet to see evangelical friends that do good works (going to SE Asia to fight religious persecution, to Latin America to build infrastructure for the poor, etc) say anything about this other movement other than to say they are “crazy” and not “living the message of Christ.”

Also note the church in Louisiana is called the Harvest, and the movie one keeps talking about the upcoming “harvest.” I’ve tried long and hard to figure out the source of this phrase that is very prominently used amongst these types of churches but I haven’t been able to. Does anyone know the source?

“Army of God”? “I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag”?

None of the people I know would suggest that such a camp represents mainstream Christian thinking… yet some of the comments here seem to be doing just that.

While I wouldn’t have chosen “evangalism” to describe folks who would support the ideologies in “Jesus Camp”, the reactions to the terminology seems to taken this dialogue into the weeds. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding?

To me, extremism in any religion is disturbing, and my feathers get ruffled indeed when such zealots begin to “act” on their beliefs… whether it’s blowing people up, or working toward a stated desire for domination of the political system.

Are groups such as this one (depicted in Jesus Camp) a majority? I hardly think so. But then… neither is al-Qaeda within Islam.

If you find the word “Negro” offensive then you need a reality lesson! Second, if you don’t like it, take that up with large organizations such as the United Negro College Fund !!
WIth your vile comment, you are also spitting on the graves of every person of color who put their livelihood AND life on the line for the right to be called negroes!!

You sir, are what frightens me. A United States citizen (?) lunatic who can’t separate his fantasies from today’s realities.

Oh let me guess, you also have a problem with the term “colored people.” Well loser, we are ALL colored people, with the possible exception of albinos. And if you have problems with people using it, take it up with the NAACP !!

I don’t think that Jesus would object, though. Afterall, I don’t think Jesus really cares how one comes to be a Believer, but rather the simple fact that one is or is not. That being said, I don’t think St. Thomas Aquinas would find it very fulfilling intellectually. I personally know Ph.D’s and intellectuals of all ilks that are died-in-the-wool born-again true believers. The outcome is the same, howeer the means of spiritual achievement are antipodal to the Jesus Camp. To me, this post & probably this film (although I have not seen it) are pure propaganda — (and of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a kernel of truth in it): A way of mocking people’s beliefs and the way they chose to spiritually educate their children. Most Americans will view it and have the sence that people like Justin are laughing at them and making fun of them for their beliefs. Most Americans will shake their head at the irony of this attitude coming from people who harp incessantly about tolerance and understanding and reprimand commenters on the correct nomenclature for blacks while at the same time claiming that “evangelicals” (for whom MANY ARE BLACKS) scare them!

Sorry, if this seems harsh, but for as much as Justin and I have disagreed, I NEVER considered him an intolerant, close-minded, elitist bigot until this post.

The way I see it, the problem isn’t with “Absolute Truth” but rather with certainty. Truth and uncertainty aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be quite sure that there is an Absolute Truth but not be absolutely certain about what it is. I personally fall into this camp. I personally believe that the Bible as we have it today contains Absolute Truth, but I also believe that some small percentage of the Bible as we have it today has been distorted and modified either by accident or to suit the beliefs of scribes, copyists, and translators. Worse, I believe that the various christian traditions grossly distort the intended meaning of the scriptures. These beliefs require me to maintain an open mind on many subjects, whereas many Christians believe what they believe with absolute certainty, and refuse to subject their beliefs to any sort of critique. That is a problem.