Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[CNN]

Since Tony Alamo’s start as a California street preacher more than 40 years ago, the self-styled evangelist’s story has been colorful and checkered.When his wife died of cancer, Alamo claimed that she would be resurrected and kept her body on display for six months while their followers prayed. It would be 16 years before her body was returned to her family. For a time, his elaborately painted denim jackets were a must-have in Hollywood, but sales contributed to tax problems that landed him in prison for four years in the 1990s.

Alamo was charged but not convicted of other crimes, including child abuse. Now the 74-year-old is accused by former church members of abusing children and running an organization in which girls who just reached puberty can marry. Agents raided his southwest Arkansas compound Saturday and placed six girls in state custody.

On Monday, Alamo spoke of the allegations with a mix of denial and defiance, saying that he never promoted sexual abuse but that he believes there’s a mandate from the Bible for young girls to marry.

“In the Bible, it happened. But girls today, I don’t marry ‘em if they want to at 14, 15 years old. Because we won’t do it, even though I believe it’s OK,” Alamo said.

On Saturday, he had said that for girls having sex, “consent is puberty.”

Read more here.

[From me]

Sick man.  I will pray for him.  Mr Alamo, the Bible says nothing about Puberty being the age of consent.  It says marriage = consent.

What do you think?

[AJC]

Smiling women on the cover of a slick magazine. Sold from under the counter. Must request it from store clerk. That’s not something a buyer would typically find in a Christian bookstore. Not unless it’s one of the more than 100 Lifeway Christian Bookstores across the United States, including about six in metro Atlanta.

Gospel Today, the Fayetteville-published magazine, was pulled off the racks by the bookstores’ owner, the Southern Baptist Convention. The problem? The five smiling women on the cover are women of the cloth — church pastors. Southern Baptist polity says that’s a role reserved for men.

Read more here.

[From me]

Getting the magazine from under the counter?  Sounds like an adult magazine.  

I agree with the Biblical view about the office of Pastor (that is another issue all together) but why pull the magazine? So when are the books and magazines by all of the divorced, overweight, lusting, lying, cheating, etc… authors going to be pulled next? When are the going to pull Philips, Craig and Dean CD’s because they don’t believe in the Trinity? What about TD Jakes? Benny Hinn? My book? (well no one has that one) What about the books that teach the Charismatic gifts? If they wanted to they could get rid of every item–why chose this one? 

What do you think?

[HT]Mark Mansheim

Here are two stories from a “Journalism Major” California State University in Sacremento, CA named Briana Monasky. It is scary to think people have such little use of the English language and think it is OK to use profanity and ugly language to get their point across. 

Here is her first Article. [The State Hornet]

The 2008 presidential campaign has been a major interest and concern for me, as it should be for any college student with the ability to exercise their right to vote their conscience.

The Republican pick for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, is appalling and offensive to any woman - no, any human being - with a brain and an ounce of self-respect. Palin is no feminist. Her policies on abortion and sex education make me hope I never have a daughter that could be affected by them.

This is a woman who cut sex education funding in Alaska and ended up with a 17-year-old knocked up by a hockey player. Beyond that, Palin and other Republicans preach abstinence-only sex education campaigns that don’t work. Remember that string of pregnant girls in Massachusetts? Those girls complained on national television that they couldn’t get birth control. What a nation we live in.

In Palin’s release regarding the pregnant teen, she said that she and her husband were “proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents.” I suppose that must be true considering her policy on abortion. Palin is vehemently pro-life. In fact, she is committed, along with McCain, to overturning Roe v. Wade. She doesn’t approve of abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

That may be my main issue with Palin, the first female candidate for this position. This should be monumental. I should be incredibly proud to finally see a woman on the stage. Instead, I am ashamed that my country is letting her run. When I hear that women are pro-life I simply don’t understand. Beyond that, as a victim of sexual assault I consider it devastating to think that a woman may have to carry a child to term conceived from an act of hate. I hope her dad rapes her and she has to carry that child to term. I bet you she wouldn’t. I bet she’d grab a coat hanger herself and take care of it.

Read more here.

Then she tries to justify herself here:

Words are powerful. Believe me, I get it. I am a journalism major with a capital ‘J.’ However, to think that in any way, shape or form I could actually literally mean harm upon Sarah Palin is ridiculous. Were you joking with all of these comments and letters? You had to be. No one could really think I would mean that, right? Apparently not. Apparently I need to clarify what I meant.

As the sister of a stand-up comedian, I think vulgarity can be useful to demonstrate a point, whether it be humorous or shocking. In this case, I was simply saying that Palin, under a tragic circumstance such as rape, and worse, the incestuous variety, would not choose to carry the child to term. Did it come across well in the piece? Absolutely not. Do I regret it? Absolutely not.

Perhaps I should enlighten all of the people who were kind enough to make comments (17 so far) on the website or wrote letters to the editor. I do not mince my words. There is no brunoise involved.

I understand quite well the complexity of the abortion issue. It seems that half the people want the option, and the other half consider it a done deal once that egg is fertilized. That has nothing to do with my column. To be honest, the fact that I centered the piece around the issue was a bad idea in the first place. No matter what my statements were, someone was bound to end up angry. I focused on the sex education and abortion because of the buzz around Bristol’s pregnancy. These reasons are not the only ones that urge me to not agree with Palin.

All anger aside, I stand behind the statements I made about her. One line lacked eloquence, but it was supposed to. To take what I said and somehow attribute it to who I am as a person is equally offensive. To question whether I am, in fact, a victim of sexual assault is inexcusable. Anyone who went through what I did would feel the same. Furthermore, to infer that I am in any way an emotionally unstable person is reaching. I am up front about my experiences. I may have joked about the subject matter, but believe me: I take sexual assault seriously.

My only regret comes from the disappointment in realizing that you all got so hung up on one sentence that you missed the whole point; so hung up that you accused me of fabricating a personal experience that will haunt me forever. I am not trying to work out my issues on paper, simply trying to open your eyes to people’s policies by comparing them with parts of who I am.

Read more here.

[From me]

Ms. Monasky is that what they are teaching you in journalism school?  Your own candidate said that families were off limits.  You are just an angry misguided young woman.  You are obviously too young to know that every word you say has meaning. What you said was offensive and instead of apologizing you try to justify yourself. People with integrity learn from their mistakes, apologize, change and move on.  Those with an axe to grind will make excuses for their behavior and try to make others feel bad. I hold no ill will towards you.  In the past I probably would have said some ugly things about you but I just feel sorry for you.  I will pray that God will change your angry spirit.

What do you think?

[AP]

Gov. Sarah Palin’s church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer.

“You’ll be encouraged by the power of God’s love and His desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality,” according to the insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed for about six years.

Palin’s conservative Christian views have energized that part of the GOP electorate, which was lukewarm to John McCain’s candidacy before he named her as his vice presidential choice. She is staunchly anti-abortion, opposing exceptions for rape and incest, and opposes gay marriage and spousal rights for gay couples.

Focus on the Family, a national Christian fundamentalist organization, is conducting the “Love Won Out” Conference in Anchorage, about 30 miles from Wasilla.

Read more here.

[From me]

So what! I agree with her church.  God can change anyone through the power of prayer. I make no apologies for telling people about Jesus and what He can do for their life.  It is who I am.  I think it is who Palin is too. The media just doesn’t like Palin.  They are looking for anything to trash her.  If Sen. Obama’s former pastor’s views didn’t matter then neither should Palin’s church.  Give me a break!

What do you think?

About a month ago Cassandra called while I was at the Willowcreek Leadership Summit to inform me that our Air Conditioner wasn’t working.  We live in a house that isn’t more than 3 years old.  It was built by a national homebuilder who has a good reputation.  So Cassandra called the people who installed the AC.  

A man came out from this large Charlotte AC company and acted like he cared about us.  Then he gave us the bad news. Our new AC was broken and couldn’t be fixed.  Labor alone would be $1,800.  He went ahead an “filled up” the unit with coolant and said we should make it through the summer. We were just praying that the AC unit would be under warranty.  Our pastor thought something sounded fishy so he had us get in touch with a handyman he knows.  The handyman thought something sounded fishy about the large companies diagnosis and said call him if needed. 

Well Monday night the AC froze up again and it was 90 degrees in our house.  So yesterday the handyman came out to check the system.  We figured it was a leak and were expecting the worst that the large company warned us about.  I could feel our account draining even more.  But the handyman said something strange was going on.  He said the Unit was “OVER-FILLED” with coolant and this would cause the unit to freeze up.  In fact, he feels the big company did it on purpose knowing that it would freeze up and we would call them to get us a new unit.

Where are all of the honest people in the world?  I’ll pay people honest wages and charges but I hate it when people lie and take advantage of others.  Had we just trusted the large company, we would have forked out almost $2K.  Most of the companies here in Charlotte are on commission so the repair people get a commission for every unit they sell and install.

I’m tired of dishonest people.  I’m calling for people to tell the truth.

What do you think?