Meet Pastor Dennis Terry of Greenwell Springs Baptist Church in Greenwell Springs, Louisiana.
Earlier this week, he introduced Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum to his church while making a lot of controversial, inappropriate, offensive and downright false statements to his parishioners (most of which Santorum can be seen applauding).
“This nation was founded as a Christian nation… there’s only one God and his name is Jesus.”
This is a tired line from religious bigots who have had the luxury of having Judeo-Christian beliefs be the (mostly unchecked) dominant belief system in the United States.
The United States was founded as a secular nation. The principles guiding our founding documents were based on ideals from The Enlightenment, not religious doctrine which is why "God" isn't mentioned in said documents. "Creator" sure, but definitely not Jesus Christ.
In fact, the US was organized under democratic principles. If we really want to get into it, Christianity (as most organized religions) is inherently anti-democratic in that there is no voting. There is only the word of god.
"I‘m tired of people telling me that I can’t say those words. I'm tired of people telling us as Christians that we can't voice our beliefs or we can no longer pray in public."
No one is telling him he can't say anything. But if he 's going to say factually incorrect shit, he should expect, from time to time, there will be folks who are going to correct him on it.
“If you don‘t love America and you don’t like the way we do things, I’ve got one thing to say — Get out!”
Y'know, even Merle Haggard is embarrassed by the "love it or leave it" sentiment he expressed in his 1970 hit, "The Fightin' Side of Me".
This comment reminds me of that kid crying, "Leave Britney alone!" But instead of defending a pop star, what Terry is really saying is, "If you don't want America to be a Christian theocracy, get out! Wah!"
"We don’t worship Buddha."
Who is this "we"?
"I said we don’t worship Buddha."
Some of us do. Well, it's really more like following the teachings of... so technically speaking he is correct.
"We don’t worship Mohammed. We don’t worship Allah."
Some of us do. Some of us worship lizard gods and serpents. Some worship the intangible force of nature. Some worship aliens. Some of us don't really see any difference in any of the things people worship - one is the same as the other is the same as the other... whether you worship Zeus, Odin or Yaweh or comets.
"We worship God. We worship God’s son Jesus Christ."
Some of us don't.
“As long as they continue to kill little babies in our mother’s womb, somebody has to take a stand and say it’s not right.”
Oh, by "babies" he means zygotes.
But I'm much more interested in this - who is this "they" who kill babies in "our" mother's womb? What exactly is going on in that sentence? I'm no therapist but...
“As long as sexual perversion is becoming normalized, somebody needs to stand up and say, ‘God forgive us, God have mercy upon us.’”
Normalized? Does he mean like Ted Haggard?
Or does he mean when priests molest little boys and the Catholic Church covers it up? I'm with him on the Catholic Church thing, but I'll go one better. Instead of just asking for forgiveness, I say we prosecute every last one of them and revoke the church's tax exempt status as a punitive measure for the cover-up.
“I believe that Christians in America are the key to revival. I believe that Christians in America is the key to the economy turning around. I believe that Christians in America is the key to the jobless rate continue to go down. I believe it’s a spiritual thing. If we’ll put God back in America, put God back in our pulpits. Put God back in our homes and our statehouse — and then in Washington, D.C. — then we can have revival in America…and mighty things will happen for this country.”
Oh, I see. Terry is laying down some "theological economics" expertise.
According to Terry, the economic slump wasn't caused by years of Republican econmic policies and deregulation and unchecked greed, no, evidently god did it because we aren't Christian enough. Kind of like when he sends tornadoes, earthquakes, fires and floods to kill people for not praying enough or for being gay or for being poor or....
I think it's called "Pat Robertson Meteorology".
Here's Rev. Gaddy's response to Terry on MSNBC.
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I don't really care about his "get out" BS.
My favorite line is the one about being told not to pray in public.
First, the USA absolutely allows people to pray in public. You merely can't compel others (such as public students) to participate. When privileged people complain "I can't do X", what they usually mean is "I can't force X onto everyone around me."
However, there is someone who says not to pray in public. His name is Jesus Christ.
Matthew 6:
5 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Posted by: Frankie | March 23, 2012 at 07:24 PM