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Taking Back Christianity From The Religious Right "Very little in the actual teaching put forward by Jesus here would support the political philosophy of the Christian right, with its worship of military might or its obsession with capital punishment. But it’s probably too much to ask them to consider what Jesus actually said."  The death of Christianity in the U.S. "Christianity has died in the hands of Evangelicals. Evangelicalism ceased being a religious faith tradition following Jesus’ teachings concerning justice for the betterment of humanity when it made a Faustian bargain for the sake of political influence. The Evangelicals’ Jesus is satanic, and those who hustle this demon are “false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve." (2 Cor. 11:13-15, NIV)  The Last Temptation "The moral convictions of many evangelical leaders have become a function of their partisan identification. This is not mere gullibility; it is utter corruption. Blinded by political tribalism and hatred for their political opponents, these leaders can’t see how they are undermining the causes to which they once dedicated their lives. Little remains of a distinctly Christian public witness."  The Real Origins of the Religious Right (Four Page Must Read On How It All Went Down) "Today, evangelicals make up the backbone of the pro-life movement, but it hasn’t always been so. Both before and for several years after Roe, evangelicals were overwhelmingly indifferent to the subject, which they considered a 'Catholic issue.' it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools. So much for the new abolitionism."  How Corporate America Invented Christian America At a gathering in 1940 Reverend James W. Fifield Jr. told industrialists that clergymen would be crucial in regaining the upper hand in their war with Roosevelt. As men of God, ministers could voice the same conservative complaints as business leaders, but without any suspicion that they were motivated solely by self-interest. They could push back against claims, made often by Roosevelt and his allies, that business had somehow sinned and the welfare state was doing God’s work. The assembled industrialists gave a rousing amen. “When he had finished,” a journalist noted, “rumors report that the N.A.M. applause could be heard in Hoboken.” It was a watershed moment—the beginning of a movement that would advance over the 1940s and early 1950s a new blend of conservative religion, economics and politics that one observer aptly anointed “Christian libertarianism.” Fifield and like-minded ministers saw Christianity and capitalism as inextricably intertwined, and argued that spreading the gospel of one required spreading the gospel of the other.  By Charles Toy “Pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever and wherever the person says it does.” -- Margo McCaffery, RN, MS, FAAN, leader and pioneer in pain management for nursing.  Over the last 3 years I have been forced to become a student of chronic pain and a pain activist. The pain I've endured in my left shoulder has been brutal, unrelenting, and at times unbearable. I'm finally emerging on the other side after having my shoulder replaced last May. They told me it takes about a year to completely recover and that's about what it has taken. In a month and a half it will have been a year since my surgery. I feel about 10/12ths in to my recovery. My odyssey has been long. My story is long too. I'm going to add to it over the course of time. I've been treated like a junkie and fed falsehoods from the medical community that I knew weren't true. The medical community on the whole knows the least about this issue unless they're chronic severe pain sufferers themselves. They are being fed propaganda by the CDC which lumped street opiates in with prescribed opiates to come up with their bogus numbers. The medical community is operating out of fear and a very bad case of group think. The full truth will come out eventually. It's beginning to emerge right now. Some of the things I've been told I know to be false because I've experienced it myself. They include: "It's really the Acetaminophen (Tylenol) in opioid pain medication that provides relief from the pain. The opiates only provide euphoria." This is patently false. No, it isn't the Acetaminophen that provides all the relief. Acetaminophen alone didn't even touch my pain, neither did Ibuprofen, and they were both tearing my stomach to shreds. Percocet (Oxycodone and Acetaminophen) did provide relief, and it had nothing to do with euphoria. It had to do with what works at relieving the pain and what doesn't. Opiates are by far the most effective pain reliever there is. Every one of the hundreds of accounts I've read of people suffering from chronic severe pain say the same thing. In the course of being put through the wringer I was forced to try Lyrica, Cymbalta, Gabapentin, Amitriptyline, Nortriptyline, and Tramadol. I was taken to the highest recommended doses on all of them. None of them even came remotely close to the pain relief of narcotics (opiates). It didn't matter to the doctors I went to, two "pain doctors," one orthopedic surgeon, my primary doctor, all of them said, "I'm not giving you narcotics and that's that." I literally could not sleep at night in any position without enduring brutal pain, and I mean brutal. None of them cared. They all fear the CDC and the DEA that much. They started telling themselves lies. As it turns out the vast majority of pain patients don't abuse their medication and they don't die from it. It's worth repeating ... the CDC lumped deaths from street opiates like heroin and illicit pills in with deaths from prescribed opiates taken by pain patients, came up with one number, and called it "The Opioid Crisis." At one point I was desperate so I called a medical malpractice group of attorneys to get their take on all of it. I was told, "You can't do anything to a doctor unless they actually harm you. We get calls every day from people literally crying, telling us their doctor took them off their opiate medication for chronic pain after 20 years. Most of them are in unspeakable agony. Their doctors don't care." I didn't give up. I couldn't give up. The pain wasn't something you could "live with." A Naturopathic Doctor pain managed me with opiates for a few months before and after my shoulder replacement. The point came where she felt like she had reached the limits of her expertise. I finally went to the pain clinic at Oregon Health and Science University. I found a bastion of sanity there. They deal with many of the tough pain cases in the region. They acknowledged the craziness taking place around this issue and told me mine wasn't a difficult case compared to most they see. They listened to my history and put me on the low-dose opiate regimen I needed. That was that. I've been tapering down per my own decreased need for pain relief as I reach full recovery. The truth is starting to come out. I just ran across the best, most comprehensive article I've seen thus far on this topic. It begins to expose what is really going on. It's from Reason Magazine, the April 2018 issue. I highly recommend it. The title of the article is, "America’s War on Pain Pills Is Killing Addicts and Leaving Patients in Agony," by Jacob Sullum. Here's an excerpt: ________________ PUNISHING PATIENTS In contrast with these harm reduction tactics, continuing attempts to discourage the use of prescription pain medication promise to cause a lot of needless suffering without making a noticeable dent in opioid-related deaths. Prescription guidelines that the CDC issued in March 2016, which minimize the benefits of opioids, exaggerate their risks, and encourage doctors to be stingy with them, exemplify this misguided strategy. A 2016 critique published by the journal Pain Practice challenges several key aspects of the CDC document, including its recommended dose ceilings, its general declaration that nonopioid treatment is “preferred for chronic pain,” its suggestion that opioid prescriptions for acute pain last no longer than seven days, and its statement that doctors who decide to prescribe opioids should begin with immediate-release products rather than extended-release or long-acting (ER/LA) analgesics. The criticism of that last recommendation sums up what is wrong with the guidelines in general ... ________________ I'll end it here for today. This is only the beginning of my writing on this topic. This blog post will expand over time. I haven't even begun to tell you about the nightmare of the two "pain clinics" I went to before the university. Talk about humiliation. Again, I recommend reading the articles linked in this post. It's a lot of information to process. Those who suffer from chronic pain will feel validated after being treated like junkies and criminals by a medical community overcome by hysteria. Pro-Born: A Former Evangelical on the Single-Issue Politics of White Christians By Bradley Onishi  [Excerpt]
"First, you get to deny the messy stakes of loving the born and bodied—those with melanin in their skin, different kinds of hair, gender-queer expressions, immigrant parents, and non-Christian faiths. Second, you get to deny the messiness of the social contract—of the political realm and all its irreducible details and multiple voices. You are absolved of responsibility for the brown skin of Dreamers, the unwashed hair of refugees, the cry of bullied trans teenagers, the mourning songs from families of black men and women killed by police. Myopic and unwavering focus on abortion is the way to avoid the carnality of living, breathing beings. The way to get away from bodies." Link To Full Article  Every now and then an article comes along that speaks the truth in no uncertain terms. When we spot such an article we like to preserve it on our blog. This article doesn't candy-coat the truth.
We were saying what the author says back in 2009. It was too much for most people to process. They weren't ready to hear it. Many accused us of hyperbole. Below are a couple of excerpts from the article and then a link to the entire piece. Please don't just read the excerpts. Read the whole article as well. It's important to understand what has happened. The author is Miguel De La Torre, professor of Social Ethics and Latino/a Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO. "Christianity has died in the hands of Evangelicals. Evangelicalism ceased being a religious faith tradition following Jesus’ teachings concerning justice for the betterment of humanity when it made a Faustian bargain for the sake of political influence. The Evangelicals’ Jesus is satanic, and those who hustle this demon are “false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve." (2 Cor. 11:13-15, NIV) When he speaks of "the Faustian bargain for the sake of political influence" he is referring to the takeover of Christianity in the US by far-right extremists. They used the fake issue of abortion to hoodwink Christians into believing they had to be Republicans. Politico did a very well-researched, 4-page article meticulously documenting the history of how this was pulled off and by who. Click here to go to that article: "The Real Origins of the Religious Right" This blog post will make the most sense if you read the whole blog and then go to the links contained within. Here's the link to Mr. De La Torre's piece: The death of Christianity in the U.S Trolls will descend on our Facebook page and inevitably quote this scripture and others like it: "Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you'..." (Jeremiah 1:4-5) As author Joyce Arthur points out: "This passage is specific to one, very special person—Jeremiah the prophet, whom God has called to provide miraculous powers and authority to the world. Since we are not all destined to be divine prophets, this verse cannot be construed as applying to any fetus except the unborn Jeremiah." The same is true for Psalm 139:13-16. "All this passage states is that God is directly involved in the creation of a fetus and knows its future. This is useless for the anti-choice position, since God creates all living things, including trees and bugs. Plus, just because God is supposedly omniscient doesn't give fetuses any special status—it simply means God already knows whether they will live or die. It is dishonest to conclude from this verse that a fetus is a human being deserving of more protection than women. The passage is poetic prose that anti-choicers have twisted and trivialized by giving it a literal, objective meaning where there is none." When they run out of arguments people usually resort to: "What about 'Thou shall not kill?'" A fetus is not a 'baby.' A fetus becomes a person when it draws its first breath. One last fact that most people are unaware of: Before the far right's takeover of Christianity in the US it was the clergy who advocated for universal access to safe, legal abortions. We know most followers of the right-wing, political cult will scoff at all of this. Their brainwashing is complete. We're going to speak the truth anyway. “Speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell We get trolled by conservative "Christians" all day, every day. Sometimes we're not quite sure if someone is a troll so we go look at their Facebook page. This is the kind of garbage we usually find. Our commentary continues after the graphic.  We pulled this graphic from the Facebook page of one gentleman who came to our page to lecture us. His personal Facebook page was full of Tucker Carlson videos, NRA videos, and Duck Dynasty videos mixed with assorted "Christian" admonishments.
After doing what we do here every day for close to ten years we can say unequivocally that the biggest purveyors of "Fake News" are conservative "Christians" who watch, read and listen to nothing else but conservative media. We don't "hate" these people. On the contrary, we feel sorry for them. They have been brainwashed by a conservative propaganda machine. We speak against an ideology here and the opinion leaders who spew it out 24/7. Unfortunately that group now includes all the leaders, preachers and politicians who make up The "Christian" Right. There is nothing Christian about modern right-wing ideology. It's the biggest lie foisted on our culture over the last 40 years. It is an ideology that uses the two red herring issues of abortion and gay marriage to hoodwink Christians into being Republicans. Modern right-wing ideology is more akin to Satanism than the teachings of Jesus Christ. All you have to do is look at the fruit of their policies and the impact it has on the Least of These. Modern right-wing ideology and policy passes all of society's resources upwards and crushes the Least of These underfoot labeling them as 'lazy freeloaders.' Right now, given the majority of evangelicals subscribe to these lies it looks as though Satan has won. We know better. “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” -- Jesus, John 16:33 Read more about The Least of These here. Return To Related Facebook Post After almost ten years of dealing with the brainwashed fanatics trolling our Facebook page every day about abortion and homosexuality we're going to throw some facts out there. We don't need to be wordy because they are simple truths.  A fetus becomes a person when it draws its first breath. The Bible backs that up. Numbers 5 condones abortion via the ordeal of bitter water. Jesus excused 'eunuchs who were born that way' from his stated marriage laws saying, 'not everyone can follow these laws. Those who can, should.' Biblical scholars and historians have proved that 'eunuchs who are born that way' are LGBT. These two issues were a clever ploy from the Father of Lies to rope Christians into the Republican Party, a party whose policies are really the opposite of everything Christ taught. It's beyond time to start talking back to these liars. They won't bother to read these articles but you should. It's time to arm ourselves with the facts. As one of our members pointed out: "Every single argument the US religious conservatives have about social issues has two sides, one of which could be addressed from a progressive, rational perspective. Two sides … every single issue. Their pig-headed evangelical salesmanship is a threat to Democracy." "Homosexual eunuchs are a normal and natural part of God's wonderful creation. They are accepted and loved by God the way they are. During the time of Jesus Homosexual eunuchs were often physically intact gay men, lesbians and even transgendered people, and he knew it." Here's the article. When the Bible Commands Abortion - Here's the article.  Meme Credit: Forward
By Charles Toy I started The Christian Left in 2009 as a Facebook group. In 2010 I converted it to a Facebook page and after numbers started to grow I slowly added an admin team from a few page users eager to participate. That same core admin team is still with me, Rev. Mark Sandlin and Roger Smith. We have many other long-time admin team members but Mark and Roger have assisted in planning and daily operations since I asked them to join me not long after I began. A ministry and a community began, for people who saw what was taking place and were persecuted for bringing it up. From the beginning we've proclaimed loud and clear that The "Christian" Right had lost its way. This has always been one of the main motivations of our mission. Long before Donald Trump we've been sounding the alarm that our faith had been infiltrated and taken over by impostors and false teachers. We no longer recognized our faith in our churches. That was profoundly saddening to us. We've been hammered relentlessly from the beginning about the two fake issues The "Christian" Right invented, marriage equality and women's reproductive justice. The fact is these issues were invented to coalesce a right-wing political movement within the church. The history of how this happened is detailed here. You couldn't find many people who would agree with us in public. Everyone was afraid to cause hardship for themselves and their families whether it was personal, professional, or both. We took a pounding in the beginning. We still do. That's starting to change. People are beginning to see the truth and speak up. Miguel De La Torre, Professor of social ethics and Latino/a studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colo. wrote a piece in late 2017 that perfectly echoes what we've been saying for almost a decade. "Christianity has died in the hands of Evangelicals. Evangelicalism ceased being a religious faith tradition following Jesus’ teachings concerning justice for the betterment of humanity when it made a Faustian bargain for the sake of political influence. The beauty of the gospel message — of love, of peace and of fraternity — has been murdered. Evangelicalism has ceased to be a faith perspective rooted on Jesus the Christ and has become a political movement whose beliefs repudiate all Jesus advocated. A message of hate permeates their pronouncements." We've probably made every one of those points 1,000 times. The point of this blog is that perceptions are slowly changing. People are beginning to notice that following the teachings of Jesus has all but vanished in the US for the majority of evangelicals. 82% of them voted for Trump and stay loyal to right-wing extremism every election. Yet they represent themselves as the 'party of God.' The Gospel has been replaced with a cruel right-wing ideology. You, the members of The Christian left, have been early pioneers in rejecting the false teaching of The "Christian" Right. Then this happened:  That's pretty big coming from a former chair of the RNC. We'll take any allies we can get on this point. This is another thing we've been saying for almost a decade. They lost any authority to preach when they fell prey to reprobate minds precipitated by replacing Jesus with right-wing ideology. It's happened many times in history. The most recent turning away is well documented. Some have suggested that real Christianity has been forced underground in the US. It wouldn't be the first time. — The Christian Left is a user supported ministry and community. We've been able to carry out the ministry and maintain the community for almost a decade only through your generous support. Thousands of man hours support the services provided here as well as on or blog, our website, our Twitter page, our broadcast mailing list, our store, our unique apparel designs, our formation of a Super PAC during the 2012 election cycle, ads we've taken out in newspapers and on social media. The list of our activities over the years is lengthy.
Please make a contribution to help us keep it all going by clicking here. It's quick and easy and it keeps us able to keep working to serve you.  You member of The Christian Left. You are a pioneer.
We are all pioneers of social media for Christian Progressives and their allies at TCL. No bragging involved. We were the first by a long shot. We broke down the door of Christian Progressive isolation and we're still here after almost a decade! There were a few others back in the day tied to churches, magazines and books. There was nothing like The Christian left. We created a haven where Christian Progressives and their allies could discuss the issues of the day free from fighting or harassment. Anyone who wanted to be be here was welcome, and still is. We offer strength, encouragement, prayer, whatever. 350,000 strong! That took 9 years of us showing up every day and being here all day and most of the night. We hope you keep coming back. You are what keeps the place interesting and attracts more people who think in the sane manner, Godly and progressive, they are similar in many ways. The teachings of Jesus are simple. They require no Master of Divinity. Read his words often. He said he was here to teach us a new path and establish a new covenant. Why would we not give his words and actions supremacy? To the surprise of many they revolve around treating one another the way he treated us while on earth, with forgiveness, mercy, loyalty, long-suffering, kindness, service. These are the teachings that honor God. We honor God by at least working on it and practicing the ways Jesus taught.  They take away food from people who don’t have enough as it is. They take away medical care from those who will suffer and die without it. They take away housing assistance and force people to live on the violent streets. They give gigantic tax cuts to people who don’t even need them and increase taxes on the poor and the middle class. They bully and pick on the vulnerable (the easiest targets in their minds), the LGBTQ, pregnant women in bad situations, undocumented people brought here as children who know no other country but America. They keep wages artificially flat for decades while the cost of living skyrockets. They go home and stand in front of their constituencies and congregations and tell them they are doing God’s work. They are ‘God’s party.’ They believe them. God has turned over all who participate in this to being of reprobate minds. It’s the only way you can swallow it Are we going to complain about this on the internet or take some actions?
Read Our Message: PLEASE OPEN -- Urgent Business from The Christian Left  Christian progressives and their allies are no longer isolated by their geographic location. Thanks to social media we broke down those doors 9 years ago. We can now interact and support one another in real time, 24,7. We’ve demonstrated that we’re serious, we’re loyal, and we’re in this for the long haul.
It wasn’t a day too soon that all this happened. This thing conservatives and Republicans have built is ugly, evil, and embarrassing … and it isn’t Christianity, not even by a long shot. Who votes as a block to take food away from hungry people, take healthcare away from the sick and injured, take housing away from the homeless and take away needed resources for the elderly? Who elects some of the most vile men you can imagine just to win this evil policy game? "Blah, blah, blah … Bring it into the storehouse. None of that is the government’s job.” They’ve been screaming that lie for decades. And that’s what it is, a big, fat lie. You can take it into the storehouse alright, so the pastor can build a new wing and write another book. The masters of the storehouse had Jesus killed because he was disrupting their little business of power and prestige. Jesus saw right through their little game and warned his disciples: “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” -- Luke 20:45-47 There are thousands of wonderful pastors and churches out there as well, and they're doing great work. Many are now LGBT inclusive. They do what they can to help the least of these in society, but they know very well it's a much bigger problem than churches can be expected to solve alone. The needs are far too great. Progressive, reasonable, Bible-based churches know we're all going to have to cooperate though government policy and programs to solve some of these massive problems. In the Old Testament God ordered resources to be brought in and stored in towns, to be distributed to those who lacked basic necessities. Towns are public entities. They are governments. "At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and shall deposit it in your town. The Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the alien, the orphan and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do." -- Deuteronomy 14:28-29 Taking care of the vulnerable and the least of these in society is everyone’s job, individuals, families, businesses, and the government. The Bible is full of examples from beginning to end of God being highly displeased with Kings and Queens who didn’t care for the vulnerable. What compounds the evil they do is that the wealthy have been hoarding money for decades. The economy is booming right now. Money is flowing lavishly all around the world. There’s just one problem. It’s all staying in the hands of a very small group of people. There’s more than enough money for state-of-the-art universal healthcare in the US. There’s more than enough to give people long overdue raises, rebuild infrastructure, finance public education at least through 2 years of college, bring back manufacturing, bring back pensions, etc. It’s never enough for them, ever, and the Bible clearly states that. While they obsess on people’s family planning choices and bedroom practices as a decoy, they grind the least of these into the dirt and call it Christian. It’s so sick. It’s so wrong. It’s so evil. It’s gone too far. It’s gone on for too long. It’s going to get worse if this community and others like it don’t step up boldly and boldly speak up. It's not even their money. It's God's money. Furthermore, they didn't accumulate that money in a vacuum. We live in a cooperative society. Everyone serves everyone else in different capacities. The problem is that the majority of the people do the majority of the work and the small minority at the top walk off with majority of the rewards. The economic system is so profoundly rigged it spins the mind. We’ve always been willing to take this message as far and as wide as we can take it. Frankly, the only thing that has stopped us is financial resources. Promotion costs money. We’d buy a full page in the New York Times next week if we could. That would make some news. We appreciate all the donations we’ve ever received. It’s getting to be emergency time with this thing conservatives have created. It’s time that we Christian progressives make some demands and then broadcast them to society at large. We need to demand that they quit representing themselves as the spokespeople for Christianity in the US. They need to stop calling what they do as representative of “Christian Values,” “Moral Values,” Family Values,” or any other kind of values except evil values that have no basis in anything but greed and power. November 28th was #GivingTuesday, a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media. #GivingTuesday kicks off the season when many focus on holiday and end-of-year giving. It was started in 2012 as a response to the commercialization and consumerism of the post-Thanksgiving season (Black Friday and Cyber Monday). Are you a year-end giver? Do you see what’s going on? Do you see what we’ve described above as the truth? Donate what you can. We’re not going to run off and stop what we’re doing. We’re going to stay right where we are and multiply what we’re doing. We hope you keep us in mind from today through the end of the year in your year-end giving. We don't appreciate Christian organizations who speak up about politics and hide behind tax havens, so we don't do it. We pay our taxes. As a result contributions are not tax deductible. It's still a great cause though. Many tell us before they found us they thought they were the only ones. That's how isolated Christian progressives are in many parts of the country. We just renewed our broadcast e-mail service for another year. It wasn’t cheap. No one does what we’ve been doing for 9 years if they aren’t serious. This is a critical time in history. That’s not hyperbole. Millions are unaware this movement exists. They think conservative, Republican “Christians” are the only kind of Christians there are, and they’re running away from them in droves. Jesus could use some new spokespeople right about now, people who actually focus on what he actually taught. Maybe you are that group of people at this time in history. Lord knows the time is ripe for some truth to be spoken. People are hungry for it. The teachings of Jesus are simple. They always renew. They always give life. They always expose evil by simply being held up as a contrast. The contrast couldn’t be more stark than it is now. We’ve dramatically simplified our donation process. Click here to contribute. If you prefer mail our address is: The Christian Left 2001 NW Aloclek Dr. Box #108 Hillsboro, OR 97124 Sincerely, The Christian Left |
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Charles Toy is the founding member of The Christian Left. We're sure you will enjoy his passion as well as his wit. Guest bloggers featured often.
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