A pastor, citing the murder of political activist Charlie Kirk, has called for his neighbors to take down their “Hate Has No Home Here” signs, claiming those messages endorse political violence against people like him.
Yet, at the same time that he called upon his critics to tone down their rhetoric, Andrew Isker escalated his own language, angrily demanding vengeance against those he perceives to be his political enemies.
It baffles me that those at the highest rungs of religion aren’t condemning this crap. They’re so far from Jesus’ teachings they’re not even Christian anymore. That’s precisely why I left the religion. The atheists I know are more Christ-like than any of them.
There aren’t really any “highest rungs” of American protestantism. You get ordained as a minister or pastor by another minister or pastor, often with no real qualifiers or prerequisites, and then you get to just go off and do whatever you want in the name of God.
It’s not like catholicism where there’s a hierarchy and central authority everyone needs to report to. People just get ordained, start a church wherever, and that apparently qualifies them as de facto authority figure for a community.
There are still leaders in every denomination. Even in Catholicism I see this hate mongering bullshit.
I’m an ordained minister in The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No lie, got the cert, carry the card. Which is, of course, the joke.