The Evangelical Christian Movement – Goals and Methods

133 thoughts on The Evangelical Christian Movement – Goals and Methods

1. Hi Kristen,

   The “sermon” link is broken. It just goes back to Feministe.

2. About 8 years ago, when I still considered myself Catholic, I work at a small business that was run by Evangelicals. The owner of the business encouraged me to attend a breakfast meeting of a Christian Business Women’s Group. I looked up to her as a successful female role model, so I went, thinking I could make some good business contacts and at least get a free breakfast.

   The first part of the meeting consisted of everyone going around and introducing themselves and saying where they worked and what church they attended. The group was overwhelmingly Evangelical, non-denominational protestant. When I introduced myself as Catholic, I swear people did double-takes and could barely conceal their shock/horror.

   Then we got to the speaker. She talked about how we, as Christian business women, could use our positions of power to make the world a more “Godly” place. She told us our success and our places in our communities would give us opportunities to enforce moral behavior on everyone else. The example she gave that most stands out in my mind involved Marilyn Manson. She told a story about how Marilyn Manson was doing a concert tour. (It was a given in this story that MM is evil and a tool of Satan who must be stopped.) In one town that was a tour stop, the local Christian leadership approached the town government to ask them to prevent MM from having a concert there. The government said they couldn’t do that because it was censorship and so the concert was held and all those poor children were corrupted and possibly motivated to shoot up their schools. In another town, the owners of all the concert venues were godly people who go together and decided no one would provide their space to MM for a concert. So, the moral of the story was that by being successful in business, we could put ourselves in positions of power to suppress anything we deemed morally corrupt.

   As soon as the talk was over, I high-tailed it out of their without even stopping to grab some of the free breakfast. Even as a devout Christian, I thought what they were plotting was completely evil and antithetical to a free society. Then I had to make up some excuse every time my boss* invited me to a future event.

   *Remind me to tell you about the time this evangelical boss made all her employees pray to cast evil spirits out of our office space. Or the time she made me pray over audit reports I was having trouble with. Or the monthly “character-building” meetings she made us have. Or the time she cheated on her third husband with a married male employee, breaking up both marriage and destroying the business. True Story.

3. I’ve been wondering when the issue of services was going to come up in this series. I would like to know: How are you envisioning a transition away from services provided by churches? I imagine in an urban area one can send people to a secular equivalent, but in a rural one. . . not so much. In my town, the food bank is staffed by church volunteers, and I’m not so sure that it wasn’t built by church money (given that it stands on church property.) If you take out the religious input, there isn’t a secular or government agency that can come in and take up the slack; that service is just gone. I don’t think that there is any proselytizing going on there, but in other cases — for instance, after-school church programs for kids in elementary school — the religious component is part-and-parcel with the service (i.e. free childcare.) (As far as pregnancy centers go, my town is not big enough to really have any of those services that I know of.)

   Probably overstepping here, but I would also guess that in minority communities receiving services from a local church might be less overwhelming/less impossible/more tailored to specific needs than trying to get government services.

   I know that many churches target vulnerable people with evangelism (the young, the depressed, the recently bereaved, etc. etc.) But, again, while this practice is unethical, it is also true that churches provide (admittedly inconsistent) mental health services where they are not otherwise available. Sure, receiving these services are contingent on being a Christian or at least appearing willing to consider Christianity, which is not ideal — but again, they are often thriving because there is no equivalent secular service available, particularly one that (sometimes) comes with a built-in support group.

   So. . . what are you thinking is the appropriate response to this kind of church activity? Discourage them legally from providing services unless they can prove they’re not evangelizing with them? Push for more government services and hope they will eventually out-compete church services? I am cynical, in that I doubt efforts to discourage churches from providing services are not going disproportionately affect on those who can’t look elsewhere, particularly in rural communities. I would be very interested to hear other people’s thoughts on how this might happen.

4. Jane, I wouldn’t argue that religious organizations should be prevented from providing social services. I think that (a) they should be prevented from deliberately lying to or misleading clients, as in CPCs; (b) they should not receive government funding to provide religiously tinged services; (c) the government should provide a comprehensive social safety net so no one is forced to rely on religious groups to get their basic needs met.

5. I was thinking along the lines of where entry routes for the exploitation of welfare services are given that evangelicals seem to be making inroads in latin america, as far as I understood, by providing the same kind of services.

   (Incidentally, this is also Hamas’, the Muslim Brotherhood’s, and Hezbollah’s MO)

   So when Jane writes:

   If you take out the religious input, there isn’t a secular or government agency that can come in and take up the slack; that service is just gone.

   this is right up my alley.

   The thing is, there is no objective reason why there would not be such a secular or government agency. Non-religious versions of this exist in Europe and as far as my limited understanding of US history applies, they used to exist in the US as well (weren’t Depression-era soup kitchens government run?). There has however been a concerted effort to push the state out of all kind of welfare operations under the neoliberal guise of a “need to cut the budget deficit”. And those two developments then feed each other. There’s no objective reason why the federal government (or state governments for that matter) cannot set up a far more extensive social security net and remove propaganda opportunities for evangelicals.
   What’s needed for that transition is political will, however, and that seems to be missing.

6. I’ve been wondering if I would consider this Evangelical, or simply (very) Southern Protestant, but here are some of the things I experienced growing up:

   1) The school board prohibited English teachers from discussing themes of homosexuality in fiction

   2) Evolution had to be presented as one of two scientific “options.”

   3) Assemblies so Jesus-centric that our three Jewish teachers got up and walked out of the auditorium.

   4) No sex ed.

   5) Wicca posters defaced and torn down with the tacit encouragement of school officials.

   And that’s just what happened in school/what I could connect with voting or influence on public policy. Outside of school, I had:

   1) Charity given on the understanding that it was Christian charity, and I had better welcome Jesus into my heart.

   2) Men in camo with hunting rifles storm the church, point the guns at the youth, and ask, if we killed you right now, would you go to heaven?

   3) Priests breaking confidence about my mother’s illness to ask the congregation to pray for her.

   But….I never really saw any of this as part of a separate movement from Christianity as a whole, I guess? Just a particular, Southern American, virulent strain of it. I just asked my grandmother when the mega-preachers/televangelists started to gain real power, and she dates it to around the late 60s. Not sure if that’s accurate or not.

7. @Aydan,

   I will attempt to fix. Thanks!

   @Chava,

   Those things seem pretty standard for the Evangelical Movement. In the south in particular I haven’t found many churches that weren’t Evangelical, but then I haven’t been everywhere. In the NE and California, christianity is sometimes more open and less interested in secular affairs.

   Televangelist are a new phenomenon, but megapastors aren’t. Prior to the widespread adoption of TV, they used to have enormous tent revivals in which a famous traveling minister would come to speak to enormous crowds. They were still pretty popular when I was a kid, but I think the internet finally killed them. Still, if you ever want to see something that will scare the shit out of you go to one of the small ones they have every once in a while. *shiver*

8. The difficulty is that when I say what I have experienced out loud, it sounds so ludicrous that I wonder if anyone will take me seriously.

   I just want to say that I’m sorry for this, Kristen J. It sounds so much like what I’ve read/heard survivors of childhood or relationship abuse say–that they fear nobody will believe them because the experiences are unbelievable. Obviously nobody deserves to feel that way, and it is very upsetting to me to think of a smart, tough, funny woman like you being made to feel that way.

9. When I was much younger, me and a group of my friends hitchhiked across the country to the rainbow gathering. When the weather was bad, we’d stay in homeless shelters. We avoided Christian run shelters like the plague because they’d often take all your belongings and lock them up, then force you to sit through a sermon before allowing you to have a room. One actually locked you IN your room at night. So all your things are taken from you, you’re forced to listen to a sermon and then you’re locked into a small room. Sure they helped you, but you paid for it one way or another. One of the men running the “lock you in a cell” shelter decided he’d take that opportunity to come into a girls room and rape her. Her room was next to mine and I spent 3 hours beating and kicking the door trying to get out to stop it. I heard her screaming the whole time.

   Not one of those shelter workers came to check.

   No one called the police, no one stopped him and they blackballed me from ever being able to stay in their shelter ever again when I raged into the office the next morning to report that rape.

   All the money is my pack- Gone. Some of my clothes- gone.

   From that night on, we stayed in fields overnight instead of homeless shelters.

10. Those things seem pretty standard for the Evangelical Movement. In the south in particular I haven’t found many churches that weren’t Evangelical, but then I haven’t been everywhere. In the NE and California, christianity is sometimes more open and less interested in secular affairs.

    Huh. That…actually makes a lot of sense. I’ve had a very hard time getting over my kneejerk reaction to any Christians, anywhere, which has occasionally been a problem w/liberal Christian friends since I moved to the NE. On the other hand, we have Santorum, so clearly it isn’t confined to the South/Midwest.
    (California I always associated with the CoS, so that’s a whole different can of worms).

11. I live in Australia, which has no where the same kind of Christian influence, and reading these posts is utterly horrifying.

    If you changed some of the names, it would be entirely conceivable that you were talking about hardline Iranian clerics.

    What do you think accounts for the significant disparity in religiosity between the States and most of the rest of the West?

12. Erm, Latin America still has plenty of Christian influence, LePen regularly gets 20% of the vote in France, and large chunks of Europe are still very Catholic–so I’m not sure if the States actually have more of a problem as regards Christianity than the rest of “the West.”

13. Erm, Latin America still has plenty of Christian influence, LePen regularly gets 20% of the vote in France, and large chunks of Europe are still very Catholic–so I’m not sure if the States actually have more of a problem as regards Christianity than the rest of “the West.”

    Since when was Latin America considered part of the West?

    In regards to LePen:

    In the presidential elections of 2002, Le Pen obtained 16.86% of the votes in the first round of voting. This was enough to qualify him for the second round, as a result of the poor showing by the PS candidate and incumbent prime minister Lionel Jospin and the scattering of votes among 15 other candidates. This was a major political event, both nationally and internationally, as it was the first time someone with such far right views had qualified for the second round of the French presidential elections. There was a widespread stirring of national public opinion, and more than one million people in France took part in street rallies; slogans such as “vote for the crook, not the fascist” were heard in an expression of fierce opposition to Le Pen’s ideas.

    Secularism is far, far higher in Europe than the United States. I don’t understand how you can dispute that point?

    If you are still unsatisfied, please read the following
    http://www.pewglobal.org/2002/12/19/among-wealthy-nations/

14. 1) It’s her, not him. Marine LePen has been the primary voice of the FN in recent years.

    2) Yes, Christian secularism is more widely accepted in parts of Europe. I would argue that prevailing customs and laws are still very, very Christian. Let’s see–the French get Annunciation off as a state holiday, numerous saint’s days, etc. You can’t sound the call to prayer or build a minaret higher than a church steeple, but you can ring church bells every Sunday. You legally cannot have a shop open w/o a special permit on Sunday. Abortion law in many European states is more or equally regressive than in the States. I’m just saying, it’s more complicated than “US crazy! Europe great!”

    3) I was critiquing your unexamined use of “the West,” to mean “the US and a few countries in Western Europe,” not trying to argue that Latin America is contained within that (and silly) usage.

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16. Televangelist are a new phenomenon, but megapastors aren’t. Prior to the widespread adoption of TV, they used to have enormous tent revivals in which a famous traveling minister would come to speak to enormous crowds.

    Before they were televangelists, they were “radio preachers”. There was a huge resurgance in revival-tent preaching during the Depression, and the radio was how many became the “famous traveling ministers” became famous (as opposed to just being regional figures). Bob Jones Sr. (Bob Jones University founder) was one of the pioneers of radio ministry as well as a major tent revival preacher.

17. All the above said, though–Evangelism is arguably a definitively American phenomenon. Evangelizing, , however, is not. Neither is the (invisible) dominance of Christian values.

    BTW, Italy is unquestionably part of “the West,” and last I heard an old man with a funny hat lived there who was pretty damn invested in controlling world politics. He’s had less success in Europe and the US than in Latin and Central America, but nonetheless.

18. Not surprisingly, the US is anything but monolithic in it’s degree of religiosity… as is Europe. Here is a world map that shows religiosity by country. The accompanying article presents data on the most and least religious portions of the US and compares this data with other countries.

    The US is a friggin’ huge place with a lot of cultural variation from one place to another. It’s easy to forget that because we’re all stuffed inside of the same geopolitical boarders.

19. Here’s a map of religiosity for the US.

20. @5

    Re: the similarities between US Evangelical political and social service organizations and Middle Eastern equivalents… the same thought popped into my head. The Muslim Brotherhood can be considered equivalent to the Christian Coalition of the 90s (I don’t think an equivalent umbrella organization exists today). I shudder to think of the stunts Christian literalist organizations would attempt to pull if they were operating in a socioeconomic context closer to those that exist in the Middle East than in the global hegemon

21. Daisy said:

    Before they were televangelists, they were “radio preachers”.

    In a sense, this still continues. In the Twin Cities and surrounding area, there are five religious radio stations (if I’m counting correctly). Although, they seem to play Christian pop music more than preach.

22. @Contag

    Two horrifying World Wars.
    The first of which featured attrition warfare, human waves, machine guns, chemical weapons, and some of the largest scale shelling ever witnessed.
    The second of which featured widespread strategic bombing that hit industrial and civilian targets and left many European cities in ruins.

23. Its sad that it has taken till the early 2000s for the power of the JeeFrees to begin to wain. Sadly the backlash has now begun. Stupid Santorum.

24. @broken: Do you mean that the wars caused the waning of religion in Europe? Shouldn’t suffering and hardship normally be expected to cause more religiosity?

25. So. . . what are you thinking is the appropriate response to this kind of church activity? Discourage them legally from providing services unless they can prove they’re not evangelizing with them?

    Discourage them from being able to have any contact with anyone or any input into anything. They do indeed share an MO with Hezbollah and Hamas and since I am American and not Israeli I gave up all my work against those groups to combat the Evangelicals instead.

    There is nothing they can do for anyone that would be worth letting them get a foothold. Their organizations just shouldn’t exist.

26. Contag, I also live in Australia. I cannot believe the level of xian influence over here, on par with the US I would have thought. Here however it would seem, by design, to travel under the radar.
    In a 1 trillion dollar economy Max Wallace (the purple economy) estimates $30 billion in government transfers to religious organisations. Homeless shelters, counselling services, education,…the list goes on and on.
    Prayer fellowships in parliament, the emerging xian nation theme. Oh, they are well on the way to gaining control of the political system by stealth, justified in timothy as I understand it.
    The xian theocracy is well ’embedded’ here!

27. Contag, I also live in Australia. I cannot believe the level of xian influence over here, on par with the US I would have thought. Here however it would seem, by design, to travel under the radar.
    In a 1 trillion dollar economy Max Wallace (the purple economy) estimates $30 billion in government transfers to religious organisations. Homeless shelters, counselling services, education,…the list goes on and on.
    Prayer fellowships in parliament, the emerging xian nation theme. Oh, they are well on the way to gaining control of the political system by stealth, justified in timothy as I understand it.
    The xian theocracy is well ’embedded’ here!

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29. Discourage them from being able to have any contact with anyone or any input into anything. They do indeed share an MO with Hezbollah and Hamas and since I am American and not Israeli I gave up all my work against those groups to combat the Evangelicals instead.

    There is nothing they can do for anyone that would be worth letting them get a foothold. Their organizations just shouldn’t exist.

    And how would we discourage private organizations or private individuals from providing social services? And, since this series and its commentators can’t even figure out how to accurately define “Evangelical Christian”, how would we put together our list of religious organizations that are forbidden to provide private charitable services?

    And most leadingly, who do you think is going to have the power to make those lists of religious groups who practices are constrained because they have bad politics? And who do you think they are going to put on those lists?

30. @annalouise

    It is impossible to distinguish between the, what 2500 odd, forms of xianity and no need, from an administrative point of view, to bother. Just remove special treatment from the tax system and exclude any form of government transfer to religious organisations. Done.

31. Just reading this makes me cringe. I have witnessed all of it happen and more. I would say that getting involved in school board elections is more of a “liberal” evangelical thing. From my experience, all public schools are seen as nothing more than breeding grounds for devil worship and teen pregnancy. A “good” fundamentalist would either home school (regardless of their own educational level), or put the kids in a private Christian school (even if that “school” is in the churches basement). After that, the graduates (mainly the men) can go onto Bob Jones or something even more conservative. Did anyone else here ever have to do ACE curriculum?

    One of the worst things I have witnessed is the “help” for pregnant women. Essentially, give us your baby so we can adopt it out to “respectable parents”. And they only give you this option. If you want to keep your baby you’re not going to find any help with these organizations.

32. So many awesome comments! But first, I fixed the link. WOOT!
    @pheeno,
    I know shit like that happens all over, but I am so sorry that you experienced that.
    @Contag,
    I think in the US, evangelicalism tends to fit quite neatly with our own sense of nationalistic pride.
    @Daisy,
    I can’t believe I forgot about the radio ministry!
    ***
    As for the question of what the hell do we do about it, I think BigRed is right. We have to build up secular services. In my view the reliance on charitable services has been a deliberate effort rather than an unintended consequence of “deficit reduction.” Remove the tax exempt status of any charity that proselytizes and cut all federal, state and local funding. Spend the extra dough on making sure that every person has the resources they need. Of course getting the political will to do that in this country is like…I don’t know…trying to turn the moon into cheese.

33. @annalouise

    And, since this series and its commentators can’t even figure out how to accurately define “Evangelical Christian”, how would we put together our list of religious organizations that are forbidden to provide private charitable services?

    I’m curious; what makes your definition more valid than Kristen J.’s?

34. In terms of “government transfers”: Where should we make up the enormous gap in social services that would be left when all religious organizations no longer are able to distribute public dollars to those who need them? Who is going to fill that gap of administrative capacity? For one tiny, tiny example: if religious groups are no longer able to receive tax payer funding to run daycare services, how would you recommend we fill that sudden and dramatic gap in the ability for people who receive daycare subsidies to spend those subsidies?

    In terms of the idea that taxing religious institutions will stop the (undefined) “evangelical movement”, it’s ludicrous on multiple levels. 1)The idea that tax break is that big a deal on the individual level of laughable. Sorry y’all. I’m not going to stop donating to my church just ’cause it’s no longer a tax write-off. And even aggregated up to the institutional level, and considering the financial problems most religious institutions are having these days, it’s still pretty ludicrous to think that $5,000 or so in lost revenue is going to keep my church clergy from preaching political messages or encouraging the congregation to base their votes on certain issues, or to talk about the immorality of certain laws.
    I may not like the religiously based political opinions of some people, but I give them the respect to assume that that people on the grassroots of these movements genuinely hold those beliefs and can’t be bought of for a few thousands dollars in tax money.

35. @annalouise

    Please demonstrate your claim, with evidence, of an “…enormous gap in social services”. Form that evidence we can do a comparative cost analysis between theistic and secular service providers.
    I’m glad you agree that religious institutions don’t need any special tax treatment. If you are representative of the xian community and recognise the concerns of secularists you would no doubt support legislative change to that effect.
    As to charitable donations to theistic groups; again, some numbers would help.

36. @konkonsn,

    Well, I think for one, Kristen J is pretty arbitrary about how she is combining very different strains of Evangelical Christianity while excluding other strains. And commentators seem to be even more confused because several people have mentioned Catholics (which is, granted, kind of complicated because of how some Catholics and Evangelicals have combined forces, but conservative Catholics are a very different group with a distinct subculture from evangelical Christians), and Jehovah’s Witnesses (who have, essentially, no part in the Evangelical movement and pretty apolitical)

    At the same time, The Fellowship is (obviously) very influential politically but it’s hardly a grass-roots group and it’s theology is very strange and would be foreign to most Evangelicals. And yet they are not distinguished. Which is fine, since the Fellowship is just a very weird animal.

    But, to decide that the Fellowship and Mark Driscoll have more in common than Rob Bell and Mark Driscoll is just arbitrary and silly. They both are youtube Christian celebrities, who have a similar tactic of marketing Evangelical “non-denominiational” ideas to the young and semi-hip. Their churches even have the same name! But despite Rob Bell self-identifying as Evangelical, leading a huge evangelical mega-church and being a best-selling author of Evangelical books, and the topic of seemingly endless Evangelical magazine articles and books etc, he’s summarily dismissed as not a part of the Evangelical movement. Because, um, we aren’t interested in talking about Rob Bell?

    Meanwhile, when talking about religious organizations that run social services…the assumption seems to be that they are all run by Evangelicals-as-defined-by-Kristen.

37. In terms of the idea that taxing religious institutions will stop the (undefined) “evangelical movement”, it’s ludicrous on multiple levels. 1)The idea that tax break is that big a deal on the individual level of laughable. Sorry y’all. I’m not going to stop donating to my church just ’cause it’s no longer a tax write-off. And even aggregated up to the institutional level, and considering the financial problems most religious institutions are having these days, it’s still pretty ludicrous to think that $5,000 or so in lost revenue is going to keep my church clergy from preaching political messages or encouraging the congregation to base their votes on certain issues, or to talk about the immorality of certain laws.

    By talking only about the effect of eliminating charitable deductions, you are entirely ignoring the enormous and far more important effect that subjecting churches to income taxation and property taxes would have. For one thing: far less money for them to pour into causes like opposition to same-sex marriage.

38. @annalouise,

    It’s called taxes. People should pay them. If you want to continue giving to your church, that’s awesome. If your church wishes to “minister” to people, fine.

    But you shouldn’t get a tax break for doing it. And more taxes will have to be paid on a local, state and federal level to create the support for people who don’t want to send their kids to day care in a place where they are told their friends are sinners who will burn in hell for all eternity. And if its not such a big deal why did the community have a cow when Obama’s exec order came out?

    I don’t give a flying fuck about “stopping” the Evangelical Movement. Its been here for nearly 300 years, it will probably last another 300. I care about ameliorating harm. You seem to be completely glossing over that harm to make some point about what exactly?

39. Please demonstrate your claim, with evidence, of an “…enormous gap in social services”.

    I know that in the area where I live the only homeless shelters are run by churches and religious organizations and the only non-theistic organization that feed the homeless only operates one day a week for a couple of hours each week.

40. @Annalouise,

    I’m talking about political and social power not religious doctrine. I’m talking about the evangelical groups that are exerting power in ways that harm people (and yes, that includes self-identified evangelical catholics). The connection is the exercise of power towards common goals. The Fellowship fits in that category as do many other groups that actively hate each other.

41. @Colin

    I’m not arguing that secular organizations would not be able to provide social services equally well (if not better) than religious organizations. I’m saying that secular organizations providing social services do not exist in great enough numbers to meet the demand that would be left from removing religious organizations from the funds to do so.

    As an example, in this list of food bank partners for SE Michigan, 13 of the 20 food pantries listed in Livingston County are religiously run (and I only counted ones that I know are religiously run). In my county, the food pantry run jointly by the church/synagogue is the only food pantry that doesn’t require id or limit how many times you can visit per month. If there is a genuine desire to push religious organizations out of the social service sphere, then it is going to take a great deal of effort, energy, time and money by secular groups of individuals to fill that gap.

42. To the people nitpicking over Kristen J.’s working definition of the Evangelical Movement – do you have a better idea of how to frame this movement in terms that still facilitate discussion? Of course we are going to have to gloss over some differences if we’re even going to attempt to discuss right-wing Christian movements as a whole. It doesn’t particularly matter which individual people or sects share these goals and methods – what is important is understanding the tactics of our political opponents so that we may counter them more effectively.

    Or are people just obfuscating on purpose? Some people just can’t handle the idea that their religion might look bad, I suppose.

43. @annalouise

    So your only concern is the logistics of the transfer of responsibility? Governments are established specifically to function in this role. Governments deliver secular services by establishing bureaucratic structures to deliver these services. All that is required to institute public (secular) management of these services is the stroke of a legislative pen.

44. Which secular group do we anticipate (which SPECIFIC secular group) will step up to feed poor people, shelter the homeless, take in the exploited, and do all the boring workaday grunt work of caring for the disadvantaged if we don’t want churches to do it?

    Be specific, please. Are YOU going to do it? Are you going to get your hands dirty and actually do it? Or just tell everyone else how they are doing it wrong?

    Because people need that help. Not kids hitchhiking to rainbow gatherings (SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK) but people who have no other options.

    Sorry to tell you this, but a lot of people who need help also LIKE the religious aspect, because they believe in it and find it comforting. Will you sneer at them too?

45. Oh, @annalouise, anecdotes do not constitute evidence.

46. On topic @guest blogger, I hope you cover the derailing of public debate with a barrage of empty rhetoric.

47. Which secular group do we anticipate (which SPECIFIC secular group) will step up to feed poor people, shelter the homeless, take in the exploited, and do all the boring workaday grunt work of caring for the disadvantaged if we don’t want churches to do it?

    Be specific, please.

    How about our government? Of the people, by the people, for the people, and so on.

    Ending the religious tax exemption would provide lots of funding, but now I’m just dreaming.

48. @Iris

    There are many secular groups that perform similar functions. But we can always create a new one. We’ll call it the Chi Foundation. And yeah, I’ll get my hands “dirty.” (WTF?) I’ve been doing it for more than a decade why would I stop now? I know people need that help. I’ve been homeless, I’ve been dependent on food banks. I spent much of my childhood in those free daycare centers.

    Again, its shocking to me that in the face of stories of abuse like that related by pheenobarbidoll people are still glossing over the harm caused by these organizations.

    And if people *want* the religious side dish, go right ahead. No one here has argued that all churches should be disbanned by order of Kristen J.

49. Because people need that help. Not kids hitchhiking to rainbow gatherings (SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK) but people who have no other options.

    Did you seriously just trivialize the rape pheenob observed and the treatment she and her friends received because she wasn’t desperate enough? Really?

    Preying on desperation to spread your message makes you evil. The fact that you might keep some people from starving in the meantime doesn’t do a whole lot to mitigate that, IMO. It’s a pretty *&^%! low bar.

50. Sorry to tell you this, but a lot of people who need help also LIKE the religious aspect, because they believe in it and find it comforting. Will you sneer at them too?

    I guess the people who don’t want to be preached at don’t even matter, then. How about only holding a service for the people who do want it? Make it truly voluntary, no guilt trips or pressure or anything. Or would helping the needy just not be worth it if your church doesn’t get a coerced audience in return?

51. So the government is going to do it? Which party, the party of Mitt fucking Romney, or the party that killed AFDC?

52. On topic @guest blogger, I hope you cover the derailing of public debate with a barrage of empty rhetoric.

    Hahaha! I had a whole section on it that followed the “distracting from governing” line above, but I figured people have talked about that all over the place.

    Mr. Kristen J. made an interesting observation which I totally deleted in trying to reduce the word count for the OP which is that the greatest danger the Movement poses is its almost unstoppable ability to always re-frame to its own point of view. We call forced birthers “pro-life”. We *debate* the existence of global warming (rather than moving to solutions) or the validity of non-“traditional” values (rather than listening and learning from one another). Their position is always the default that others are fighting against. In that way the anti-contraceptive/prophylactic movement has been fascinating (and horrifying) to me…because we again seem to be ceding the frame. Its now about “sluts” wanting to have sex. Where as I remember just a decade ago we were encouraging people to have responsible sex.

53. A secular government @Iris Tyto Alba.

54. Okay, so we’re defining “the evangelical movement” as institutions that both are Protestant evangelical and are active in pushing for a far-right social agenda. And I”m actually cool with that working definition, even though it’s a muddy one (and I think we ignore the very culturally influential “Prosperity Gospel” movement, which is slightly less far right socially, but extremely far right economically, at our peril). And we miss some of the unique dog whistles of the right wing Catholic movement, and i really don’t know how we can talk about The Fellowship, …but I’ll go with this.

    Why emphasize religious social service providers as an important element of the Evangelical movement? Do far-right evangelical institutions provide a disproportionate amount of social services compared to other religious groups? (That’s not a jerk question. I really don’t know the answer and now I’m curious.) Do you think that the ability to provide social services is an important element of the evangelical movement’s ability to influence the political structure? If so, why? (again, not jerk-ass questions) Is maintaining the ability to run social service organizations in and of itself a high priority in the Evangelical movement?
    And here’s the jerk-ass question: What are the negative side-effect of focusing energy on this aspect of Evangelical organizations to all religious people and to consumers of services? And it’s a jerk-ass question because it seems like all your solutions cause a lot more negative effects on religious groups as a whole and are somewhat vague on how they would prevent harm to consumers of services.

    Other jerk-ass question: Who are the collateral damage of framing an argument against far-right evangelicals as a desire to keep religious institutions from engaging in politics, considering our existing political climate?

55. @Iris Tyto Alba — your question was hypothetical. So is my answer.

56. So the government is going to do it? Which party, the party of Mitt fucking Romney, or the party that killed AFDC?

    The government that is actually in office…?

    I’d wager that almost everyone here on Feministe is in favour of lobbying for a better social safety net that is enshrined in legislature, rather than a scattershot group of separate orgs relying on private donations.

    At any rate, this is a dumb derail. Nobody is telling churches to stop feeding people. We’re telling them to keep their propaganda to themselves when they’re feeding people. You know, practicing actual altruism instead of coercive bullshit.

57. The part of your post about the pharmacy reminded me of something that happened to one of my friends. She miscarried, and she was given a prescription (I don’t remember the name of the drug) that she tried to fill at a large chain pharmacy. The only pharmacist on duty refused to fill her prescription because (according to him) it was something that was prescribed after an abortion. He then started to preach to her (and from what she told me he seemed to be evangelical).

    I was in law school at the time and was so righteous and angry that I drove the 45 miles to tell this guy off, report to his boss, and then write to the corporation. She did get her prescription filled, but not until being subjected to shame and a major hassle when she was grieving over losing her pregnancy (which she wanted).

    What really gets to me, though, is that when I tell this story to people in urban areas like NYC, there are a lot of people who literally don’t believe it happened. As much political power as these evangelicals have, they still seem to fly under the radar a lot, which is actually even more dangerous.

58. @guest blogger, massive problem I know.

    The only solution I can see is to establish, at the domain level, a secular space, free from religion. With the discussion limited to secularists, meaningful policy and organisational structures can be established. The fragmentation of the secular community seems the primary obstacle to this and a secular ‘domain’ adequately policed would, I think, be an attractive option for many.

    I am not at all concede the public space here, which can still be engaged through media releases and reflection on public opinion; the learning process still goes on. A quite space, free from prosthelysation in the form of opinion, seems little to ask

59. @annalouise,

    If you read the last post again, you might notice I was including the “prosperity” evangelicals – hence Joyce Meyer and evangelical catholics. And you seem to be focused on the political, but I’m focused on the *harm.* Evangelicals providing social services in areas where there are no alternatives are causing *harm.* If they want to stop harming people, I have no problem with them providing services.

    Name a negative consequence to Evangelicals of not allowing them to sermonize while providing services? And who said anything about preventing Evangelicals from engaging in politics?

60. Governments are established specifically to function in this role. Governments deliver secular services by establishing bureaucratic structures to deliver these services. All that is required to institute public (secular) management of these services is the stroke of a legislative pen.

    If it were that simple then the theist organizations wouldn’t need to step up in the first place.

61. If it were that simple then the theist organizations wouldn’t need to step up in the first place.

    But is that really what happened? Or did people pressure the government to stop spending on social safety nets because we could rely on charities?

62. Stopping in my tracks in the middle of your article for a moment: got just a few hours of sleep last night and missed your very understated sarcasm when you so smoothly referenced the Obama Administration’s “Anti-Christ Program.” I was all jolted full of hope and rejuvenation for a fleeting second…

63. “If it were that simple then the theist organizations wouldn’t need to step up in the first place.” Oh but @Angel H., it would be just that simple if not for the discriminatory cultural, political and financial power of evangelising ‘dominionist’ theists.

64. @igglanova:

    At any rate, this is a dumb derail. Nobody is telling churches to stop feeding people. We’re telling them to keep their propaganda to themselves when they’re feeding people. You know, practicing actual altruism instead of coercive bullshit.

    First of all, it’s not a “dumb derail” because as much as people want to talk about Evangelicals taking advantages of people who need their help, the fact is that **people need their help**. As for “practicing actual altruism instead of coercive bullshit”: getting them to stop prosletyzing isn’t going to stop happening anytime soon. Even with the executive order, there are plenty of organizations out there – including the rescue mission I currently stay at – that receives 100% of their operating costs from donations and are therefore exempt. So, what do you do?

    @Kristen J.:

    But is that really what happened? Or did people pressure the government to stop spending on social safety nets because we could rely on charities?

    Honestly, I don’t know. But whether it’s the fault of The People for pressuring the government or the government withholding from the people, I know that I can’t trust the government to have my best interests at heart. Mind, I’m not 100% behind the work of some of the theist organizations. But currently, they do fill a necessary need to the extent that I have yet to see from non-theist organizations. If there are any out there – especially any in the Middle Tennessee area – please let me know. I would love to have more options.

65. Oh but @Angel H., it would be just that simple if not for the discriminatory cultural, political and financial power of evangelising ‘dominionist’ theists.

    Are these the same “evangelising ‘dominionist’ theists” that run the homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and children’s centers?

66. it is also true that churches provide (admittedly inconsistent) mental health services where they are not otherwise available.

    I trained to be a psychologist in the most competitive city in the country for high level mental health positions. Unpaid, highly skilled, extremely competitive, 1000+ hour externships are at a premium and you have to complete at least three if you realistically want to move forward in your program. That means three application processes with far more applicants than positions, which means that you start thinking about working places you would have never imagined working. Every single year I saw more and more Christian sites and they all had one thing in common: you were explicitly told that your application would not be considered if you were not a committed Christian willing to center your therapeutic work in biblical principles. Some of them said it right in the brochures, some of them didn’t say it until you were sitting at a job interview, but it was always clear that non-Christians need not apply. We’re not talking about ministry services, we’re talking about direct psychotherapeutic services to populations that were often not exclusively Christian.

    Evangelicals tended to go towards those programs. I remember one woman from a class quite well. She compared the APA’s stance that conversion therapy is unethical to the Nazis kicking Jews out of professional organizations and had a fondness for quoting the bible whenever LGBT issues came up, even if we were discussing case material. You can imagine how flexible and nuanced her clinical thought was.

    I’d be wary of any Church-sponsored mental health services.

67. The democrats killed AFDC–remember Bill Clinton? They bailed out wall street as much as the GOP did. They cut social services just slightly less drastically and frequently. They are no more the friend of the poor than the right wing is.

    Obama is an improvement over the last president in many ways, but when push comes to shove, he shoves poor people under the bus too. Welfare hand-outs for corporate bosses, but electric subsidies, a tiny sliver of the federal budget, get slashed. Real people are cold, hungry, and evicted from their dark apartments onto the street.

    Your hypotheticals are fucking worthless. Christian groups, for all their problems, ACTUALLY FEED PEOPLE AND PAY THEIR RENT. When are YOU going to do that?

68. But is that really what happened? Or did people pressure the government to stop spending on social safety nets because we could rely on charities?

    Exactly. This is actually a line I’ve heard a few times when arguing about social services with Republicans. They think that government should stay out of it and that charities will pick up the slack (although, if those charities are getting tax-exempted status, then…um?) The problem is that they want to set the terms of who gets what aid based on their moral convictions rather than (still problematic) hard figures like income or medical needs.

69. Or did people pressure the government to stop spending on social safety nets because we could rely on charities?

    I hear this argument all the time from fiscal conservatives- let the charities do it. What I always wonder is, what if they don’t? And I also wonder about the conditions they may place on the assitance, such as be Christian, or straight, or married to your baby’s father, or whatever.

70. @Angel H.

    If you correct the sentence to read; all the xian ‘…homeless shelters, soup kitchens,…’ and use secular definitions of ‘evangelise’, ‘dominionist’ and ‘theist’: YES!

71. @ Colin:

    All I did was use your exact quote. Whatever meaning you attach to you it is all on you.

72. Mr. Kristen J. made an interesting observation… that the greatest danger the Movement poses is its almost unstoppable ability to always re-frame to its own point of view.

    YES!! Or how about the right’s complete and total refusal to acknowledge that they want all sorts of “big government” for “everyone except themselves.” Instead, they just gloss right over all the government agencies that they expect to carry out and enforce their demands, and reframe it to say shit like, “That’s OUR tax money and WE say that poor people who use drugs can be condemned to starve before they put one more cent of OUR money into their mouths that we arbitrarily hate so much.”
    (Translation: We want the government to spend more tax money in order to systematically and consistently intrude upon the lives of welfare recipients in blatantly un-Constitutional ways. Because OUR money’s above the Constitution. And your Constitutional rights are expendable.)

    …or maybe they might say [direct quote, guess who]:
    “If WE are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, WE want something for it. WE want you to post the videos online so WE can all watch.”
    (Translation: Our tax dollars cancel out your tax dollars, both by virtue that, well, our tax money is OURS, and also because our momentous collection of Privileges ensures that we will always have more money to be taxed. So, we own you. And we want you dangling on invisible puppet strings, aka the government.)

73. Your hypotheticals are fucking worthless. Christian groups, for all their problems, ACTUALLY FEED PEOPLE AND PAY THEIR RENT. When are YOU going to do that?

    Iris, will you can the raving defensiveness for a moment and actually read what people wrote? We only want churches to stop trying to indoctrinate the people they’re helping out. You know, cut out the rotten bits and leave the fresh bits alone.

    By continuing this obstinate non-sequitur line of argument, you seem to be making the unspoken assertion that churches should be free from any scrutiny whatsoever just because they also sometimes feed the poor. Or, worse, that churches are entitled to use this imbalance of power howsoever they choose, and that any threat to this notion will be met with the petulant withdrawal of services. It’s either coercive giving or NO giving, people. You see what you nasty secularists made me do? Now the poor are starving, and it’s all because you wouldn’t let us brainwash them at their most desperate, you meany bears!

    Some charity.

74. @ Kristin J.:

    I actually have a response (not as good as konkonsn and Emolee’s), but it’s stuck in moderation.

75. Annalouise:

    I may not like the religiously based political opinions of some people, but I give them the respect to assume that that people on the grassroots of these movements genuinely hold those beliefs and can’t be bought of for a few thousands dollars in tax money.

    Actually, the hit would be worse than that. If you tax churches as the corporations they are even the smallest churches are going to experience a 15% drop (minimum) in actual funding overnight. Thats enough to bleed the beast out a little bit. The damage runs deeper than that, however.

    Say you’ve got a small church that clears less that $50,000 in donations in Chicago. They’re going to look at a 15% federal corporate tax, a 7.3% state corporate tax, property tax on their church, around a 10% sales tax on anything they buy, and all the little taxes and fees that come with doing anything in this city. Just changing tax liability would lead to a substantial reduction in a church’s buying power.

    All that money? Earmark it for secular provision of social services.

76. I actually have a response (not as good as konkonsn and Emolee’s), but it’s stuck in moderation.

    Sorry! There were quesadillas. I can’t be held responsible for my inattention when there is cheesy goodness around.

77. Sorry! There were quesadillas. I can’t be held responsible for my inattention when there is cheesy goodness around.

    Ooh, quesadillas! I completely understand! 🙂

78. Your hypotheticals are fucking worthless. Christian groups, for all their problems, ACTUALLY FEED PEOPLE AND PAY THEIR RENT. When are YOU going to do that?

    To be sure, the US government (Democrats and Republicans notwithstanding) also ACTUALLY FEEDS PEOPLE AND PAYS THEIR RENT. Fiscal year 2011 spending on SNAP was $78 billion, with almost 45 million recipients. Roughly 3.3 million families get Section 8 assistance. Is it enough? I don’t think so. But it’s not hypothetical, either.

79. I definitely remember the school board push. Some groups were more open about it than others. And Mr Kristen is quite right. How to frame the debate and exactly what terms to use were declared from on high with Gingrichian deliberation behind the matter.

80. @Angel H. where exactly are you quoting me from?

81. I will not “can” anything. You people would rather have let my family die to make a point because the people who helped us were not politically in line with you. And shut the fuck up about TANF being enough. It’s nowhere NEAR enough and it is SET UP to leave people either homeless, in a job with a non-living wage, or on SSI because those are the ONLY options when the powers that be have bipartisanly killed the job market and economy and have now allotted you a grand total of $590 per month for a family of four to subsist on. Shut the fuck up about rent subsidies and section 8 because in most medium to large size cities it takes YEARS to get in, if you ever do. Who pays the rent in the mean time? Go down to your “welfare” office today and they will tell you to make the rounds between various religious and ethnic charity groups.

    I will damn well be fucking angry and I will damn well be “defensive” and I will damn well talk right the fuck over you when you want to kill my family in the name of feminist ideological purity.

    If religious groups are doing it wrong and that is un-ac-ceptable to you (snarkity snark snark), get the fuck off your asses, get the fuck off the internet and go feed someone TODAY.

82. “Your hypotheticals are fucking worthless. Christian groups, for all their problems, ACTUALLY FEED PEOPLE AND PAY THEIR RENT. When are YOU going to do that?”

    Except for when they’re starving Indians and killing their children.

    Kumbaya indeed.

83. I will damn well be fucking angry and I will damn well be “defensive” and I will damn well talk right the fuck over you when you want to kill my family in the name of feminist ideological purity.

    Right because requiring people not to sermonize while providing services is killing your family. Explain how that works again? I’m missing the logic.

84. In my life I’ve “volunteered” at soup kitchens; food banks; shelters; homes for unwed, pregnant teens; even “free” children’s centers. All of these places had one thing in common. The services provided were a means to an end. They were used to acquire a captive audience and proselytize.

    I honestly don’t post this video clip [below] lightly, and certainly not insensitively. In the last thread, William placed the historical role of Christianity alongside Fascism and Communism; I used the word “tyrannical” (and I know I’m certainly not the first) to describe the coerced assimilation within fundamentalist communities (“tyranny as exercised within its own community”), and it certainly applies to the evangelical proselytization methods as exercised the way Kristin described above (“tyranny as exercised to ‘convert’—or to ‘obliterate’—the ‘Other.'”)

    Fundamentalist Christianity relies largely upon its congregation to enforce assimilation; Evangelism, as practiced within the ‘Movement,’ projects fundamentalism onto the ‘Other’—both must ‘break’ people to exist and to succeed. Both RELY on breaking people.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSLJYbhXCkE#t=42s
    (this is a clip of North Koreans responding to Kim Jong-il’s funeral procession)

    The same totalitarian stencil. The same basic structure. The same basic form. The same basic methods.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxLBywKrTf4#t=43m19s

85. And you, by contrast, clearly care so very deeply and meaningfully about Indians and their children. Oh wait, no you don’t, they’re just a cheap zinger to you. Just like molested altar boys, har har har.

    Well any excuse to shut up an angry poor woman or an angry woman of color or an angry any other type of woman but elite white feminist mainstreamer. How long until I am banned for being “too angry and rude”? How dare I speak like this to my betters, who know what is good for me!

86. So, Iris, I guess you’re admitting that the only reason that fundamentalist/evangelical Christians provide charitable services is so that they can proselytize and force people to sing for their suppers? And that if they couldn’t do that anymore they would stop being “charitable”? By the vehemence of your arguments, all you’re doing is proving that these people have no interest whatsoever in providing charity for its own sake. In other words, it isn’t “charity” at all. If people don’t want to be preached to, they can go ahead and starve. But I guess Christian privilege isn’t an issue for you, for all your self-righteousness?

    It’s no different from the Catholic Church shutting down adoption services entirely rather than allowing LGBT people to adopt.

    By the way, you have no f***ing idea what anyone here does to help people.

87. @Iris Tyto Alba;

    “You people would rather have let my family die…”

    you’re conflating issues. Redistribution is a function of taxation. Levels of redistribution belong to a debate about tax revenues, not redistribution channels.

    The topic here, structures employed in government redistribution should, in the view of many, be entirely secular.

    How dare you impute, in any way, that having a discussion unrelated to overall service levels, but channels of delivery is proxy for a call for the death of you and you’re children.

    “Go down to your “welfare” office today and they will tell you to make the rounds between various religious…”, don’t conflate the issues (ethnic) “…charity groups.”

    However, the fact that here, in Australia as well, we are sent “…to make the rounds between various religious…” groups. Groups who’s ‘prophet’ explicitly calls for my death. Luke 19:27 explains that if you don’t obey Jesus Christ and make Him your authority / King, you are to be slain. ( via http://www.thegodmurders.com/id118.html ).

    “…and I will damn well talk right the fuck over you when you want to kill my family in the name of feminist ideological purity.” Exactly why we need a ‘quite place’ where adults can discuss secular solutions to the worlds political woes.

88. How long until I am banned for being “too angry and rude”? How dare I speak like this to my betters, who know what is good for me!

    …has anybody here said anything like this to you? Or have they just dared not to defer to your opinion?

    And you, by contrast, clearly care so very deeply and meaningfully about Indians and their children. Oh wait, no you don’t, they’re just a cheap zinger to you. Just like molested altar boys, har har har.

    You know this about phenobarbidoll how? And if it be true that ze has not invested a shitload of energy and money into advocating for American Indian causes, I’m not seeing how that ameliorates the horrific role Christianity has played in Indian history.

89. It’s no different from the Catholic Church shutting down adoption services entirely rather than allowing LGBT people to adopt.

    Indeed. Or like the Salvation Army refusing to shelter a family together because the two parents are of the same sex. Tell me, Iris Tyto Alba, why do you want to kill that family?

90. In my area, out of fifty food pantries, there are nine that, judging by the name alone, are not obviously religious. There doesn’t appear to be a noticeable difference in the hours that the church-affiliated and other religious pantries are open, and the possibly secular pantries are open. The pantries form a loose network run by a secular non-profit– in other words, one of the secular agencies that can supposedly replace religious charities is partnering with them to help provide a good chunk of its services. I also checked areas where I used to live. The ratios are about the same; overwhelmingly, food pantries and food banks are religiously affiliated, and often they are partnered with and within a larger, secular nonprofit who relies on them for much of the actual distribution.

    I agree that you shouldn’t have to listen to a sermon to receive food or help, and that you shouldn’t have to be straight or Christian or married to your baby’s other parent or anything besides in need of help to receive help. But to say “just replace religious social services with secular ones” ignores a) the significant portion of the safety net which is provided by religious organizations and b) the fact that secular social services already rely on religious org partners.

    In many cases, these umbrella nonprofits have clauses which stipulate that member organizations may not require clients to participate in religious services, and may not discriminate on the basis of whatever the protected categories are in that state. The solution is not to replace religious orgs with secular ones, as some commenters have suggested. The solution is to enforce these clauses where they are in place and get them in place where they aren’t.

91. I will damn well be fucking angry and I will damn well be “defensive” and I will damn well talk right the fuck over you when you want to kill my family in the name of feminist ideological purity.

    Iris, that’s not it at all. :-/ Nobody’s saying that religious charities don’t provide material necessities to people who need them. Some, but not all, religious charities take advantage of the needs of those who they (yes) do help by providing material assistance to. But with these particular charities, there are strings attached: coercion, proselytization. Religious opportunism that relies upon disadvantaged people’s needs. Many people experience this as torturous—it seems your family had a different experience.

    Meanwhile, in the political sphere, their representatives and votes very deliberately obstruct the government from passing legislation that would enable secular assistance.

    There’s so much taking behind this giving—that’s what we’re examining and trying to deconstruct, and trying to learn to reverse, so that people who need help don’t have to be subjected to these extremely powerful and not-so-hidden agendas.

92. @Aydan could you please link me to data supporting your claims.

    It strikes me that the religious fail to recognise that the definition of ‘secular’ is by definition beyond their theological capacity.

93. *shooooot, the second link I attempted to post in comment #84 turned out wrong. It was supposed to jump to the 43 minute/19 second mark. Here is a corrected link:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxLBywKrTf4#t=43m19s

94. @ Colin: I fail to see what purpose you are accomplishing by insisting that people must be lying about how many services are provided by churches/religious bodies in their home areas (because apparently people can’t make statements based on their own experience and have them believed?) Do you want someone to mail you a phonebook? Or are you going to drive through our towns to check our claims that food banks and homeless shelters are heavily religiously affiliated in some regions? The issue of the gap between what is provided by government services and what is needed, that is currently is being (partly) filled by church services, is going to exist whether you, personally, choose to believe it or not.

    Also, funnily enough, as government services tend to be funded by taxes, areas that don’t have a ton of tax revenue are not going to have great local government services. See: significant portions of the Midwest and South. Please go work on that problem instead of insisting you know what services are provided in areas you clearly know nothing about.

95. *facepalm*

    Okay, I’m sorry for making such a mess of this board. (the link is pasting correctly in the text box, so I’m not sure what keeps happening. *sigh*)

    That’s supposed to be a youtube link to Explorer: Inside North Korea. (uploaded NationalGeographic) I was trying to link to the 43 min. 19 sec. mark.

    Goodnight, all.

96. @Aydan could you please link me to data supporting your claims.

    It strikes me that the religious fail to recognise that the definition of ‘secular’ is by definition beyond their theological capacity.

    No, I will not link you to the data about where I live, because I am not comfortable revealing where I live on the Internet. I will find data for a similar community.

    For example, here are the guidelines to partner with the Maryland Food Bank. They include a non-discrimination clause, and a clause that clients may not be required to participate in religious services. Here is the list of partner agencies in the 25701 area code, near Huntington, WV. Just from scanning the list, half of them indicate a religious affiliation in their title. Second Harvest for Lehigh Valley— a secular organization— lists 43 food banks. Of those, 26 indicate a religious affiliation in their title, and many of the other titles could be religious organizations with vague titles. Second Harvest of the Inland Northwest lists 20 partners, 4 of which indicate a religious affiliation in their title, but some quick Googling, of addresses or names, reveals that most of the others (Spangle, Southside, Our Place, Mead, The City Gate) are also affiliated with, or at least co-located with, a religious group.

97. @Jane;

    “I fail to see what purpose you are accomplishing by insisting that people must be lying about how many services are provided by churches/religious bodies in their home areas…”

    To quote the late, great Christopher Hitchens “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” Asking for evidence supporting a ‘claim’ is hardly tantamount to calling someone a liar!!

    Given this thread is about the harm caused by evangelising xians it is probably important to note that I can easily access data about government expenditures, or for that matter any corporate body which reports its financial transactions in accordance with internationally recognised accounting principles. The question should perhaps why don’t religious institutions have to provide consolidated reports including all revenue sources and expenditures. Then instead of ad hominem attacks on me you could quickly link to the relevant data. But the bottom line, for all your reticence, is that you cannot.

    If you could, subjective assertions as to the good of ‘theism’ would be unnecessary.

    “Please go work on that problem instead of insisting you know what services are provided in areas you clearly know nothing about.”

    The problem, as I see it, @Jane is religion; and I am working on it.

98. @Ayden

    Nobody could give a rats about where you live, in ‘fact’ that information was never requested. But oooh, the danger!!! What, not even a state or federal government database to support your claims?

99. Oh, and @Ayden…no where on the link provided does the organisation claim to be secular. In fact, given their reliance on ‘faith’ I would infer they are almost certainly NOT secular!

100. The question should perhaps why don’t religious institutions have to provide consolidated reports including all revenue sources and expenditures.

     Charities, including religious-based ones, do have those reports available for the public.

101. Consolidated @Angel H. Where?

102. Some provided at the office. Others are available online.

103. Phht!

     Here is http://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2011financialreport.html

     Where is http://www.us.theism/financial/financialreport.html or equivalent?

104. They have this wonderful new thing called Google. It’s a bit new, but it might be able to help you out.

105. This @Angel H. demonstrates exactly why we need a space that is free from religion. In that space, I would imagine, uncovering the corporate forms and financial undertakings of theism.inc, in a standardised and accessible form, would be an early priority.

106. Nobody could give a rats about where you live, in ‘fact’ that information was never requested. But oooh, the danger!!! What, not even a state or federal government database to support your claims?

     Yeah, because no one ever harasses women with opinions on the Internet, or feminist bloggers, or people with minority sexual orientations, and none of these things ever impact on professional careers… oh wait. (I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that it’s your male privilege preventing these things from occurring to you.)

     Oh, and @Ayden…no where on the link provided does the organisation claim to be secular. In fact, given their reliance on ‘faith’ I would infer they are almost certainly NOT secular!

     Which link? Which organization? I provided five links and mentioned about seventy organizations. Are you referring to Feeding America’s “We keep faith with the public trust through the efficient and compassionate use of resources entrusted to us and are mindful that our mission is accomplished through the generosity of others”? It means they don’t scam people.

     Read more carefully, and do your own research. Oh, and please stop misspelling my name.

107. @ Colin: the information is already readily available and accessible to anyone. It’s nobody’s fault but your own that you’re too lazy to dig it up for yourself.

108. @Aydan;

     “Yeah, because no one ever harasses women with opinions on the Internet, or feminist bloggers, or people with minority sexual orientations, and none of these things ever impact on professional careers…”

     Relevance? Oh wait, none!

     “…oh wait. (I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that it’s your male privilege preventing these things from occurring to you.)”

     Coming from a patriarchal theist, that’s rich! But also stupid and off topic given the context of this thread

     “Which link?”

     The one to “…a secular organization…”

     “We keep faith with the public trust through the efficient and compassionate use of resources entrusted to us and are mindful that our mission is accomplished through the generosity of others”? It means they don’t scam people.”

     Interesting, I regard all religion a scam. However, a secular auditors report would suffice.

     I apologise for the misspelling ‘Aydan’.

109. Interesting, I regard all religion a scam. However, a secular auditors report would suffice.

     Google turns some up quite quickly. Good luck.

110. Oh, and @Aydan, as far as my feminist credentials go.

     In the current political context, above all else, I would vote for constitutional reform of the senate; replacing state rights and representatives of the rights of legitimate minority and other disenfranchised groups, including ‘women’, and with veto power.

     And you can quote me on that!

     Would you?

     I don’t need ‘luck’ Aydan! I need credible, audit able, accountable and transparent financial reporting from religious organisations conforming to the reporting requirements for corporations within the framework of the IAS (international accounting standards) for religious entities.

     The good luck incantation would seem to reflect an inner joy at the opacity of religious organisations. Show me I’m wrong.

111. @IrisTytoAlba-As a rental property manager, I’ve fed many a tenant who was out of a job/out of money/out of food. As a formerly homeless woman, I’ve been given a place to park and bathroom privileges by businesses and unchurched individuals.
     Both government and religion provide services to the poor. The difference is that government allows religion to provide services, while religion constantly squalls that government should not be allowed to compete with them.
     My life has been punctuated with the experience of having my port-wine stain birthmark called ” the mark of the beast” and having my right to life called into question; others with the color anomaly have similar experiences. A blood bank tech has refused to draw blood, and Obama’s ruling makes it certain that I will be denied medical treatment at some point in the future. My response to Christianity in general, and evangelical fundamentalism in particular, relies on the Second Amendment rather than the First.

112. Despite all of the indoctrination, church membership is dropping nationwide, especially among young adults. Now, that’s serious poetic justice anyone can understand.

113. My response to Christianity in general, and evangelical fundamentalism in particular, relies on the Second Amendment rather than the First.

     QFT.

114. hey Iris,
     I am one of those evil no good feminists who think that the church does more harm than good. I also grew up on SNAP and medicaid and at times on LiHEAP and TANF when my mom would lose her job. I know pretty much what it’s like to have to rely on those services and on the food banks. I actually did volunteer every weekend to going and helping one of the secularist shelters. This was in what is considered a small city. The church shelters in the area (there were five of them) all got together and lobbied the city council to force the secular shelter out of business. Why? because they saw the numbers of people willing to listen to their bullshit drop because the secular shelter didn’t proselytize at them. So don’t you 1 try and say that we aren’t willing to help or 2 that we are the ones starving people. The churches had a shelter shut down in order for them to keep proselytizing at people. Really fucking charitable behavior right there.

115. As a formally homeschooled daughter of the far, Evangelical Right, thank you for these posts. They are spot on. I know you don’t have the space in this format to get into the grittier specifics of the ideology, but it is clear that you are fluent in the Evangelical world, and get what a scary and powerful movement it is.

116. Which secular group do we anticipate (which SPECIFIC secular group) will step up to feed poor people, shelter the homeless, take in the exploited, and do all the boring workaday grunt work of caring for the disadvantaged if we don’t want churches to do it?

     Be specific, please. Are YOU going to do it? Are you going to get your hands dirty and actually do it? Or just tell everyone else how they are doing it wrong?

     Uh, I work for a secular charitable organization that provides healthcare to children. We take huge losses to care for children who are covered by Medicaid, or to provide free care for children who have no insurance at all. Even that coverage is in jeopardy for some kids, and we’ve had other sources of government funding cut, too. Within our means, we help families eat while they are here, afford transportation, and find a place to stay while their children are ill. Our social workers help families apply for the benefits they are entitled to, and find other sources of support to supplement what they get. We’ve contacted parents’ employers to help them keep their jobs while they are caring for a sick child. Unlike you, we don’t consider our work with these families who need us to be getting our hands “dirty”.

     I don’t personally buy that there is no secular organization or event in your area where people in need ever turn for anything (not even a Planned Parenthood, which is the only affordable and accessible healthcare option for some people?), but even if that were true there are people in need of food, clothing, shelter and healthcare everywhere and plenty of secular organizations that serve them. If you (understandably) feel the need to work in your community specifically, no one is stopping you from organizing a coat drive or serving food in a park yourself, or from donating your time or professional services in your own space on your own terms.

     You actually have no idea how anyone here spends their time or lives their values. But since it’s obvious that your values include yelling at people, misrepresenting their words and actions, and implying that we all hold our noses around poor people, I really have no interest in learning more about how you live yours.

117. “And you, by contrast, clearly care so very deeply and meaningfully about Indians and their children. Oh wait, no you don’t, they’re just a cheap zinger to you. Just like molested altar boys, har har har.”

     Yeah, I do. My grandmother and her siblings were kidnapped by Christians, forced into Christian boarding schools and abused. My grandmother and 1 sibling survived it. 2 others did not.

     “Well any excuse to shut up an angry poor woman or an angry woman of color ”

     You mean like you just tried to shut THIS woc up?

     I care about Indian children because I WAS ONE, and my kid IS ONE.

     Not every feminist on here is white chicadee.

118. It is impossible to distinguish between the, what 2500 odd, forms of xianity and no need, from an administrative point of view, to bother. Just remove special treatment from the tax system and exclude any form of government transfer to religious organisations. Done.

     Why thank you! You answered that for me:)

119. If religious groups are doing it wrong and that is un-ac-ceptable to you (snarkity snark snark), get the fuck off your asses, get the fuck off the internet and go feed someone TODAY.

     I do, do you?

     Which brings me to my next point.

     And how would we discourage private organizations or private individuals from providing social services?

     Take the work from them by providing the services without using them as an excuse for evil.

     As for how to deal with them in general, focus your political energy on them, realize that they are your enemy. If you are doing activism in other countries, just stop, come home, focus. Campaign, vote. Oh, and utterly ostracize them. Stop acting like these are normal nice people that we can work with.

120. Not in Williston, per se, but there has been such an activist in nearby Blackville.

     It is more prevalent in Aiken, as well as in Columbia County, Ga.

121. Ms Angie @112 – How is that distributed, though? For some years now, I’ve been hearing that the mainline Protestant sects that became more liberal were losing members if not fracturing (there were some interesting stories about the Episcopal problems a few years ago when whole congregations left because over increasingly liberal policies regarding same-sexers and then tried to claim that the church buildings and properties were theirs rather than belonging to the diocese) while the evangelical and fundamentalist sects were growing. That always seemed to make sense to me, as people would naturally want the “sins” which didn’t tempt them to grow in significance and become the worst ones in the dogma. But I’d be quite happy to be wrong.

     1. Douglas-See Pew Religious Landscape Survey, can be googled. All kinds of great statistical figures in this one.
        I’m so, so tempted to define all religions as terrorist fronts for organized crime. No, I don’t have statistics, it’s just an opinion, but heck, even the Yakuza’s doing charitable orgs now (and that can be googled!).

122. @121 Any idea how to find that out because I have no idea.

123. Colin, I look forward to you providing a list of US-based charities who do not publish their financials. Thanks in advance.

     1. @PrettyAmiable

        I hope you recall I was asking for consolidated statements, in accordance with corporate standards. As in an end of year financial report of the catholic church, or the end of year report of the protestant church.

        If walmart produced an annual report for every store and not a consolidated report as a corporate entity the data would be so complex as to be meaningless.

        But frankly I would be happier seeing the consolidated financial report of gud. You know listing donations, gov’t transfers, assets and valuations,… Not to hard to achieve in this modern world. In Australia for example there is no need for a church to explicitly disclose, as a line item, government transfers.

        Ah, how I long for the day of secular government.

     2. The purpose of financial reporting is to provide meaningful information. In the context of this article ‘I’ am primarily concerned with the cashflows of evangelical xianity. How much revenue comes from government, how much from donations and offerings, and how much from investments?
        You imply, @PrettyAmiable that the information is out there somewhere. I wonder if you would be happy with the same level of detail from the US congress?

124. Colin, you are derailing this thread with your repeated insistence that all religious groups in the United States somehow form a corporate entity (not entirely sure of your argument here, but don’t bother to clarify because it’s not very interesting).

125. Actually @debbie, I ‘never’ said that! They should however be treated as a single entity, apparently for the desert tribes there is only one gud.

126. I hope you recall I was asking for consolidated statements, in accordance with corporate standards.

     Please give examples of charities that do not do this. Thanks.

127. Ms Angie – Thanks; I’ll give it a look.

128. Pingback: Quickies: 3/9/2012 - Queereka
129. Pingback: Religions Aren’t People (Why Ideology Matters) « The Discerning Spiritualist

130. Well said. I enjoyed that very much.

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