Update [2005-5-14 2:29:13 by Parker]:
I wrote this diary on May 10th because I had been noticing increasing wingnut drivel about persecution… which frankly doesn’t exist…
Have you noticed how wingnuts thrive on their perceived notions of persecution?
Check out Redstate… poor me… woes me… I am being persecuted by dem evildoer libruls.
It is really fascinating…Kremplasky was on C-Span and the only thing he could comment on afterwards was those nasty emails he received…
These jokers really have a persecution complex.
I was thinking that what they really need in love and attention…
Let’s change tactics… a revised version of the recipe tactic on dKos. Whenever a wingnut troll appear (cough jcassity cough) let’s shower them with LOVE AND ATTENTION… I swear they are just a bunch of lonely homeschooled morans
Now I find out WINGNUTS ARE BEING PERSECUTED… by themselves
By Allie Martin
May 13, 2005
(AgapePress) – Christian youth groups nationwide will have a chance this summer to experience a small sample of what believers in persecuted nations endure on a daily basis.
Open Doors USA is giving young people the opportunity to participate in “Night of Persecution,” a program that is designed to help them understand what life is like for persecuted Christians by showing them in a vivid way. According to Jeff Shreve, who coordinates “Underground,” Open Doors’ youth ministry, the “Night of Persecution” experience is intense.
“The youth leader will announce as the event starts that for the next three hours, the young people are a part of the persecuted Church,” Shreve explains. “They’ll be sent off to find their prayer meetings, and in the process, if they’re trying to find where their church is meeting underground, hidden in their church building or facility, they’ll be raided. They’ll be caught by security personnel and forced to give account for why they believe in Jesus Christ.”
Held during the summer months, the Night of Persecution event involves teens in role playing and other engaging and educational activities. “Their eyes are opened to the reality of Christian persecution,” Shreve notes. And meanwhile, he adds, many of the young people learn a lot about themselves and about their own faith.
The Underground coordinator describes an aspect of this innovative youth activity that he found surprising. In the course of their ordeal as “persecuted Christians,” he says, “a lot of young people are forced through the interrogation and the intimidation that they face, the intense pressure, to really give an account for why they believe what they believe — not so much to the interrogator but for themselves.”
And what many young people learn, Shreve continues, “is that why they believe is just because their parents believe. So they realize at the end of the event, ‘You know what — my faith needs to be more real.'”
Open Doors is sponsoring the “Night of Persecution” in the hope that, for many young Christians, it will help them begin to develop that deeper, more real faith as they learn about their brothers and sisters in the persecuted Church. Twenty-five dates are being booked for the summer months, with a small admission fee charged for each participant.
This summer take your youth group into the Persecuted Church! Open their eyes! Challenge their faith! Show them that the battle is real!
The Night of Persecution event, presented by Underground, an initiative of Open Doors, has been called one of THE MOST EFFECTIVE missions tool available today.
You will see two things happen with your young people: 1. Their eyes will be open to the reality of Christian Persecution. 2. They will see the need to take their own faith more seriously.
How will your young people stand in the face of persecution? This summer, give them the opportunity to find out!
A night of prayer for the Persecuted Church
A night of surprise as their prayer group is invaded
Intimidation…interrogation…realization…
What Others Have Said:
The quality of the program is exceptional. Thank you for helping us to make our students more aware of the value of their faith. We look forward to praying for the needs of our persecuted brothers and sisters and keeping abreast of needs worldwide.
– Gordon, Youth Leader North Carolina
Learning about persecution was an eye opening experience for our students. Our day concluded with 73 students holding an Underground worship service in a dark, musty basement below a building downtown.
– Richard, Student Minister Alabama
I was really touched by what the persecuted church goes through. Many are killed for saying, “Yes I DO believe.” How awesome is that? I’m so glad we had this opportunity to help our brothers and sisters in Christ who want the Word of God so much.
– Deanna, Student California
Our church high school group participated in the Underground and were just blown away. Thank you for opening our eyes to the plight of our brothers and sisters who are in need of God’s Word…
– Corey Smith, Youth Director Washington
Top 5 best outreach programs available!
– Outreach Magazine
They say the money they are raising is to free Christians in Eritrea., which I find very interesting since the majority of Eritreans belong to the Coptic Church who are orthodox christians there is also a large Muslim and sizable JEWISH populations who all seem to get along very well. Perhaps the so-called Christians that are being persecuted are the ones who pay for their children to be fake prosecuted. I personally would run these people out of town on a rail too.
If you are not sure Christians are being persecuted then take the Pop Quizz (of course 9/11 is one of the questions)
How much you wanna bet that the Church in North Carolina that kicked out the Democrats sent those teenage kids to one of these indoctrinations.
It was mentioned that the Rev’s wife was over the “youth group” and the Deacons said that the kids had been brain washed.
Q: What happened then?
A: Those young people stood up and hollered and clapped and jumped up and down. The preacher and his wife have those young people wrapped around their fingers. She’s the youth minister. After we left, the other two deacons stayed on and heard what the preacher’s supporters had to say. We heard that they voted us out of the church. That’s what Rev. Claude Conard [a lay minister] said. And they told us how he [Chandler] was going to require that every member from now on sign a card that said they had to agree with his moral and political views.
does Jim Jones, Sun yung Moon, David Coresh and others come to mind. Wondering out loud if preacher and his wife were using sex to indoctrinate these young people. Just wondering out loud. Cultism is alive and well and thriving under the false banner of christiandom. And before any christian gets their panties in a bunch, they are false christians, not believers and practitioners of a faith that I have observed doing many good things. Like all religions their will be those that espouse that faith and wickedly and evilly corrupt it. I can only hope that we as a nation, that 40% who seem to be asleep at the switch will wake up and see that the corruption of the fascist is systematically taking control of our nation and if we don’t act soon, they very well may wake up living under a theocractic dictatorship, controlled by religious zealots.
It might be a good idea to notify the appropriate child protective agencies in your area if you know an event like this is to be scheduled. Do not file a complaint, just inform the agency that you feel it might be something of which it should be aware.
The events you describe seem awfully close to going over the line of child abuse.
</slackjaw>
Here’s an idea: why don’t we spin off this idea in our own direction. Instead of “Xtian Persecution Night”, we can have “Go Hungry Week” or “Second-Class Citizen of your Choice Night” where kids can learn what a real and far more oppressive form of persecution feels like.
Any bets on when “Heterosexual Persecution Night” will be coming down the pipe? I can see it now: “A girl and boy will be forced to make it through an entire date without succumbing to the Siren-like gay recruiters out attempting to foist the Homosexual Agenda. Participants will understand how unnerving it can be to openly profess an attraction for someone of the opposite sex in this openly hostile homosexualized environment.”
Yeesh.
Ahhh….
remember the days when the Church taught love and peace…
and the word of God was love not fear and terra
Hmm, traumatize your kids, increase their paranoia and then turn them loose on the evil secular humanists, good plan.
Also a good training ground for future religious terrorist to perscecute non-christians. Seems they have found a new school program to re-educate christians from the peace and love of christ to the hate and war mongering of Anti-Christ. I wonder when real Christians will wake up and realize that their FAITH has been overtaken by corrupt, moneygrubbing hatemongers who’s only agenda is to completely eliminate anyone’s choice of what they will and can profess as their own faith.
I know that history records the existence of some beautifully loving and self-sacrificing Christians. But, history also reveals that the Christian Church in its multiple forms has been a plague on humanity. I mean, when has any form of organized Christianity actually practiced love and peace? I’m biased, I admit, so help me see the Golden Era — that I seem to be overlooking — when any organized religion actually practiced the teachings of Jesus.
that is exactly what I said. There are christians who practice the teaching of the Christ, not any specific church or organization. That power corrupts is undeniable in any organization, that absolute power, corrupts absolutely, is without denial. What I see happening to the government of the US is a grab for absolute power by rightwing so called christians and that I fid despicable. I am a non-christian believer, who’s ancestors were persecuted and nearly destroyed by the christian faith practiced at that time. I am still surprised at the number of Native Americans who are members of the Christian faith and it many and varied practices. I fear for all who do not believe the way of the christ and eventually one tenent will rise to the top and the other adherents of christianity will be vilfied with the rest of us. Look up Fred Phelps, he is an equal opportunity bigot and professor of hatemongering under the banner of christianity. A true Calvinist as he likes to call himself, what I like to call him is not suitable for public viewing. Even the christian organizations call him an extremist, yet many of these same organizations espouse similiar rhetoric, even if not in the the extreme of Fred. Wake up your neighbors, friends, relatives, strangers on the street. I have had people yell at me, theaten to kick my ass, no small feat as I am 6 ft tall and 240, tell me I am a traitor to my country, a zealout, a faggot, a soldier for the anti christ, you name it I think I have been told I RESEMBLE that remark. lol…..I have also been told I am fighting the good fight, helping others understand the danger our Republic is currently facing and not from external forces, but internal forces. All this from christians. So I know there are good and bad in all life’s cultures and religions. I can only hope real Americans, true Americans, Americans who love and respect our Constitution will stand up and take our country back for the religous fascists who are so close to eliminating our freedoms.
Evidence of how the Christian Right uses their children comes directly from the pen of James Dobson. Point 10 of his Eleven arguments against Same Sex Marriage begins:
“The family has been God’s primary vehicle for evangelism since the beginning. Its most important assignment has been the propagation of the human race and the handing down of the faith to our children.”
The arguments in full are available at http://www.family.org/cforum/extras/a0032427.cfm
I am adamant in my belief that one reason the Christian Right wants to ban Foster Parenting and Adoption by Gay and Lesbian parents is that it puts the child involved out of their reach rather than inside their loop. A Foster Child in a private faith based program is a captive convert – one in a loving gay or lesbian environment is simply not, and they cannot abide that.
The examples you cite are extreme but not really out of the ordinary in these circles.
The examples you cite are extreme
That is the scary part…obviously these wackos think that this is normal enouhg to post pictures of them terrorizing children on their website.
I highly recommend to read this independent blogger The Daily Bailout from NC who actually interviewed members of the East Waynesville Baptist Church.
I think he still needs to dig further. All the interviewees said the East Waynesville Baptist Church was just the tip of the iceberg.