Praying For The Apocalypse
Streaker @ Fri Dec 28, 2007 8:38 pm
A jolly good read on the lunacy of America's religious right:
$1:
Praying for the Apocalypse
by Chris Hedges, Truthdig
The Gilead Baptist Church, outside Detroit, is on a four-lane highway called South Telegraph Road. The drive down South Telegraph Road to the church, a warehouse-like structure surrounded by black asphalt parking lots, is a depressing gantlet of boxy, cut-rate motels with names like Melody Lane and Best Value Inn. The highway is flanked by a flat-roofed Walgreens, a Blockbuster, discount liquor stores, a Taco Bell, a McDonald's, a Bob's Big Boy, Sunoco and Citgo gas stations, a Ford dealership, Nails USA, The Dollar Palace, Pro Quick Lube and U-Haul. The tawdry display of cheap consumer goods, emblazoned with neon, lines both sides of the road, a dirty brown strip in the middle. It is a sad reminder that something has gone terribly wrong with America, with its inhuman disregard for beauty and balance, its obsession with speed and utilitarianism, its crass commercialism and its oversized SUVs and trucks and greasy junk food. It is part of our numbing assault against community and connectedness.
Ten or fifteen minutes of negotiating the traffic down South Telegraph Road makes the bizarre attraction of the End Times—the obliteration of this world of alienation, noise and distortion—comprehensible. The manufacturing jobs in the Detroit auto plants nearby are largely gone, outsourced to nations with cheaper labor. The paint is flaking off the cramped two-story houses that lie in ugly grid patterns off the highway. The plagues of alcoholism, divorce, drug abuse, poverty and domestic violence make the internal life here as depressing as the external one. And those gathering today in this church wait for the final, welcome relief of the purgative of violence, the vast, bloody cleansing that will lift them up into the heavens and leave the world they despise—the one that was devastated by corporatism—to be racked by plagues and flood and fire until it and all those whom they blame for the debacle of their lives are consumed and destroyed by God. It is a theology of despair. And for many, it can't happen soon enough.
by Chris Hedges, Truthdig
The Gilead Baptist Church, outside Detroit, is on a four-lane highway called South Telegraph Road. The drive down South Telegraph Road to the church, a warehouse-like structure surrounded by black asphalt parking lots, is a depressing gantlet of boxy, cut-rate motels with names like Melody Lane and Best Value Inn. The highway is flanked by a flat-roofed Walgreens, a Blockbuster, discount liquor stores, a Taco Bell, a McDonald's, a Bob's Big Boy, Sunoco and Citgo gas stations, a Ford dealership, Nails USA, The Dollar Palace, Pro Quick Lube and U-Haul. The tawdry display of cheap consumer goods, emblazoned with neon, lines both sides of the road, a dirty brown strip in the middle. It is a sad reminder that something has gone terribly wrong with America, with its inhuman disregard for beauty and balance, its obsession with speed and utilitarianism, its crass commercialism and its oversized SUVs and trucks and greasy junk food. It is part of our numbing assault against community and connectedness.
Ten or fifteen minutes of negotiating the traffic down South Telegraph Road makes the bizarre attraction of the End Times—the obliteration of this world of alienation, noise and distortion—comprehensible. The manufacturing jobs in the Detroit auto plants nearby are largely gone, outsourced to nations with cheaper labor. The paint is flaking off the cramped two-story houses that lie in ugly grid patterns off the highway. The plagues of alcoholism, divorce, drug abuse, poverty and domestic violence make the internal life here as depressing as the external one. And those gathering today in this church wait for the final, welcome relief of the purgative of violence, the vast, bloody cleansing that will lift them up into the heavens and leave the world they despise—the one that was devastated by corporatism—to be racked by plagues and flood and fire until it and all those whom they blame for the debacle of their lives are consumed and destroyed by God. It is a theology of despair. And for many, it can't happen soon enough.
Read the rest here.
PluggyRug @ Fri Dec 28, 2007 9:19 pm
I read it but did not see a point.
You need to take a visit to South Oshawa. Nothing to do with "corporatism"... is that a word? add rife socialism to the list.
But yes I have seen that in America and in many other places.
BartSimpson @ Fri Dec 28, 2007 10:23 pm
This is what's called "Revelations Doctrine" and is considered a schismatic movement in the collective Christian church. It is not representative of the greater 'religious right'.
It was his embrace of Revelations Doctrine that led to the discrediting of Pat Robertson within the political and religious right.
My point is that just because some of these guys are loonies does not mean that they represent everyone who would be an Evangelical or traditional Christian.
QBC @ Sat Dec 29, 2007 7:25 am
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
My point is that just because some of these guys are loonies does not mean that they represent everyone who would be an Evangelical or traditional Christian.
Hmmm.... Wouldn't this statement be true of any religion then Bart?
SilentSAM @ Sat Dec 29, 2007 7:32 am
QBC QBC:
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
My point is that just because some of these guys are loonies does not mean that they represent everyone who would be an Evangelical or traditional Christian.
Hmmm.... Wouldn't this statement be true of any religion then Bart?
tu che.
kevlarman @ Sat Dec 29, 2007 7:32 am
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
My point is that just because some of these guys are loonies does not mean that they represent everyone who would be an Evangelical or traditional Christian.
That's almost like saying just because someone's Muslim and prays to Allah they are not a terrorist. And in both cases this would be a true statement. But there still are more Evangelicals than you would like to think or care to admit to that DO want the end to come. Case in point, the popularity of all those "Left Behind" books and movies.
The USA is facing JUST as big a problem with Christian Fundamentalists as the Middle East is with Islamic Fundamentalists. So no, I don't agree with your assessment that this is just a minor problem, the work of some fringe folks in the USA.
It's just not as widely accepted amongst Americans. Yet.
QBC @ Sat Dec 29, 2007 7:52 am
The problem will all "fundamentalist" religious sects, they are "all or nothing". This is true of any of them, Christians, Muslim, Jews and the list goes on down the line. Many of them believe that if your not a "follower" or "believer" you're an enemy, plain and simple. These are not "people of God", they are fascists in the purest sence of the word. Buyer beware is all I can say of these sects.
kenmore @ Sat Dec 29, 2007 8:44 am
there are extremeists in all religions...the right wing of anything ie religion or politics is very dangerous... I am catholic and there are extremist in Catholicism. there are also sexual preditors.. ( all reglions) have sexual preditors... point here is I dont go to church for the priest or the other people there.. I go for my self and what it gives me..sometimes I dont go and I spend time in quiet reflection at home...
kenmore @ Sat Dec 29, 2007 8:47 am
and as for those right wing evangelicals who are supposed to be "born again" with down right pathetic pasts..who like to preach to you ... tell you what you should be doing etc....well in my opinion they are still screwing people ... just doing it in the name of Jesus now
kingdomofheaven @ Mon Jan 28, 2008 8:57 pm
i'm not an american , but as a canadian i'm familiar with pan european
socialism and secularism .notice their birth rates drop like a stone?
you won't be able to hold their systems as a model when there aren't
any europeans remaining !
white people don't breed in captivity .but they go from horses to spaceships
in three centuries under certain conditions .sorry for the crude observations
but perhaps we are not intended to lounge around for thousands of years
in loinskins. and there's always costs involved with advances .
unfortunately i don't think we can go back , even native people won't
live by candle light in teepees any more .sharks must swim to breathe .
stratos @ Mon Jan 28, 2008 10:01 pm
Thing is all most all Christians pray for the end times. We want to be with God in Heaven, we want to see the world of suffering end. We know that the tribulations will happen and all that. What differs us from others is we dont try to make it come about. We understand that God has his own time table and does not need us mere humans to do it for him.
Why I say all most all Christians pray for the end times. The Lords prayer has a reference in it. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." It can be argued that its refering to Christ reign or the Fathers comeing after the 1000yrs of Christ's rule. Either way the horrors of the Apocalypse must happen prior to what is prayed for in the Lords Prayer.
Scape @ Mon Jan 28, 2008 10:11 pm
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
This is what's called "Revelations Doctrine" and is considered a schismatic movement in the collective Christian church. It is not representative of the greater 'religious right'.
It was his embrace of Revelations Doctrine that led to the discrediting of Pat Robertson within the political and religious right.
My point is that just because some of these guys are loonies does not mean that they represent everyone who would be an Evangelical or traditional Christian.
[web]http://thepoorman.net/2008/01/28/modern-america-is-the-weimar-republic-of-liberal-fascism/[/web]
It was his embrace of Revelations Doctrine that led to the discrediting of Pat Robertson within the political and religious right.
My point is that just because some of these guys are loonies does not mean that they represent everyone who would be an Evangelical or traditional Christian.
sandorski @ Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:41 am
stratos stratos:
Thing is all most all Christians pray for the end times. We want to be with God in Heaven, we want to see the world of suffering end. We know that the tribulations will happen and all that. What differs us from others is we dont try to make it come about. We understand that God has his own time table and does not need us mere humans to do it for him.
Why I say all most all Christians pray for the end times. The Lords prayer has a reference in it. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." It can be argued that its refering to Christ reign or the Fathers comeing after the 1000yrs of Christ's rule. Either way the horrors of the Apocalypse must happen prior to what is prayed for in the Lords Prayer.
Why I say all most all Christians pray for the end times. The Lords prayer has a reference in it. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." It can be argued that its refering to Christ reign or the Fathers comeing after the 1000yrs of Christ's rule. Either way the horrors of the Apocalypse must happen prior to what is prayed for in the Lords Prayer.
That's the thing though, the Bible talks about the End and even Implores followers to look forward to the Return of Christ, but it doesn't necessarily go to the length of instructing people to bring about the End. It is a last Hope of deliverance, but the deliverance occurs because everything has gone to Hell and without Deliverance all will die. On the flipside there is a fairly large group who are confused and instead of the Hope, they're focussed on the Punishment to come for those they've determined to be Sinners. Instead of Love and Hope, they've succumbed to Hate and Judgment.
stratos @ Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:37 am
sandorski sandorski:
stratos stratos:
Thing is all most all Christians pray for the end times. We want to be with God in Heaven, we want to see the world of suffering end. We know that the tribulations will happen and all that. What differs us from others is we dont try to make it come about. We understand that God has his own time table and does not need us mere humans to do it for him.
Why I say all most all Christians pray for the end times. The Lords prayer has a reference in it. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." It can be argued that its refering to Christ reign or the Fathers comeing after the 1000yrs of Christ's rule. Either way the horrors of the Apocalypse must happen prior to what is prayed for in the Lords Prayer.
Why I say all most all Christians pray for the end times. The Lords prayer has a reference in it. "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." It can be argued that its refering to Christ reign or the Fathers comeing after the 1000yrs of Christ's rule. Either way the horrors of the Apocalypse must happen prior to what is prayed for in the Lords Prayer.
That's the thing though, the Bible talks about the End and even Implores followers to look forward to the Return of Christ, but it doesn't necessarily go to the length of instructing people to bring about the End. It is a last Hope of deliverance, but the deliverance occurs because everything has gone to Hell and without Deliverance all will die. On the flipside there is a fairly large group who are confused and instead of the Hope, they're focussed on the Punishment to come for those they've determined to be Sinners. Instead of Love and Hope, they've succumbed to Hate and Judgment.
Ok everyone look for the end times comeing because for the first time ever I totaly agree with what Sandorski Just posted.
BartSimpson @ Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:06 am
QBC QBC:
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
My point is that just because some of these guys are loonies does not mean that they represent everyone who would be an Evangelical or traditional Christian.
Hmmm.... Wouldn't this statement be true of any religion then Bart?
Yes. And in the case of the muslims, those who follow the koran and try to adhere to sharia law are considered in the mainstream and those "liberal" to "moderate" muslims that Western liberals keep preaching about are in an extreme minority.
Now that is not to say that all muslims are terrorists. They aren't.
But most practicing and devout muslims would most closely equate to Orthodox Jews and fundamentalist Christians.
Why do you people think Abbas and I got along so well?
