ELCA will have non-celibate gay pastors

In their national convention in Minneapolis, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America voted to allow gay pastors. Good for them.

I guess that lightning bolt that struck the convention center was a warning from god to the intolerant conservative wing of the church that he loves his sexy homosexual worshippers, too. Now we just have to hope that the residents of Kansas and Oklahoma and all those bible-belt states will someday figure out that he’s zapping them with lightning and tornadoes because he loves evolution, too.

Wrath of god strikes Minneapolis

We had summer thunderstorms and a tornado touchdown in Minneapolis yesterday, and the convention center was slightly damaged. At the same time, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America was having their national convention there. You know what this means?

God hates Christians. Repent!

No, wait, that can never be what an omen means. We already have prophets stirring the tea leaves and interpreting the event. It seems, if you look at the conference schedule, that the liberal Lutherans were contemplating making some friendly statements about their gay congregants, so obviously this was an example of gentle smiting of sodomites.

Of course, also on the schedule were bible study and hymn singing — god hates “Onward Christian Soldiers”. And a middle school in North Branch — god hates education. It knocked down many trees — god hates elms.

Oh, well. I know one thing. I hate pretentious gomers who use natural disasters to promote their goofy belief in a whimsical deity.

Men, Women Divided Over Sex Bill

There is a bill pending in the Bahamas which would outlaw marital rape, and it is facing a lot of opposition. There is a common theme in the arguments against it: see if you can figure out what it is.

“It is ridiculous for them to try to make that a law, because I don’t think a man can rape his own wife. After two people get married, the Bible says that they become one – one flesh. How is it possible to rape what is yours?” asked Mr. Sutherland.

“Even if a woman says no to her husband it still can’t be considered rape because she is his wife. He already paid his dues at the church and she already said ‘I do,’ so from then on, even if [a man] forces sex on his wife, it isn’t rape,” he said.

“I disagree with the bill because I disagree that a man can rape his wife. The Bible tells me that a man’s body is his wife’s and her body is his. How could he rape her?” asked Ms. Sweeting.

It looks to me as if being brought up with a belief in the literal truth of a misogynistic document like the Bible can inculcate the evil idea that women are possessions, and that marriage is an act of handing over a woman’s bill of sale to a man. I thought a wife was a partner, not a slave.

Speaking of paradise…

It’s not just Oklahoma — New Zealand apparently has no sick people. They have a brand new faith-healing clinic that fixes everything right up!

Rea said patients with problems as diverse as stroke paralysis, cancer or dyslexia were cured, usually within one 20-minute session.

Wow. Complete cures, in just 20 painless minutes. Doctors’ offices must be closing all over the place, and the hospitals must be empty.

Sorry, Tulsa, I was going to pack up my bags and move to your shining flawless city, but I think now I’m going to have to move to Christchurch. They’ve probably got more squid.

Never trust a guy named ‘Hayseed’

Israel has no oil, but some people wish it did, for the worst of reasons. This is an amazing story of a con artist and his willing victims…and nothing is better at leading the sheep to slaughter than religion.

When James Cojanis heard the first rumblings of Armageddon, he was sitting in his San Jose home with the radio tuned to a popular Christian show called The Prophecy Club. Featured that day was a charismatic Texas oilman named Harold “Hayseed” Stephens. Speaking in the rousing cadence of a Southern preacher, he told listeners that “the greatest oil field on Earth is under the southwest corner of the Dead Sea”–and that his company, Ness Energy International, was about to tap into it. In doing so, he said, it would drain the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, prompt Arab countries to attack Israel, and at last touch off the great battle that would usher in the end of days.

As soon as the show was over, Cojanis got on the phone to find out how to invest in the venture. Days later the 70-year-old retiree received a form letter addressed, “Dear End Time Servant.” It claimed that the oil reserves at Ness’ planned drilling site ranged “from one billion to 40 billion barrels…putting this prospect in a class of the super giant oil fields of the world.” Without a second thought, Cojanis bought $120,000 worth of stock in Ness. “Faith is a gift God puts in your heart,” he explained when I visited him in October at his cluttered town house, piled with crumpled boxes of prophecy-themed newsletters and cassette tapes of old Christian radio shows. “And I didn’t have any doubt that Ness was a plan of God. He raised up Hayseed Stephens to find Israel’s oil.”

Eight years later, Ness has yet to sink so much as an initial borehole for a Dead Sea well. In fact, for most of its existence it has never even held exploration rights in Israel. Its U.S. headquarters, a barnlike storefront topped with an open Bible sprouting an oil well, was shuttered in 2006. Since then, its stock price has fallen from a high of nearly $5 to a mere 3 cents; Cojanis’ $120,000 investment is now worth $3,000. Not that he’s worried. “I’m glad the stock price is in the tank,” he says. “When they hit oil and the stock goes sky-high, that means Armageddon is around the corner.” At that point, he plans to use his gains to spread the word that the end times are here, preparing as many souls for heaven as possible.

It’s always a shock to see these cheerful people who love, love, love the idea of Armageddon, and want nothing more than for it to come as soon as possible. This isn’t a hard concept to grasp: if your ideal expectation for the near-future is a world-wide catastrophe that has hundreds of millions of people dying in nuclear fireballs, there’s something wrong with you.

A little justice in Wisconsin

Last year, Kara Neumann died of juvenile diabetes. Her death was slow and painful, and entirely unnecessary — her parents believed in the power of prayer and allowed her obvious symptoms to go untreated except for entreaties to an invisible and inert god. They weren’t opposed to technology in general, since they did sent out an email to an online ministry requesting ’emergency prayer’, but they did neglect the only technology that mattered, a simple injection of insulin.

There was some concern at that time that there was actually a loophole in Wisconsin law that seems to say that Christianity was a treatment comparable to modern medicine. Fortunately, the jurors in the trial of the parents saw the neglect that led to the death of their daughter, and convicted the Neumanns of second-degree reckless homicide. I don’t think the father helped his own case with his sincere testimony.

Neumann, who once studied to be a Pentecostal minister, testified Thursday that he believed God would heal his daughter and he never expected her to die. God promises in the Bible to heal, he said.

“If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God,” Neumann testified. “I am not believing what he said he would do.”

He believed. He was theologically informed. He was a member of a church (even if it is an insane organization). He was missing one important thing: the awareness to question. And for that, a young girl died. Religion matters, all right, it matters in an evil way.