10. Sun Myung Moon: One of the Top Ten people who give Christianity a Bad Name.
10 People Who Give Christianity a Bad Name
Christianity has been around for two thousand years and, for the most part, it has preached a good message by which to live. But unfortunately, as with all organized bodies, many people claiming to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ have shown themselves to behave quite opposite to the message it espouses.
9. David Koresh
He memorized the New Testament by 11, and impregnated a 15 year old when he was 19. He must have forgotten a few verses.
8. Pat Robertson
Heâs worse than the previous two because he doesnât even know how to lie convincingly.
7. Matthew Hale
Hale is currently serving 40 years in prison for attempting to solicit the murder of Judge Joan Lefkow. Not a very model preacher. But actually, he calls himself the Pontifex Maximus of the Creativity Movement, which is just another offshoot from the Ku Klux Klan.
6. Michael Bray
Bray is not an ordained or college-educated minister, but he does preach a lot about abortion. He served 46 months of a 10 year sentence for conspiring to bomb 10 abortion clinics in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D. C.
5. Paul Jennings Hill
Hill traveled to Pensacola, Florida on July 29, 1994, to an abortion clinic, and murdered one of the doctors, and his bodyguard, point-blank with shotgun blasts. He wounded the bodyguardâs wife. Then he calmly put down the shotgun in the grass and sat and waited for the police.
4. Marshall Herff Applewhite, Jr.
And if you thought the last several entries were weirdos, Applewhite has gone down in history as a true psychopath. Born May 17, 1931, he proclaimed himself a prophet in 1972, and then, as they all seem to do, proclaimed himself Jesus Christ reincarnated.
3. Jim Jones
But thatâs nothing compared to the 909 people, 276 of them children, who became enamored with the handsome charismatic founder of the Peoples Temple.
2. Charles Coughlin
Father Charles Edward Coughlin used radio to decry the KKK for burning crosses on his church grounds, but ten years later, in 1936, he started praising and defending both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini for their politics, and spewing some of the most despicable virulence against Jews to which the world had borne witness up to that point.
1. Fred Phelps, Sr.
He has 13 children, 4 of whom have disowned him and their other 9 siblings. Those 4 children, two men and two women, have denounced the man himself as âa vitrolic, megalomaniacal sadistic psychopath.â
Meanwhile,
Christian Ministry urged the Supreme Court to Criminalize Homelessness
While several religious groups urged SCOTUS to have compassion, Gospel Rescue Mission took the path of cruelty
Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard a case that centers around how cities should deal with homelessness. One of the most striking revelations, however, may have come from a Christian ministry that insisted the homeless need to be converted or punished.
The case involved the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, where there are more homeless people than available beds in shelters. City leaders have chosen to address the problem, not by building affordable housing or additional shelters but rather by fining people hundreds of dollars for using blankets, pillows, or cardboard boxes on the streets. When homeless people accrue multiple fines, they can be banned from public property⊠literally leaving them with nowhere to go. And if they remain in the city, they can be criminally prosecuted.
A previous legal case already declared those kinds of penalties unconstitutional, amounting to cruel and unusual punishment. So with the help of an attorney, a group of homeless people in Grants Pass filed a lawsuit against the city, saying local ordinances that punished them for basically existing were illegal. After all, they said, they werenât choosing to live on the streets. There were no other options available to them.
Despite winning their case in lower courts, the city repeatedly appealed the decisions all the way up to the Supreme Court. The question in front of the justices is whether the city should be allowed to criminalize homelessness. It would be a disasterâand just another layer of crueltyâif SCOTUS rules in favor of Grants Pass.
Before getting into the oral arguments, though, itâs important to recognize that the plaintiffs arenât kidding about the lack of options available to them.
According to legal briefs, the homeless people only have four options in the city. They can stay at a âsobering centerâ meant for intoxicated people… which has 12 rooms but no beds. Thereâs a youth shelter where minors ages 10-17 can stay for up to three days (or more with parental consent). Thereâs a âwarming shelterâ that can hold 40 people in freezing weather⊠but also has no beds.
And then thereâs a homeless shelter run by Gospel Rescue Mission.
GRM is a Christian ministry that requires all residents to work for them without pay for âsix hours a day, six days a week in exchange for a bunk for 30 days.â They also cannot look for outside work during that month. Thatâs not all though. They must also attend church every Sunday (from a pre-approved list); Unitarian services are not acceptable. And they have to attend a chapel service twice a day. And they canât smoke or drink. And they canât have sex during their stay.
What if youâre disabled or have medical or mental health problems that prevent you from attending church? What if you arenât Christian? What if you just donât want to participate in the religious activities? Too bad. You canât stay at their shelter.
Thatâs why the plaintiffs argued they had no realistic options in the city.
In cases like these, itâs always interesting to see which groups are filing amicus briefs, making on argument for why the justices should rule one way or the other.
Just looking at religious ministries alone, thereâs an incredible number on the side of the homeless. They include the Oregon Quakers; the Los Angeles Catholic Worker; the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Hindus for Human Rights; and the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice.
Writing at Religion News Service, Kevin Nye spoke to leaders of those groups who told him things like, âCriminalizing, exploiting, and hurting poor and unhoused people is an affront to God and to Christianity itself, and to other religious traditions themselves.â The Kairos Center brief explained that âpunishing poor and homeless people for the effects of their poverty and homelessness fails to honor the holy nature of creation, and thereby fails society as a whole.â Even the normally arch-conservative USCCB argued that the âCatholic Church, consistent with western tradition, has long taught that the homeless are to be helped, not punished.â
Who could possibly be on the other side of the issue?
Well, that would be Gospel Rescue Mission, the ministry that controls the discriminatory shelter in Grants Pass.
In their brief supporting the city, they argued that the cityâs inability to punish the homeless (because of earlier court decisions) âhas significantly decreased the number of people who access the Missionâs services,â as if thatâs a bad thing.
Municipal public safety laws are a crucial tool in helping the homeless take advantage of available safe shelter resources. Taking away citiesâ power to enforce those laws, as the Ninth Circuit has done here, does not benefit the homeless as that court evidently hoped. Instead, it has only hindered the efforts of those in Grants Pass who devote each day to bettering the lives of those facing homelessness.
Theyâre calling for the city to fine and jail the homeless in the hopes that they become the only alternative for anyone seeking to avoid punishment. When you see yourself as the antidote, you start to root for poison.
Itâs telling that thereâs literally zero mention of âGodâ anywhere in the briefâwhich is rather unusual for a Christian group making an argument to the Supreme Court. Especially this Supreme Court. The argument isnât a religious one because how could it be? The ministry says they have beds available, but for various reasons, many of them are going unused. They must know how bad it would look to justify the cruelty against the homeless using the language of faith. Yet they seem blissfully unaware of how their own religious restrictions may play a significant role in why people with no other options still donât want to ask them for help.
It also raises additional questions, as Nye writes:
It may be well-intentioned, but GRMâs plea raises serious legal and theological questions. If the Rescue Missionâthe only option in townâcan shelter just 138 people, how can the government criminalize all 1,200 people experiencing homelessness in the city? Do Christian organizations have a theological mandate, or even a justification, for forcing religious programming in exchange for shelter and care? Can the government compel homeless people to stay at a shelter that has strict religious requirements without infringing further on their constitutional rights?
The Christian shelter isnât, and cannot be, the cityâs only viable option here. The long-term solutions have to involve mental health care, addiction specialists, affordable housing, and secular shelters, not just banishing people from the city. But right now, the city isnât giving homeless people secular, safe places to stay. Instead, Grants Pass is arguing that the options provided are more than enough and the only alternative is to further punish people who are already struggling to survive, making it that much harder for them to get back up on their feet.
Itâs completely insane logic. And the one Christian ministry directly involved in the case is going all in on the side of More Cruelty.
If thereâs any silver lining here, itâs that the oral arguments didnât appear to be a slam dunk for the city of Grants Pass. They will win, of course, since this right-wing SCOTUS isnât about to rule on the side of victims. But legal analysts seem to think the conservatives may limit the damage in various ways. We can only hope.
For once, though, it would be nice if the justices listened to religious groups making sensible, albeit faith-based, arguments for why criminalizing homelessness would only make a bad situation worse.
Meanwhile,
American Actors & Actresses Are Getting Naked In Drove
America is the best country in the world. However, before you pat yourself on the back and turn up the national anthem while driving in your Honda Accord, there is a cloud in the sky and it is dark and dreadful. It threatens to swallow us whole and undermine the very fabric of our way of life.
What is it, you ask?
American Actors and Actresses Are Losing the War on Nudity
Lena Headey
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Beverly Lynne
Linda Hunt
Either foreign actors and actresses are exhibitionists or Julia Roberts has seriously screwed up the psyche of the American thespian?
The shy Roberts, who refused to do nudity, once requested that, during a sequence in Flatliners where she was wet and in her underwear, totally unrelated, the crew strip down to their skivvies while she filmed the scene. Being Julia  Roberts, it was either that or hanging out with her brother Eric Roberts for an entire weekend and listen to him moan that he could have been âmore popular than Michael Madsen.â
Sharon Stone tried valiantly and was once Queen of the world but could not hold of the horde of French starlets doffing their clothes faster than an Italian prime minister can find himself under investigation for ethics violations. It has been the Australian and New Zealand actors and actresses in recent years that have gave even the French a run for their money. Mix in the British and Scottish and British commonwealth may no longer be nation builders but they are sure as getting a lot of hits on the internet.
Sharon Stone
More Celeb Naked Bullshits…
Lady Gaga
Nina Agdal
Pamela Anderson
Lily AldridgeÂ
Miley CyrusÂ
Paz de la Huerta
Kim KardashianÂ
Irina Shayk
Marilyn Monroe
Amy AdamsÂ
Bella Thorne
Rooney Mara & Cate Blanchett
Lorde
Lorde
by inSexyMusicians
Joanna Krupa
Hannah DavisÂ
Elsa HoskÂ
Iggy Azalea
Alyssa Arce
Melina DimarcoÂ
Olivia Rose
Sara Underwood
Victoria Principal