Micah: there may not be any American institution more morally bankrupt and full of horror beneath the surface than the megachurch industrial complex

there may not be any American institution more morally bankrupt and full of horror beneath the surface than the megachurch industrial complex

Robert Morris, senior pastor at Gateway Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and former religious advisor to former President Donald Trump, resigned after admitting to molesting a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s over a period of 4 years. www.chron.com/culture/reli...

Texas megachurch pastor resigns after admitting to molesting a childwww.chron.com Robert Morris, the former religious advisor to President Trump stepped down from his post after the abuse was made public in a report by the Wartburg Watch.

never forget that during hurricane harvey, joel osteen locked the doors of his megachurch meanwhile, jim "mattress mack" mcingvale threw open the doors of all his furniture stores to house people displaced by the flooding

the most appropriate implementation of hell for joel osteen would be an eternity of struggling through dark floodwaters, knocking on doors that are forever closed to him meanwhile when mattress mack shuffles on to his great reward I hope it involves him giving all god's children comfy mattresses

I think a lot about how for me and my friends growing up in Evangelical-fundamentalism, from childhood every flaw, every doubt, every goddamn thing was proof of our fundamental brokenness and need of being better Christians. While these leaders did this (or covered it up) behind closed doors.

a recurring story I hear from basically every ex-Evangelical I know is that everything is blamed on the child if someone abuses the child, that is the child's fault for tempting them white-hot anger is the only rational response

Somehow the abuser is always a victim, if he’s a white male and especially he’s a pastor. The abuse he did is something that happened to him, probably a Satanic attack! Jesus said people who hurt children should be tied to rocks and thrown in a lake. I think he was onto something there.

Adult Content

Labeled by Bluesky Moderation Service

Aaaand this is why Frollo is the most chilling Disney villain. He is way too real.

Yes, 'Judge' Frollo, since even back then Disney didn't want to pick a fight with the Catholic Church. 😄

Adult Content

Labeled by Bluesky Moderation Service

American Evangelism is a cancer and it was a mistake to treat these people with tolerance and deference rather than as the subnormal freaks, cultists, and weaponized paranoids they are.

☝🏿 THAT MF PART ☝🏿

"it was confessed and repented of" repentance is not a substitute for atonement.

there are some things that, no matter how sorry you are, (and I do not believe for a second that this guy was sorry), mean you have forever consequences in this case you don't get to be a pastor anymore, or at least that's what would happen in a non-evil institution

just wait for right wing podcasters. bunch of creeps with young men round them, limited oversight, relatively hard to replace stars. the nonceing horror stories that will come out of that are going to be wild.

oh any right wing influencer is almost guaranteed to be an abusive nightmare, but it’s the scale of the churches and the extent of their reach into the community that is really damaging

Thinking of Daniel Lavery having to out his own brother as a pedophile

god that was so, so awful I read Daniel for years before that whole thing and it’s one of the most harrowing experiences I’ve ever seen anyone write about

Daniel and Grace handled a nightmare situation with an incredible amount of grace and still caught nine kinds of hell for it

There was one way Daniel got mistreated that still irks me: Julie Roys, a Christian "journalist" who is ostensibly against abuse, got praise for covering the allegations... but mostly just took Daniel's words *nearly* verbatim. The main change she made? Avoiding using Daniel's pronouns.

Slightly OT, but Daniel's series of letters from Christopher Kimball on The Toast remain some of my favorite things ever.

the-toast.net/series/chris...

Series Chris Kimball -The Toastthe-toast.net A willing foe, and sea room.

I guess I've never really considered that as much clout as you see from a Jordan Peterson or an Andrew Tate, none of them have the ORGANIZATION of the Catholic Church.

"Accusations about you abusing a child have been made? Let's just move you to another country and set you up in a nice, safe parish so that none of that harms the reputation of the Church."

Adult Content

Labeled by Bluesky Moderation Service

Podcasters have fans, megachurch pastors have a flock, and one of the biggest problems with abuse in a religious context is the reverence, protection, and avoidance that pious ppl will default to in considering their spiritual leadership.

Even if there were a "divine shepherd", it's useful to remember that every human shepherd has a primary interest in their flock, which is their fleeceability or their meat. /soapbox

I hope there's a hell solely because of people like this.

Politicians and Pastors hide behind their moral Christian values and upside down flags on the jump. Lucrative careers if you can get it.

waiting for his proponents to claim she wasn't 12 for the entire 4 years

I wonder in horror at how much abuse he got away with. I hope more victims come forward.

I believe churches should pay taxes bc the Bible says so.

"Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's."

Adult Content

Labeled by Bluesky Moderation Service

Something something den of thieves.

There's an alternate universe where Righteous Gemstones is just an unbearably bleak prestige drama

The sheer naked grift of it, preying on the most vulnerable. As unaccountable as the Catholic church was in Ireland.

You will never lose if you bet on a megachurch pastor being a rapist. I know religious institutions of all sizes are rife with abuse, but if the inside of your church looks like an arena set up for a huge concert, you are just giving your time and money directly to Sexual Assault, Inc.

Hold on there. When faced with a similar scandal the Vatican used the McDonald’s defense. And it worked. The American Catholic Church is as bad as any Evangelical megachurch.

Pastors. Every. Single. Time.

Fun demonstration: use your job title as query for Google News. Think of several other job titles and try those, Finally, repeat the exercise using "youth pastor."

"Consumer Electronics Product Manager" yields really boring results.

So does "computer programmer." Likewise "grocery store manager." "Registered pharmacist" is _slightly_ more exciting. The point is, "youth pastor" is in a class by itself.

Post