Civil Commotion

Paige Patterson, a leader of the so-called “conservative resurgence,” more accurately the ‘fundamentalist takeover,” is feeling some heat just now for turning a blind eye to sexual and physical abuse of women.

Controversial comments about women, abuse and divorce made by a highly respected leader in the Southern Baptist Convention have put many of its leaders in a deeply uncomfortable position as some scramble to respond under pressure from Southern Baptists and other evangelicals.

An audio recording recently surfaced on which Southern Baptist leader Paige Patterson says that abused women should focus on praying and “be submissive in every way that you can” and not seek divorce.

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In the 2000 recording, Patterson tells the story of a woman who came to him about abuse, and how he counseled her to pray for God to intervene. The woman, he said, came to him later with two black eyes. “She said: ‘I hope you’re happy.’ And I said ‘Yes … I’m very happy,’ ” because her husband had heard her prayers and come to church for the first time the next day.

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Patterson’s critics list a pattern of behavior that goes back decades.

Patterson has been accused of being part of a coverup in a pending lawsuit that alleges another Southern Baptist leader, Paul Pressler, sexually abused a young man …

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In the late 1980s, when he was president of a Bible college, Patterson helped to promote preacher Darrell Gilyard even after several women confronted Patterson with charges against Gilyard of sexual abuse and misconduct, according to a 1991 Dallas Morning News report. Patterson said at the time the women lacked evidence and witnesses. Gilyard went on to serve in several churches and was arrested in Florida in 2008 for sending lewd messages to underage girls.

Paige Patterson is an exemplar for the authoritarian ignorance and subterranean malice that keeps so many educated, decent-minded adults out of church; he deserves every bit of the odium and contempt now raining down on him.

But I’m having a difficult time feeling much sympathy for those people who are shocked by the realization that Southern Baptists don’t actually believe in marriage, that they think marriage is simply a vehicle for licit sexual intercourse in order to procreate and grow the club — and the happiness and well-being of the married parties has nothing to do with anything; you’ll get your happiness in the next life, provided that you submit and obey-obey-obey.

Southern Baptists affirmatively condemn the mutual loyalty and shared ambitions that make a relationship a marriage; those are presumptions upon the absolutely sovereignty of Our Invisible Friend, who alone is worthy of your loyalty and who will tell you what are your ambitions. If the Invisible Wizard put you in an abusive marriage, well, that’s just the working-out of His Mysterious Plan.

It’s all degrading nonsense that serves only the power of the clergy, of course, and I marvel that anybody, anywhere, ever, falls for it, and it makes me happy to know the SBC is finally getting some pushback.

Evangelicals, of course, believe God has commissioned them to bug, harass, irritate, annoy, agitate, and torment non-believers. Invited or not, zealous Evangelicals shove Salvation Shit Sandwiches® in our faces, thinking that they are doing us a favor by “sharing” with us the “truth.” We should be very glad that most Evangelicals aren’t zealots. Most of them, in fact, are passive church attendees who are content to let the world go to hell.

Bruce Gerencser

As I’ve said many times through the years, most people have too much sense and decency to be ‘good’ Christians; it’s the ones who don’t that you have to watch.

Or, as the philosopher Jeremy Bentham once said, “The principle of asceticism never was, nor ever can be, consistently pursued by any living creature. Let but one tenth part of the inhabitants of the earth pursue it consistently, and in a day’s time they will have turned it into a Hell.”

Six in ten Americans now support same-sex marriage.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that same sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, support for same-sex marriage has increased substantially. Currently, more than six in ten (61%) Americans say gay and lesbian couples should be able to marry legally, while only about half as many (30%) are opposed.

Strength of support for same-sex marriage has increased dramatically over the past decade, while strength of opposition has fallen in nearly equal measure.

This should not be surprising. After all, there have been no major seismic events since Obergefell, no meteor strikes — life goes on about as it always has. So why care?

There is this, too, and it’s important: The busybodies who do care are the strongest, most resolute supporters of the most corrupt, godawful chief executive the country has ever seen; evangelical support — or disapprobation, as the case may be — is evolving into (Biblical allusion warning) the kiss of death. Ironic, no?

Nobody will be surprised to learn that the six states whose populations exhibit less than majority support for same-sex marriage are in the so-called Bible Belt.

In only six states does the issue of same-sex marriage garner less than majority support: Alabama (41%), Mississippi (42%), Tennessee (46%), West Virginia (48%), Louisiana (48%), and North Carolina (49%).

Since the opposition to same-sex marriage is grounded in religion, that should be no surprise. But theology always catches-up to the zeitgeist, and even Baptist preachers aren’t suicidal: they will figure it out, and they will decide that maybe the Big Guy doesn’t care so much about something that congregants do care about. Guaranteed: The day is not far off when even Southern Baptist churches will advertise themselves as ‘welcoming to all.’

A local Holy Man is annoyed by the decline of ‘blue laws’ prohibiting the sale of alcohol on Sunday.

More and more states are now toasting new laws that allow for alcohol sales on Sundays. Indiana, Minnesota, and Tennessee are some of the latest. Even my own home state, North Carolina, amended its alcohol laws last year to allow for alcohol sales before noon on the Lord’s Day.

That’s good news, right? If I want a beer after mowing the lawn, what business is that of some idiot preacher?

Oh, wait:

There are also reputable studies which show that, in the long term, Sunday alcohol sales actually result in a loss of money for establishments, typically due to additional overhead costs. Moreover, any tax gains are always exceedingly small in comparison to the price citizens pay in social costs for the luxury of more drinking time on the Christian Sabbath.

But I suggest it’s not the loss of money that ought to be the greatest concern. Instead, it’s the negative impact on religious influence that should be of paramount importance.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what the entire alt-Right is all about, what most of the political turmoil in the world is all about — the decline of religion in general, and the Abrahamic faiths in particular, before the paradigms of science. The world has become an uncomfortable place for such as Creech, and they are happy to use the law if they can to constrict everybody else’s life to fit their shoebox-sized world.

There are still Zoroastrians around, so it would be foolish to think that pious nuisances like Reverend Creech are going to disappear. But their ability to put their hands upon their neighbor’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness is in steady decline, and that’s a good thing.

Y’all will probably not be surprised to learn that a great many of the questions concern the Trump campaign’s relationship with our enemies. Such as …

• When did you become aware of the Trump Tower meeting?

• What involvement did you have in the communication strategy, including the release of Donald Trump Jr.’s emails?

• During a 2013 trip to Russia, what communication and relationships did you have with the Agalarovs and Russian government officials?

• What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding Russian sanctions?

• During the campaign, what did you know about Russian hacking, use of social media or other acts aimed at the campaign?

One more thing: Mueller’s staff has been very nearly leak-proof, and these questions were shared with Trump’s legal team; the leak could have come from his side of the investigation.