{"id":4261,"date":"2016-07-23T06:35:28","date_gmt":"2016-07-23T10:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=4261"},"modified":"2016-07-23T06:35:28","modified_gmt":"2016-07-23T10:35:28","slug":"the-cult-of-self-abasement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=4261","title":{"rendered":"The cult of self-abasement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve insisted over the years that the Christian message amounts to, basically, <i>Y&#8217;all are no damn good<\/i>.  Well, what do you know?  <a href=\"http:\/\/brucegerencser.net\/2016\/07\/groveling-at-the-feet-of-god-to-whom-all-praise-honor-and-glory-is-due\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bruce Gerencser<\/a>, a former Baptist pastor, hears that also.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Is it any surprise, then, that many Christians have poor\/no self-esteem? I know it has taken Polly and I many years to regain any sort of respect for self. Hammered by a lifetime of preaching meant to destroy self-worth &#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Most of us are raised with some sort of vague idea that the devout are &#8216;better&#8217; people, more honest, more trustworthy, <i>et cetera<\/i>, <i>et cetera<\/i>; we don&#8217;t really hear the degradation that is Christianity&#8217;s indispensable metaphysical claim &#8212; that to be a living human being is to be a foul blot on the cosmos and deserving of death.<\/p>\n<p>This is ugly, degrading, harmful stuff and, really, ought to put clergy on the outskirts of society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve insisted over the years that the Christian message amounts to, basically, Y&#8217;all are no damn good. Well, what do you know? Bruce Gerencser, a former Baptist pastor, hears that also. Is it any surprise, then, that many Christians have &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=4261\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4261"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4263,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4261\/revisions\/4263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}