Modern Protestant Churches, including Fundamentalist, Evangelical Churches
Intolerance and Racism
Jesus, to most North Americans, looks Anglo-Saxon and is often depicted with light hair and eyes. These features are far from the purported Jewish ancestry of a 1st century Jesus. The KKK and other organised racist Christian groups tend to gloss over this inconvenient fact which turns their God into a member of another group they hate: the Jews. Nazis in Germany got over this difficulty by referring to the Bible when stating that Jesus was the greatest anti-Semite of all and by making Jesus' ancestry partly Caucasian. They used the widely propagated story of Jesus having been fathered by a Roman soldier (as opposed to God's Holy Spirit, or for that matter, even Joseph), who had forced himself on Mary thus making Jesus half-European.
If a Jewish depiction of Jesus raises the ire of today's racist Christian groups, images of Africans presented as the Christ cause even more trouble. They have even led to considerable controversy among more mainstream Christian Churches. Disapproval of the few broadway performances, films and images of African-Americans as Jesus has been enough to discourage producers and magazines from attempting such unpopular depictions.
The highly racist American KKK, known for its lynchings of African-Americans is also known for its devoted adherence to Christianity and Christ:
As far as the Klan is concerned, their literature extols the Bible and Christ incessantly.Link
However, the KKK isn't the only racist Christian organisation. Several major Churches, including the Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches of the US, split over the slavery issue:
The Southern Baptists are the largest and most reactionary christian denomination in the USA. They split away from the Baptists in 1845 over slavery, because they thought that slavery was okay. After the civil war, some Southern Baptists founded the Ku Klux Klan. Intense hatred against blacks was to remain the trademark of the Southern Baptists for another century.LinkIn the 1960s, the Southern Baptists supported segregation laws and opposed the black civil rights movement. In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention issued an apology to all African-Americans and asked for their forgiveness. At the 1999 convention, after SB membership had dropped for the first time since 1926, Southern Baptist Convention President Paige Patterson unveiled a new, agressive missionary campaign to target the inner cities and minority populations, except gays and lesbians.
Some see these developments as signs that the Southern Baptists have broken with their hateful past. In reality, though, only the target of hate has changed, from black to gay. Gays and lesbians are now the most favourite hated group of the Southern Baptists, and no annual convention goes by without some major rhetorical gay-bashing. The 1999 convention rebuked Clinton for his declaration of June as gay pride month and the nomination of James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg.
Many Religious Right leaders are Southern Baptists, such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. The next time you hear these people rant against "moral relativism", remember the appalling moral relativism of their own religion, which only yesterday defended slavery and racism as sanctioned by God.
It took the Southern Baptist Church as late as 1995 to apologise (that's officially - unofficially, the racism amongst some of its members is not rooted out yet).
Seeing as how the Southern factions of these Churches were racist, pro-segregation and were all pro-slavery, it is surprising that they should have found any following among previously unconverted, non-European peoples.
Besides organised Churches themselves, famous racist pastors abound, including Pat Robertson barely able to veil his racism, and Fred Phelps.
In trying to fit Christianity into the pro-human rights attitude of the times, some modern-day Bibles have changed occurrences of "slave" (the correct translation) into the incorrect "servant", whilst other versions have retained the proper translation. Christian Identity and many reconstructionist Christian groups want a return to slavery because they know it is sanctioned by the Bible.
See also: Racist Teachings of the LDS (Mormon) Church, including Mormonism and Slavery
Evangelical Christians with a following
Pat Robertson
Some statements made by this well-known pentecostal fundy Reverend:Pat Robertson, calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez:Link
"You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."
Patty's back-peddling ('clarifying') on his call to assassinate Hugo Chavez, after the media backlash:
"Wait a minute, I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out,' and 'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping."
Pat knows that "taking someone out" has always been a colloquialism for assassinating/killing/murdering, as any mobster movie will testify. Besides, Pat was specifically referring to assassination. Nevertheless, at a later time, Robertson finally caved and apologised for having recommended murder.
Also see:
"They will leave Venezuela," said the president [Hugo Chavez of Venezuela]. "They are agents of imperialist penetration. They gather sensitive and strategic information and are exploiting the Indians."
Pat Robertson On why Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke:Link
"God considers this land to be his. You read the Bible and he says 'This is my land,' and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, 'No, this is mine.' ... He was dividing God's land. And I would say, 'Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the E.U., the United Nations, or the United States of America.' God says, 'This land belongs to me. You better leave it alone.'"
CNN news - Robertson suggests God smote Sharon - Jan 5, 2006:
Evangelist links Israeli leader's stroke to 'dividing God's land'
(CNN) -- Television evangelist Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Robertson opposed.
The Reverend Robertson, thoroughly approving of God smiting people, also infamously justified the Biblical slaughter of the Midianites.
"I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period."Link"(T)he feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
[Robertson undermining and negating the constitutional separation of church and state:]
"That was never in the Constitution, however much the liberals laugh at me for saying it, they know good and well it was never in the Constitution! Such language only appeared in the constitution of the Communist Soviet Union."
Pat Robertson's inane remark is answered at "Christian revisionism" -- Distorting the historical record for religious ends
Robertson feigning a persecution of Christians in America which he falsely presents as comparable to the Jewish Holocaust by Nazis:
"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."Link
Little need be added here, as there is no comparison, whatsoever. See the facts about Nazism.
The persecution of Christians in the US is imagined, however. For instance, here is what the President said about atheists:
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."If even the President says such a thing, then who is persecuted by whom? And in no other civilised country in the world today are governments planning to subject their people to the pseudo-scientific invention that is Intelligent Design (a renaming of the age old Bible-based Creationism). Yet in the US, it was necessary to have embarassing court-cases over this, covered in the world media.
-- George Bush (senior)
In this satire of the current situation in America, the situation has been turned upside down in order to illustrate how bad the real state of affairs is for the 'unbelievers' today.
Pat redirects charity funds and resources to his diamond mining project
Pat Robertson founded the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), which laid the foundation for his financial empire.From: Diamonds are Robertson's best friend - at the Institute for First Amendment Studies
...Under International Family Entertainment, a for-profit organization, Chairman Robertson and his son, Tim, received over $1.1 million in salaries and bonuses in 1993 alone.
...Although the financial success of CBN is well-known, one of Robertson's lesser known organizations is his African Development Company (ADC). ADC is a private venture that invests in various land-based operations in Africa, such as mining and agriculture, with the stated goal of redirecting profits toward humanitarian projects. In Zaire, the ADC operates a diamond-mining project in the center of Zaire's prime diamond mines and forestry concessions.
The money he raised money in the name of his charity (Operation Blessing) to help Rwandans, he instead diverted to transporting his diamond-mining equipment.
See: The Virginian-Pilot article of April 27, 1997, by staff writer Bill Sizemore
Far from the media's gaze, Robertson has used the tax-exempt, nonprofit Operation Blessing as a front for his shadowy financial schemes, while exerting his influence within the GOP to cover his tracks. In 1994 he made an emotional plea on The 700 Club for cash donations to Operation Blessing to support airlifts of refugees from the Rwandan civil war to Zaire (now Congo). Reporter Bill Sizemore of The Virginian Pilot later discovered that Operation Blessing's planes were transporting diamond-mining equipment for the African Development Corporation, a Robertson-owned venture initiated with the cooperation of Zaire's then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.Link
In April, 1997 two pilots who worked for Operation Blessing charged that planes linked to Robertson and his ministry flew mostly to haul equipment for ADC's private diamond operation. Robert Hinkle, the chief pilot told reporter Bill Sizemore [of the Virginian-Pilot newspaper] that of about 40 flights within Zaire during the half-year period he was there, "Only one or at most two" were related to the humanitarian mission of Operation Blessing. The rest were "mining-related."Link
"We got over there and we had 'Operation Blessing' painted on the tails of the airplanes, Hinkle told the Virginian-Pilot, "but we were doing no humanitarian relief at all. We were just supplying the miners and flying the dredges from Kinshasa out to Tdshikapa."
But in the end, when Robertson took stock of his African adventure, it wasn't about missionary work or humanitarian aid. It was about the bottom line. "He's a businessman," McFarland said. "He was there to make money."From: The Virginian-Pilot, January 26, 1997
Attorney General Mark Earley (a Republican), to whose campaign Robertson donated a significant sum of money, intervened to block Pat's prosecution in the matter of the Operation Blessing scandal. See Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash - The Nation, September 7, 2005
Robertson is friends with Zaire's now-dethroned dictator Mobutu, who unlike his starving and poor populace, is filthy rich. So is Robertson:
Robertson's following provides much of CBN's $233 million annual income. In a year, viewers of The 700 Club log 4 million prayer calls to 4,500 volunteers manning telephone banks in 60 counseling centers. Such motivated constituencies can--and do--bestow blessings aplenty, in the form of money and votes, upon candidates who win their favor.From: Power, Glory --and Politics - Time Magazine, February 17, 1986
Yet Robertson got people of Zaire (Congo) to do the hard diamond-mining work for him in return for extremely low salaries.
Ironically, whereas Pat Robertson has no problem profiting from slave labor, he sure has an 'interesting' view on the history of slavery in America:LinkThe Islamic people, the Arabs, were the ones who captured Africans, put them in slavery, and sent them to America as slaves. Why would the people in America want to embrace the religion of slavers.I wonder if Pat ever took the time to realize that the Christians, inter alia, were the ones who were buying, persecuting, and exploiting the slaves.
-- Pat Robertson
Although it's true that a race-based system of slavery had been taking place on a large scale in Islamic countries since the Dark Ages, the Christian contribution to slavery and racism cannot be ignored. It was Christian Europeans who carted off millions of Africans to the New World to replace the fast-dwindling Native Americans in slave labour. Although Christians initially purchased Africans from the existing Arabian slave-markets, they later set up shop for themselves by kidnapping Africans from their homelands. Many millions died, never making it to the Americas and never seeing their homes again. The ones who did make it across the Atlantic didn't have a life until many centuries later. See Africa and Slavery Meanwhile, Robertson does not believe in equality at all. Racist Pat thinks that a person's colour ought to determine the weight their vote carries.
Pat speaking on Apartheid in South Africa in 1992:
"I think 'one man, one vote,' just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, a minority, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights."Link
--Pat Robertson in his televised program "The 700 Club"
Some more of Pat's racism:
He was even accused of "Jim Crow-style racial discrimination" by black employees who successfully sued his Christian Coalition in 2001 for forcing them enter its offices through a back door and eat in a segregated area (Robertson has since resigned).From: Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash
More:
- The Virginian-Pilot article of April 27, 1997 by reporter Bill Sizemore which exposed Pat Robertson's Operation Blessing missionary charity scam.
Robertson was chasing diamonds in Zaire with Mobutu's blessing as early as 1992. The Virginia Beach-based broadcaster ratcheted up the effort in 1994, the same year that eastern Zaire was flooded by more than 1 million refugees fleeing the bloody civil war in Rwanda.
- Robertson in gold mining deal with Liberian strong man; part of "Christian ministry" exploitation? - American Atheists, Flashline, June 4, 1999
Now that Robertson's diamond mining money-making scheme went bust, he's raiding Africa for other wealth. Once again he is teaming up with a villain. In his previous diamond mining operation it was Zaire's murderous dictator Mobutu, now it's Liberia's Charles Taylor:
According to an article in the Virginian-Pilot newspaper by reporter Bill Sizemore, Robertson has signed a development agreement with Liberian President Charles Taylor, a man under the scrutiny of human rights groups and political dissidents.
All of these theocratic murderer-buddies of Robertson, being fundamentalist Christians like Pat, have easily entered into agreements where they are willing to divert their country's riches to Pat and to overseas Christian organisations (whilst also enriching themselves), at the expense of their impoverished people.
...
Robertson's involvement with yet another African political bully surprises few observers who recall his cozy relationship with Mobutu Sese Seko, or his warm ties with other authoritarian leaders throughout the world. These have included Guatemalan President Jorge Serrano, a fervent Pentecostal Christian who wanted to establish a theocratic government and was a protege of the dictator General Efrain Rios Montt. In his book "The New World Order," Robertson praised both leaders as examples of "enlightened leadership." Another case involves Zambian President Frederick Chiluba, who in 1991 embraced a form of old testament Christian Reconstructionism and declared his country "a Christian nation."
Converting rich African countries to Christianity, or having friends amongst their Christian leaders, has never been more profitable, apparently:Liberia is turning into a haven for mercenaries, gangsters, get-rich-quick artists, and questionable "missionary" groups which are being accused with using the cover of religious belief to exploit the country's resources. [Link]
If there's any doubt that Robertson is only carrying out all these operations in Africa for the money, it becomes apparent from his support of Mobutu's rival when Mobutu's ship was sinking. Robertson is friends with anyone who had the power in Zaire (and by extension over the diamond mines):For years, Robertson was one of the staunchest U.S. supporters of longtime Zairian dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who died Sunday. The evangelist continued backing Mobutu even after the dictator became a pariah in Washington and many capitals of Europe.
From: Robertson settles diamond mining suit, televangelist spared a public accounting in trial - Virginian-Pilot, September 9, 1997
Last spring, however, as it became clear that Mobutu was being driven out by the forces of rebel leader Laurent Kabila, Robertson sent an emissary to Kabila offering his assistance and cooperation. - Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash - The Nation, September 7, 2005
- Book: The Most Dangerous Man in America? Pat Robertson and the Rise of the Christian Coalition by Rob Boston
- Televangelists: Pat Robertson, also includes a timeline at the bottom and a brief history of his failed 1988 Presidential Campaign. It also discusses how he and his CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) helped the Nicaraguan Contras - guerillas.
- Pat Robertson Quotes
Benny Hinn, Jerry Falwell, Ann Coulter, Fred Phelps, Billy Graham and others
Benny Hinn
Pastor Hinn in Nigerian money row - BBC News, June 27, 2005
In late April, scores of giant billboards and thousands of wall posters all over Lagos proclaimed the first of three days of divine miracles and healing for at least six million Nigerians - but at the end of the third day, there was more bickering over money than praise to God for mercy received.See also:
...About 300,000 people attended the event each night - a modest congregation by Nigerian crusade standards.
..."Four million dollars down the drain," he [Hinn] shouted into the microphone from the huge rostrum.
The Pentecostal faith in Nigeria is a veritable goldmine, judging by the opulence of most of its pastors. It is made even more attractive because incomes of churches are tax-exempt. Nearly all the churches are the private property of their pastors or founders and their immediate families.
In March 2003, a cashier at a five-star hotel was arrested for allegedly stealing nearly 40 million naira (then about US$400,000) from his employer. ... The man confessed that he gave all the money to his Pentecostal church in cash and equipment.
Evangelist Benny Hinn dazzled an overflowing Reunion Arena three years ago with plans to bring a touch of Lourdes to Las Colinas.
The flamboyant Pentecostal preacher offered the crowd a multimedia tour of his proposed $30 million shrine to faith healing and solicited donations to pay for it. The start of construction was imminent, he told followers.
Mr. Hinn's "World Healing Center" never materialized.
...
In a 1997 television interview, Mr. Hinn maintained that he did not become a preacher to enrich himself."I don't believe it's right to use your ministry to make money," he told CNN celebrity interviewer Larry King. "But I do believe [in] making sure your needs are met, and someone like me has needs."
Chasing the almighty dollar, Hinn has become the victim of a fraudulent Christian company himself:
Prosecutors said Benny Hinn was fooled by a promise of big money.
Jerry Falwell
A very visible Southern Baptist, who's made his position on feminists, homosexuals and unbelievers all too clear.
Televangelist: Jerry Falwell has some information on this preacher and his ridiculous statements, which include:
In 1999 he published an article in his National Liberty Journal entitled "Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet." The piece focused on disturbing clues that one of the characters in the hit children's show Teletubbies was designed to promote the gay lifestyle:Now, further evidence that the creators of the series intend for Tinky Winky to be a gay role model have surfaced. He is purple -- the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle -- the gay-pride symbol.When the mainstream media ridiculed Falwell for analyzing the sexual politics of a show aimed at pre-schoolers, Jerry responded that he didn't understand how people could miss the subtext.
In 1994 Falwell quietly accepted $3.5 million from Korean cult messiah Sun Myung Moon as part of a larger deal to bail Liberty University out from under its horrendous debt load. Perhaps Jerry was moved by this staggering generosity. That might be the reason why Falwell publicly urged his friend President Reagan to pardon Moon's tax evasion conviction.
Jerry was widely criticized in the Christian community for lending legitimacy to Moon's organization. Moon had always claimed that he was Jesus Christ's successor and moral superior.
Ann Coulter
Though not a preacher by profession - her fundy religion won't give women a respectable religious position anyway - she is a vocal representative of the conservative and religious Right.
From An appalling magic - Guardian news, May 17, 2003:
She worships George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld. Her only beef with the Republican party is that it's not rightwing enough. Her grievance against the war on Iraq: that it missed out all the other Muslim countries that should be on America's target list. As she wrote in a now-notorious column that appeared on September 13 2001:More statements by her:"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
"Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the President."Link
"We need to execute people like (John Walker Lindh) in order to physically intimidate liberals."
"My libertarian friends are probably getting a little upset now but I think that's because they never appreciate the benefits of local fascism."Link
-- MSNBC, February 8, 1997."I have to say I'm all for public flogging. One type of criminal that a public humiliation might work particularly well with are the juvenile delinquents, a lot of whom consider it a badge of honor to be sent to juvenile detention. And it might not be such a cool thing in the 'hood to be flogged publicly."
-- MSNBC, March 22, 1997"I think [women] should be armed but should not vote ..."
"It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact.
-- Politically Incorrect, February, 2001.
-- The Guardian, May 17 2003.
Her advocacy for a modern-day Crusade, her xenophobia, her low opinion of women and their rights (even though she's a woman herself), her love for fascism and public flogging... It seems to be a mixture of the old Catholic Church and Luther and the reformers all thrown in for good measure.
Fred Phelps
Another outstanding Southern Baptist pastor, founder of Westboro Baptist Church. This is the infamous man who runs an equally infamous virulent anti-gay site.
He also organises in-your-face anti-gay protests. See Anti-Gay Church Protests at GI Funerals - Associated Press, Aug 29, 2005.
He also hates Jews and blames them for Christians' deaths throughout history (it's been the other way around, but Phelps doesn't let trivial things like facts get in the way). And like other Southern Baptist Churches, he's famous for his racist views too. Not that he's saying anything Christians haven't been teaching since day one.
Some of his statements:"You can't preach the Bible without preaching hatred."
Being black won't get you to Heaven. But promoting [homosexuals] will take you to Hell.Link - contains more of his unpleasant.
-- Nov 1996 Westboro Baptist Church press release
Billy Graham
Southern Baptist pastor Billy Graham is known to have said that the biggest problem for America was the Jews. He has since apologised for his statement. His ministry is also known for their targeted evangelism of ethnic communities. Yet Graham denies targeting communities, even though there are still concerted efforts to do so in his Churches: Jewish leaders were upset about the Southern Baptists' September campaign to pray specifically for the conversion of Jews during the Jewish High Holy Days.His defamatory statements regarding Jews include the 1972 taped conversation with President Richard Nixon where he said that Jews have a "stranglehold" on the American media. He told the President:
"This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country's going down the drain"But perhaps Graham shouldn't be held solely responsible for this, as most Christians in the US sincerely believe the same. At least Graham has apologised - on the surface. (The pious Catholic Mel Gibson, who in a drunken stupour articulated his anti-Semitic feelings to the police officers who arrested him for drink-driving, also apologised. Christians are embarassed when their anti-Semitic beliefs become public: like Graham in the case of the taped conversation he thought was private, and Gibson who spoke his mind like people tend to do when they've had one too many. Once their typical Christian feelings are aired thus publicly, they feel they need to apologise, however insincerely, and state they are not anti-Semitic in spite of it all, to regain some of their lost popularity.)
"They're the ones putting out the pornographic stuff."
In the late 60s, Graham was also very certain that the Rapture would happen around 1980 and was very vocal about it. But he was wrong.
See also:
The book is about Reverend Tony Leyva, a southern televangelist who always carried his Bible around. He was about to get his own show on a TV station in Georgia (replacing Jimmy Swaggart) but missed out when the FBI arrested him and three of his fundamentalist Christian colleagues. It turns out that Rev. Tony and his pals had been moving boys across state borders for prostitution and other sex-related offences.
Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses
William Miller died on December 20, 1849. Almost overnight, the remnants of his church splintered over doctrinal differences. This fragmentation ultimately gave rise to a variety of denominations, including Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh-Day Adventists.
In the 20th century, an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventists updated Miller's prophecy by claiming a Biblical ETA of April 22, 1959. This group, calling itself the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, broke into two pieces in the resulting schism. One product of this fission decided to call themselves the Branch Davidians [David Koresh and his cult belong to this].
"I am fully conviced that somewhere between March 21st, 1843 and March 21st, 1844, according to the Jewish mode of time computation, Christ will come."When this failed to happen, Miller recalculated and came up with October 22, 1844 as the date for the Second Coming. Needless to say, this didn't happen either, not in Miller's time or since.
-- William Miller, 1 Jan 1843
From: information pages on Ellen White and William Miller
The JW-Nazi connection
A letter written by The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society Magdeburg (Jehova's Witnesses of Magdeburg, Germany) to Hitler. Although at present, Jehova's Witnesses tend to harp on how they were persecuted by the Nazis and an estimated 2000 JWs were killed by the Nazi regime, it turns out that they tried to get into the good books of Hitler. And JWs were apparently not free of anti-Semitism themselves either. More on the involvement of the JW in Nazi Germany can be found at JW and Hitler at Watchtower Observer.