Mixing Religion and Politics Corrupts Both

[triumph]

Paradise Post

OpinionColumnists
O’Neill: Mixing Religion and Politics Corrupts Both
By Jaime O'neill June 8, 2018 at 3:35 pm

Last week, Franklin Graham, the late Billy Graham’s son, came to Chico to hold what was, in essence, a political rally at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds. It was one of ten stops Graham made in California, a place he repeatedly referred to as “godless” The tour was billed as “Decision America,” and it had more to do with politics than with religion. It was clear he was directing attendees to support Republicans and the corrupt Trump agenda. People who don’t share such views helped underwrite Franklin Graham’s roadshow. If people of faith are going to misuse their tax-exempt status to intrude their views into the secular world of political advocacy, they should lose their tax-exempt status.

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as were later attempts to take away the tax-exemptions churches enjoy, exemptions that have made “churches” like the Church of Scientology exempt from paying taxes, and that have also allowed churches to engage in tax-exempt political crusades like the one Franklin Graham brought to Chico last week, The evangelical churches have made no secret of their support for Donald Trump, along with a whole raft of Republican policy objectives. High-profile ministers–many of them with ugly records of racist, misogynist, and homophobic comments–have practically taken up residence in the Trump White House.


more@link

https://www.paradisepost.com/2018/06/08/oneill-mixing-religion-and-politics-corrupts-both/

 

[Enthetan]

Plus the influence of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and numerous others

 

[dchoiceisalwaysrs]

It is the mental or character disturbances(aberrated thinking), sociopathic personality traits, which acted upon by religions and politicians and men and woman of the street, which produces the corrupted meme we have in large portions of our societies these days.
Absent those frailties we would be doing much better. Scientology and other packages of insanity or anti-social ideas and resultant cults are most certainly not any answer to the mess.
These are both the best of times and the worst of times.
I don't see that we can keep separate the ideas of religion and politics in our societies.
But we can expose the errors in thinking and behaviour and learn ways to curtail them. If our efforts are lacking in compassion then we will never solve the mess. If we each work hard at increasing the virtuous emotions and thoughts we could make it. Of course we need to be very vigilant regarding narcissistic behaviours or attitudes which are offered up.
To paraphrase "it is incumbent upon those of good will to step up and do something about the evil wherever it is."

 

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

Plus the influence of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and numerous others

Ran a word search for "Democrat", "Wright", "Marxism" in the article - no match.

 

[Enthetan]

High-profile ministers–many of them with ugly records of racist, misogynist, and homophobic comments–have practically taken up residence in the Trump White House.

One complication is that morality, politics, and religion tend to be intertwined.

Considering "racism, misogyny, and homophobia" to be grievous sins deserving of moral opposition, including legal prohibition, IS a religious position. The religion may or may not involve a god or gods, but it is no less a religion.

Also, this article does not mention Scientology, and thus does not belong in the section you placed it in. It belongs in the "politics" section.

Lastly, regarding taxing churches, I'm in agreement with the author. In fact, I'm in favor of going FAR beyond the authors position, and eliminating tax exemption from ALL current "non profits", and tax ALL of them. Tax the churches. Tax Planned Parenthood. Tax Harvard's endowment revenue. All of them, equally.