Danny Cardwell's picture

    Sex, Lies and Hate

    This past Monday Pat Robertson offered his Christian Broadcast Network audience a conspiracy theory, as a legitimate response, to Fox News contributor Eric Bolling’s suspension from the network for allegedly sending unsolicited nude photos to at least three female coworkers. Robertson said:

    If you wanted to destroy the Fox News, you really wanted to destroy them, what would you do? Well you would send some salacious material, ostensibly from one of their popular co-hosts or hosts and you’d send it out and then get it publicized and then you have some woman complain that she had gotten this salacious material from this particular co-host.

    Sadly, there are Evangelicals who will accept Pat Robertson’s theory as fact. The ungodly union between the reactionary wing of the Evangelical movement and the conservative media has produced an analytical paralysis in the minds of those who only receive information from sources inside their bubble. This paralysis obscures rational thought and hinders dialogue. It’s easier to believe conservative media outlets are the victims of a sinister liberal plot than to address the misogyny and patriarchy that seem to be constitutive parts of their political and religious dogma.

    Eric Bolling’s suspension comes a month after Charles Payne’s suspension pending the findings of his sexual harassment allegations. In April of this year Bill O'Reilly was fired from the network after it was revealed that he and 20th Century Fox had been settling sexual harassment cases since 2004.  In July of last year, the recently deceased, Roger Ailes was forced to resign as CEO of Fox News amid his sexual harassment scandal involving female employees at the network.

    None of this history matters. A closed mind rarely sees patterns. These sexual allegations are not viewed as a sign of a toxic atmosphere. The “good guy” is a victim of an illegitimate media. This is the kind of thinking that allows people to look at videos of unarmed people shot by police and disconnect what they are seeing from any historical context.

    The allegiance some Evangelicals have pledged to the conservative media is so strong that it ignores, tolerates​ and even defends sexual assault. The "Access Hollywood" audio of Donald Trump admitting to sexually assaulting women didn't faze this crowd. Bill Clinton’s 20-year-old consensual affair with Monica Lewinsky is more offensive to many of them than Donald Trump hanging around the dressing rooms of young women or his willingness to just, “Grab ’em by the p___y.”

    There are religious and secular people who, foolishly, believe these Evangelicals can be reached with better arguments. These good folks are prisoners of their own hope and optimism. There is a hatred at the core of this kind of Christianity. Pat Robertson was talking to people who spent eight years believing every nonsensical story about FEMA camps, gun grabs, Sharia law and a host of other lies fed to them by the conservative media.

    In America, our hatred is often hidden behind the Bible or wrapped in a flag. More than 80% of our fellow citizens identify with some denomination of Christianity, yet the rhetoric disseminated from Christian television, social media, too many pulpits and from our elected officials doesn't comport with the gospel of Jesus. Pointing this out is useless. There are Evangelicals who believe the media is fake news, science is a form of secular opinion and universities produce more snowflakes than data. This isn’t hypocrisy. It’s a pernicious worldview that can’t be penetrated with a better argument. The church and the truth are collateral damage.

     

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    Comments

    Yeah I viewed this already on Seder?

    A TAKE DOWN?

    No it was Secular Talk.

     

     

    HAHAHAHAH

    Bolling is balling and playing a Weiner.

    But Jesus H. Christ.....hahahahaha

    Robertson, at about 95 years of age....hahahahah figures that there are those who would use Bollings dick as a...?

    And why the hell would anyone wish to use Bolling's dick?

    What about Bolling Green?

     

     


    Omarosa O.Manigault is a ordained minister. Welcome to the modern church. Churches of the past were troubled as well. There is an African Methodist Episcopal church and a National Baptist Convention because blacks were banned from most white churches. Antebellum Baptist churches divided into Baptists and Southern Baptists. Methodists had a similar split between Northern and Southern churches. At that time, slavery was the issue. Today the issue is the prosperity gospel. Real Christians are rich because they have been blessed by God. The meek and the poor are deserving of nothing. They are being punished by God because they are lazy. Individual churches may provide for the poor and the poor should be thankful for the pennies they receive. It is an abomination for government to provide for the poor because the government is taking the place of God in providing for the needy. Therefore, the government is evil.

    Once you accept the prosperity gospel, you have to reject those biblical references to providing for the poor. Your goal becomes associating yourself with people blessed by God. This leads you to seek out the elites. Trump is tolerable because he is wealthy. His election  had to be because of the hand of God. (In this scenario, Satan does not exist). Bolling et. al. are aligned with  Trump, therefore they are worthy. Attacks on the worthy are evil, thus the women at Fox must be lying. Robertson et. al have sold themselves to the Devil.

    Fortunately, we had a pastor like Martin Luther King Jr. to show a different way. Reverend William Barber carries the torch today. Trump has exposed some so-called Evangelicals for the purveyors of false Christianity they truly are.

     

     


    Nice post, Danny. This level of denial and conspiracy-mingling is outrageous,

    It's not like normal religious faith, it's more like the level of denial and defensiveness that attach to the figure of a cult leader, whose followers have to blind themselves to his viable flaws, or the level of lying to yourself that you see in families with an abusive or addicted parent. 


    Following in Roberston's footsteps, pastor and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee tweeted that Trump should send Maxine Waters to North Korea. He goes on to say Kim Jong-Un would be so repulsed by talking to Waters that he would take the poison he used to kill his half-brother

    https://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/you-call-yourself-christian-mike-huckab...

    There is nothing Christian about these so-called Evangelicals.


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