Per the Columbus Dispatch (which has been the major newspaper covering this story) and a recent mirrored post on Dark Christianity: Religious leaders who accused two evangelical pastors of illegally playing politics came forward yesterday and reaffirmed their decision to challenge the tax-exempt status of the pastors' churches. The original action--which I reported on here on Talk2Action--by these pastors is in itself historic; to the best of any researchers' knowledge, this is the first time a complaint against a church for electioneering has ever been filed by other members of the clergy. The fact that other clergymen, both in Ohio and nationwide, are now joining the Ohio Rebellion is most encouraging indeed. (This is exactly the sort of action that is needed in mainstream churches, IMHO.)
True to form, the pastors of the dominionist churches have already begun demonising the Ohio Rebellion and the clergy behind it, calling them literally unholy: Until yesterday, only about nine of the complaining pastors -- whom Johnson (of Fairfield Christian) labeled "an unholy alliance" -- had been identified. But they revealed themselves yesterday under pressure from the public and Parsley, who last week called them the "anonymous 31." The pastors said they acted as individuals and not on behalf of their churches. (Although it may not seem like it to people outside the dominionist community, Parsley actually directly threatened the pastors making legal complaint. In neopentecostal churches, especially those into "Third Wave" theology (of which World Harvest Church is an embracer thereof), "word-faith" movements and the "spiritual warfare" aspects of dominion theology, one extremely common method of specifically "cursing people in the name of Christ" is to get groups of people to pray over the names of "targets" for all manner of harm to come over them until they convert (and to will all manner of harm to come to them for the specific purpose of bending them to the dominionists' will). I've detailed the specific process here.)
Needless to say, the dominionist pastors are trying to play "But if you'd just talked to us...", but the pastors behind the Ohio Rebellion are having none of it. And, for the most part, their congregations are behind them: Parsley said if the pastors had come to him personally, "rather than air their grievances in the media, we certainly would have quickly put their fears to rest." We need to see a lot more like this, but this is an encouraging start here. :3
More churches stand up to Ohio dominionists! | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)
More churches stand up to Ohio dominionists! | 1 comment (1 topical, 0 hidden)
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