Rick Warren? C'mon Obama!

From Christopher Hitchens on Rick Warren.

As Barack Obama is gradually learning, his job is to be the president of all Americans at all times. If he likes, he can oppose the idea of marriage for Americans who are homosexual. That's a policy question on which people may and will disagree. However, the man he has chosen to deliver his inaugural invocation is a relentless clerical businessman who raises money on the proposition that certain Americans - non-Christians, the wrong kind of Christians, homosexuals, nonbelievers - are of less worth and littler virtue than his own lovely flock of redeemed and salvaged and paid-up donors.

This quite simply cannot stand.... A president may by all means use his office to gain re-election, to shore up his existing base, or to attract a new one. But the day of his inauguration is not one of the days on which he should be doing that. It is an event that belongs principally to the voters and to their descendants, who are called to see that a long tradition of peaceful transition is cheerfully upheld, even in those years when the outcome is disputed. I would myself say that it doesn't need a clerical invocation at all, since, to borrow Lincoln's observation about Gettysburg, it has already been consecrated. But if we must have an officiating priest, let it be some dignified old hypocrite with no factional allegiance and not a tree-shaking huckster and publicity seeker who believes that millions of his fellow citizens are hellbound because they do not meet his own low and vulgar standards.

- Thanks, Dan | Christopher Hitchens on Rick Warren

Another Whiskey Tango Minister Bites the Dust

Until recently Todd Bentley, 32, is (or was) the pastor of Fresh Fire Ministries and a noted Canadian televangelist. He is taking time out after it was discovered that he was emotionally involved with a female staffer. Bentley and his wife have separated.

As a youth Bentley struggled with drugs and alcohol and, according to the Canadian National Post was convicted of sexually assaulting a 7-year-old boy.

Bentley is noted for his many tattoos and piercings, for his claims of raising the dead and trips to heaven to hobnob with the high and mightly, and for his flamboyant and often aggressive preaching style. During healing services Bentley has physically assaulted his supplicants. Watch him knee a stage 4 colon cancer patient in the stomach.

- National Post | B. C. healer, televangelist withdraws for his own healing
- Whatsup? | More on Todd Bentley from Apostasy Alert

Pastor Murders 85-Year-Old Man for Money

Howard Douglas Porter, 57, a former pastor of Hickman Community Church, is facing life in prison without the possibility of parole for murder for financial gain and murder of a witness.

Porter's victim was Frank Craig, an 85-year-old bachelor who had squirreled away a lifetime of savings, and inherited $2 million from a life insurance policy. Porter befriended him and offered to build an agriculatural museum, which would house Craig's collection of antique agricultural tools. Then Porter staged two car wrecks, the first left Craig unable to walk and the second killed him. Porter spent Craig's money and even sold his home, but ground was never broken for the museum project.

According to CNN, Porter "...was convicted Monday of first-degree murder, embezzlement, elder abuse and attempted murder."

- CNN | Pastor guilty of murdering millionaire
- Hickman Community Church

His Little Minister Wanted a Collar of Its Own

Scott Murray, a pastor at the New Covenant Church of Clyde, North Carolina, broke his leg fleeing from the home of a female congregant. He allegedly broke into her house and stole a sex toy and a bottle of personal lubricant. He has since resigned and turned himself into police, who charged him with felony burglary and larceny.

The congregation is shocked, I say, SHOCKED!

- Breitbart.tv | North Carolina Pastor Broke Into Woman’s Home to Steal Sex Toy
- New Covenant Church
- Thanks, Slog
- ANTIDOTE | Divine Interventions
- Sex Toys in the Bible:

"Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them..."
Ezekiel 16:17

ACLU Represents Pastor Imprisoned for Quoting Scripture

The ACLU has taken up the cause of Rev. Ed Pinkney, of Benton Harbor, MI, imprisoned for quoting scripture to a judge. Pinkney quoted Deuteronomy 28:14-22 which contains a series of curses including, but not limited to, fever, inflammation, blasting, and mildew.

14And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

15But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:

16Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field.

17Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store.

18Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.

19Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out.

20The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me.

21The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it.

22The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.
Deuteronomy 28:14-22

Chief Judge Alfred M. Butzbaugh did not take kindly to the narrative and sentenced Pinkney to prison.

Preacher gets prison for quoting Bible