Linda Gordon's Second Coming of the KKK: "Klan's Mobilization of Evangelical Ministers Foreshadowed — and Probably Helped Generate — the Entry of Christian Right Preachers into Conservative Politics"

I've just finished reading Linda Gordon's The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition (NY: Liveright, 2017). It's an excellent historical study of the reincarnation of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Linda Gordon is a history professor at New York University.  

"The Same [Bible] Passage Sessions Cited Has Been Used to Justify Slavery and Nazism": Valuable Commentary on Sessions' and Huckabee-Sanders' Use of Romans 13

Dear Jeff Sessions, are you aware that the argument you made today from Romans 13 was a central argument of the German Christian (Pro-Nazi) movement over and against the Confessing Church? Im not saying you are a Nazi, but you’re interpreting the Bible like one.

— frsimmons (@frsimmons) June 15, 2018

Tara Isabella Burton, "The racist history of the Bible verse the White House uses to justify separating families": 

"Pro-Life" White U.S. Christians Don't "Risk" Being Implicated in the Horrors Unfolding on the Nation's Borders: They Are Directly Responsible for Those Horrors

Huffington Post lead headline, morning of 15 June 2018.

Charles Camosy, "You Can't Be Pro-Life and Against Immigrant Children":

Given their support of the administration, and an unwillingness to speak critically about immigration policy, "pro-life, pro-family" organizations now risk being tied to these and other horrific practices.

We Are Church Ireland to Pope Francis: Would Jesus Define People as Objectively Disordered or Intrinsically Evil?

As Sarasi pointed out in a comment here several days ago, We Are Church Ireland now has a petition online at Change.org with the following intent:

"The Bible Is Trending Because It Was Just Used to Justify Ripping Babies from Their Mothers’ Arms and Putting Them in Interment Camps"

Because it needs to be documented: think of how documentation now allows us to see Catholic religious leaders in Germany and Austria, Catholic priests and nuns, raising their hands in Nazi salutes, blessing the Nazi state. We should never let ourselves forget what's possible: the bible, religion, can be used to justify almost any heinous practice under the sun, if people are willing to stoop to that use of the bible and religion:

Southern Baptist Convention's New Smiley Face: What Really Lies Behind It, When We Get Beyond Media Spin?: "Wives, Submit to Your Husbands"

Perhaps as a former Southern Baptist, I should keep my mouth shut. In the view of the mainstream media, which love a both-sides-have-good-points approach to these issues, I have an "agenda," as an LGBTQ Christian who repudiated my family's Southern Baptist church after it split in 1964 or 1965 over the question of whether to admit African-American members. Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress don't have an agenda, in the eyes of the mainstream religious media. 

Recommended Commentary: "There Will Be Lots of Singing, Preaching, Praying, and Hand Holding. Meanwhile, Victims of Sacralized Bigotry and Discrimination Will Be Ignored"

Nine people of faith sit in jail tonight for praying on the steps of the #SupremeCourt. This from the same court that ruled in favor of the religious beliefs of a Colorado baker who refused to serve a gay couple. We must not let this hypocrisy stand! pic.twitter.com/n9qoqYNesQ

— Rev. Dr. Barber (@RevDrBarber) June 12, 2018

Some valuable commentary I've read in the past several days about matters of religion, culture, and politics that I'd like to pass on to you — ranging from commentary about the current meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to the sexual abuse problems facing the SBC; right-wing Catholic lobbying against contraceptive availability for women in developing nations; new indicators of how deeply racism is entrenched in Mormon culture; and the role that conservative white Christians are playing in blocking ecological initiatives in the U.S. government:

Developing Meme re: Supremes' Masterpiece Cakeshop Decision: It's "Narrow" — A View from the Bible Belt

The developing meme about the Supremes' Masterpiece Cakeshop decision is that it's very "narrow" and won't militate against existing civil rights laws. What that meme totally ignores is that large swathes of the country have no civil rights laws protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination. None at all. Because "religious" people oppose those laws.

Catholic Church and LGBTQ People: Clues, Hearsay, Spectacularly Failed Pastoral Leadership in Face of Oppression and Suffering

Jamie L. Manson, "For LGBTQ Catholics, there is little hope in hearsay":