Outchurched

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about “Church Discipline” which can lead to banning/shunning:

On a quiet Sunday morning in June, as worshippers settled into the pews at Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan, Pastor Jason Burrick grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911. When a dispatcher answered, the preacher said a former congregant was […]

WISN.com:

RACINE, WI: A right to life group in Racine is under fire after mailing controversial material to 44,000 people. It included an informational letter, a fundraising envelope and a small plastic fetus. Mystical Listrom said she was not happy with what she found inside when she opened a letter from Wisconsin Right to Life accompanied by a […]

From USA Today:

Upset that news photographers were taking his picture during lawmakers’ morning prayer, a rookie Colorado legislator gave a Denver photojournalist a swift kick in the knee today, the Rocky Mountain News reports. Colorado Springs Republican Douglas Bruce, an anti-tax crusader sworn in this afternoon to fill a state House vacancy, kicked RMN photographer Javier […]

Education is of primary importance in human life. If you can’t read or count then you’re basically unable to do anything beyond menial labor (nothin’ wrong with menial labor… it’s honest work). If you have no understanding of history, you’re doomed to repeat it.

The American public education system has gone to hell in […]

From Fox News (h/t Dirty Devil):

It’s non-news that the Baptist State Convention is a club for dicks and assholes (who do not come into contact with each other), but here’s the story anyhow:

Baptist Convention Expels North Carolina Church for Welcoming Gays GREENSBORO, N.C. — Delegates to the Baptist State Convention have voted overwhelmingly to expel […]

From ELCA (h/t Street Prophets):

CHICAGO (ELCA) — When 8-year-old Lauren Wanders and her 6-year-old sister Katie Wanders, La Crosse, Wis., set-up their lemonade stand Aug. 30 at a local grocery store, they expected to raise about $200 in free-will donations to support neighbors affected by storms and floods that struck southern Wisconsin earlier in the […]

From MSNBC:

A priest has been arrested on charges of stalking late-night talk show host Conan O’Brien by writing him threatening notes on parish letterhead, contacting his parents and showing up at his studio, prosecutors said Wednesday. The Rev. David Ajemian, a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston, was arrested last week while trying to enter a […]

Here’s some brilliance from Kentucky:

As a woman bitten by a rattlesnake during a church service in London struggled to breathe, hospital employees made derogatory comments about her religious beliefs rather than providing proper care, contributing to her death, a lawsuit charges. The case arises from the Nov. 5, 2006, death of Linda F. Long, 48, a […]

Ok, the title is an interpretation, but this is amazingly great (via FoxNews.com):

BALTIMORE — The father of a fallen Marine was awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday in damages by a jury that found leaders of a fundamentalist church had invaded the family’s privacy and inflicted emotional distress when they picketed the Marine’s funeral.

The […]

Anybody who suggests that Left Behind Games isn’t on the cutting edge of Contemporary Christianism obviously hasn’t been paying attention. They’re making a brilliant three-bullet-point attack on secular society and providing a truly Christ-like example:

Make a mediocre game with an inherently flawed premise based on a line of books written with an […]