Brights News Feed

The Center for Progessive Christianity in the US has launched “Pluralism Sunday” (which will be May 27th) in order to “celebrate diversity” (in Ekklesia’s words). The idea is to “celebrate the harmony and understanding that is possible among followers of different religions and spiritual traditions”, says TCPC.

Potentially this is a worthy aim. But of course this is limited pluralism, restricted to the religious and based on shared religiosity, not shared humanity.

In fact, the announcement qualifies the scope of “pluralism” even further: “We are encouraging the progressive Christian community…” (it also uses the phrase “…For Progressive Christian Communities” even in the title). And the co-sponsors are the “Institute for Progressive Christianity/CrossLeft, CrossWalkAmerica, and The Network of Spiritual Progressives” (according to Ekklesia); all Christian organizations that lean toward evangelism, rather than a diverse mix of different religious groups and denominations.

And the event is to be held to coincide with Pentecost (rather than choosing a religiously neutral date).

Furthermore, Ekklesia report that Pluralism Sunday is “being billed as an opportunity for Christians to share their faith with those of other religions”. The phrase the Center for Progressive Christianity actually use in their own announcement is “it’s an evangelism opportunity”.

Ofcom, the UK TV watchdog, are changing their rules to allow TV evangelists to appeal for money on screen and the Revelation TV channel has already changed its financial strategies to take advantage of the new rules.

The channel had been struggling to raise £600,000 a year but is now hoping to be able to raise £5million a year, by five years time, through direct appeals to viewers.

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Kent “Doctor Dino” Hovind was sentenced to ten years in prison last Friday. He was the controversial leader of the Creation Science Evangelism ministry and owned Pensacola Florida’s Dinosaur Adventure Land, a creationist theme park which “documents” the days when humans and dinosaurs lived side by side. Hovind was found guilty in November on many and various charges of financial wrongdoing. (His wife is due to be sentenced in March, probably much more leniently.)

Hovind had claimed that there are no laws that tax “God’s” property or work. The judge said the case was nothing to do with religion, but insisted that churches are not exempt from all forms of taxation. Hovind’s business empire must now pay hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to the government, which may put Dinosaur Adventure Land itself in peril. Not as much peril as people would have been in if they lived with dinosaurs, though.

The US National Center for Science Education has a good short summary of events, and relays local Pensacola press responses to the sentencing, which are scornful of this minister who is now a convicted criminal. (Via. Image source.)

The Evangelical Christian pressure group, Christian Voice, whose membership sometimes seems to consist soley of its national director Stephen Green, has had an attempted private prosecution for blasphemy thrown out of court.

Green was attempting to bring the case, under rarely used criminal law targetting “blasphemy”, in response to a televised performance of comic musical Jerry Springer The Opera, first broadcast two years ago. The director-general of the BBC (Mark Thompson), and the producer of the televised show (Jon Thoday), would have faced personal criminal charges, though the writer of the book (Stewart Lee) and the composer (Richard Thomas) were not being accused.

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It went largely under the mainstream media radar, but last week controversial cult documentary Jesus Camp appeared to have shut down the summer camp which it exposed earlier this year, revealing the extent to which it was teaching children “to become dedicated Christian soldiers in God’s army [and] schooled in how to take back America for Christ”.

The owner’s of the rented space in which the camp took place told the organisers not to return after vandals — presumably outraged at the overt indoctrination of children witnessed in the documentary — caused significant damage to their property. The Pentecostal pastor and “Kids on Fire” camp director, Becky Fischer, admitted this was not the only reason to cease activities, however. “Right now, we’re just not a safe ministry,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll be doing it [the camps] for a while.” (See Seattle Times: “Pastor will shut down controversial kids camp“.)

However Christianity Today has now noted (”Jesus Camp Shuts Down, But Fischer Says Her ‘Indoctrination’ Will Continue“) that Fischer conflates “indoctrination” with any “teaching someone else a set of ideas” and that she fully intends to relocate and continue similar activities.

Instead of holding another camp, Fischer said she plans to hold more conferences on the East and West Coasts. However, she won’t be changing her message or how she presents it.

“If I change, no one would come,” Fischer said. “If you want average, ordinary, Sunday school stuff, that’s not who we are. I want kids who are passionate.”

[…] Fischer has no apologies or regrets about the film. “This is my scream to the church,” she says. “You’ve got to pay attention to what you’re doing or not doing to the kids, because we’re losing them from the church.”