Corporate America, backed by major banks has privatized our religious communities...promoting a radical right-wing ideology.
Take action against the Neocons of the Christian coalition.
1)Left click on your mouse
2)Hilight this letter
3)Right click your mouse
4)Select the copy option
5)Go to DNC's website www.democrats.org
6)Look to the right and you will see 2 options
'contact the media'
'write congress'
5)Paste this letter to as many contacts as you have time for. Get the word out to newspapers and leaders in your area.
A LETTER TO THE DNC COURTESY OF ME:
DIRECT TITHING: Our response to the Neocons of the Christian Coalition
In a free-market, corporations compete. As they compete, the dominant groups buy out the smaller companies. At the top of the food chain, we have multi-national corporations who pretty much pay no taxes and make up rules as they go along.
Now, America is seeing the privatization and centralization of Christianity...especially in rural America and in the Bible Belt. Here, small churches disintegrate and communities get torn apart as local members are drawn to megachurches. Shrinking congregations can no longer afford to pay their pastors.
Massive megachurch facilities absorb each diverse community under the word of one pastor who makes 6 figures and reports directly to those at the top of the food chain in corporate Christianity.
Despite claims that smaller churches are overcrowded and need bigger facilities...the opposite is true. Smaller churches are struggling to fill their benches. Religious leaders act as if they are fixing a problem when they really are creating one. They're tearing individual communities apart as they conform under one roof. As they centralize religious worship, local communities get immersed in the mainstream economy and the suburban lifestyle that comes along with it.
Bank of America (Stock symbol BOA) has its headquarters in Charlotte, NC. I attended a baptist church there called Grace Covenant where the church had a donation drive to raise 6 MILLION DOLLARS from its growing congregation!!!
This is a church with a very organized networking and marketing program with close ties to big wigs in the Christian Coalition.
Dr. Dobbs broadcast an election rally through the congregation in favor of President Bush and said that America's values are at stake. Anti-abortion pamphlets (on very expensive paper with quality ink) were distributed to every household in the community portraying John Kerry as a baby-murderer.
Why does a church need 6 million dollars? For benches and preachers and Bibles? For the bare necessities? No.
To finance a bank mortgage? Yes.
How do they raise 6 million dollars? It's easy. The pastor continually reasserts an underlying theme in his sermon: Give your money to "God" through the tithe (10% of your annual income). Good bye neighborhood church. Hello corporate welfare.
Now does this money go toward Christian causes? Does it go the poor, the needy, the elderly, the sick, the handicapped? No. No. No. No. No. Does it go to God's children? No. Your tithe is a direct payment to the bank who owns the property you worship on...the pastor who speaks to you...and the facility you worship in......not to mention the rest of the commercial and residential real estate in your neighborhood. This bank is in partnership with Duke Energy (A nearby Nuclear Power Plant)
I want to tithe. But I want to give 10% of my earnings to an elderly lady at a struggling local church with a rich history. I want to present her with a check. I want to see exactly where my money is going...and make sure that it's not lining the pockets of some loan officer who works for BOA.
It's situations like these that are created by think tanks like Cato and Heritage.
I contacted a progressive holy-man about this named Reverend Lang. Here is his email: oddrev@yahoo.com.
It's time the DNC found major allies in the religious community. Reverend Lang has sent letters to the President and spoke out against his misuse of God in political contexts.
moura16@yahoo.com
Original: TAKE BACK RELIGION