How did the historians of Weimar Germany and Nazism, the professors of Holocaust studies, the sociologists and the religious scholars manage to miss the rise of our homegrown Christian fascism? Immersed in the writings of Hannah Arendt, Raul Hilberg, Saul Friedländer, Joachim Fest, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Theodor Adorno, they never connected the dots. Why didn’t church leaders thunder in denunciation at the grotesque perversion of the Gospel by the Christian fascists as they sacralized the get-rich-with-Jesus schemes of the prosperity gospel, imperialism, militarism, capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and other forms of bigotry? Why didn’t reporters see the flashing red lights that lit up decades ago?

Source: Fascists In Our Midst – The Chris Hedges Report

Plus a conversation with the director of Netflix’s horrifying new docuseries

Source: Why an American Catholic doctor stayed put in Sudan’s civil war

Here’s how you know Jesus has left your church: When only the powerful are allowed to speak and preach the word of God. When forgiveness is offered without repentance. When there is no cross, only a theology of glory of the powerful. When the oppressed are silenced. When the sin of the oppressed is condemned, while the sin of the powerful is covered up and forgiven without repentance. When the Bible is twisted to glorify white, wealthy male-dominated culture. When piety becomes a show, and true acts of discipleship are called sinful, embarrassing, or un-Christian. When Jesus has left your church building, you ignore his words: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven … whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.” – Matthew 6:1,5-

Source: How You Know Jesus Has Left Your Church | Sojourners

May 23, 2022 – by Heather Cox Richardson

Scandals today, and be forewarned: the first deals with sexual assault. If you want to skip over it, the next one starts about nine paragraphs down, with the word TODAY in all caps. Yesterday, a nearly 300-page report from a third-party investigation revealed that the leadership of the Southern Baptists buried sex abuse claims for more than 20 years. They ignored accusations or attacked sex abuse survivors to protect the church from legal liability, describing survivors as “‘opportunistic,’ having a ‘hidden agenda of lawsuits,’ wanting to ‘burn things to the ground,’ and acting as a ‘professional victim.’”

Source: May 23, 2022 – by Heather Cox Richardson