Church Financial Fraud Is Growing
A company which insures churches against losses from fraud has reported a continual growth of six percent per year. Every issue of the newsletter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation lists the new cases of fraud.
I will be the first to agree that fraud is found in every industry and may be no more or less present than it is in churches. Like with sexual predators in the clergy, the issue with churches is they lay claim to more moral authority than the rest of society. How many times has it been said here that atheism has no moral base while Christianity does? If Christianity has moral authority it would be nice to see it displayed more often.
Unfortunately, those who are members of churches need to make the assumption their favorite institution has bad people in it. A second adult needs to be present in most circumstances where there are children. Checks need to be signed by two people and boards of directors need to personally hold bank statements in their hands.
On top of all that, the Christian faith needs to stop saying it is a source of moral guidance for society. Anyone who claims this has not read the Noah story where God kills babies. Or, the many other stories of a vengeful and jealous god.
Dishonest people in religion find the minds of people in their church are all ready programmed not to believe there are dishonest people present. That is the perfect setting for a heist. Just as the faithful defend their sexual abusing clergy until the evidence overwhelms them they will deny the missing money went to an insider.
When church people are stealing church money, the moral authority the church claims in gay marriage and abortion starts to erode.
Readers Please Note:
My blog will no longer appear on the Forum web page. The company is undergoing a large rebuilding of its tech program and my blog my appear later in the year in some other format. In the meantime I will continue blogging. I am using blogspot and you should be able to find my blog at https://freethinkerjon.blogspot.com/ . It also is posted on Face Book at Red River Freethinkers. That site is https://www.facebook.com/RedRiverFreethinkers/ Thank you for reading.
You've won over another person! http://www.inforum.com/opinion/letters/4486313-letter-why-give-lindgren-platform-spew-his-hate
ReplyDeleteThings are getting better, at least in this modern age. In days gone by, when somebody had the audacity to suggest that the (biblical) "Truth" was not actually the objective truth, they were braded heretics and murdered in horrible ways. Nowadays, freethinkers merely get slandered as the moral equivalent of folks like Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot (a false equivalency), or just are subjected to plain old outrage in newspapers.
DeleteOf course, this still happens in other countries, mostly those that subscribe to alternative cults devoted to the loving god of Abraham.
Keep up your commentaries Jon. Despite the best efforts of Trump, most newspapers still hold at least a semblance of regard for the first amendment.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen once commented that 'A Church is more a hospital for sinners than a museum for saints.' One would be wise to understand that before condemning God's Church.
ReplyDeleteMusing on the quotes of the Venerable Fulton Sheen, I thought of a few that Jon might want to reflection upon. Here they are.
"Criticism of others is thus an oblique form of self-commendation. We think we make the picture hang straight on our wall by telling our neighbors that all his pictures are crooked.”
“Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.”
“Far better it is for you to say: "I am a sinner," than to say: "I have no need of religion." The empty can be filled, but the self-intoxicated have no room for God.”
“The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.”
Matt 8:29 You said I might want to reflect on Bishop Sheen's quotes. Yes I do. "The tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while thos who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction."
DeleteThis quote is perfectly reflects former Pope Benedict. It's almost as if Sheen saw Benedict coming and was warning us. Benedict had so much passion against homosexuality his brought up the topic in his Christmas message. At the same time he was guilty of hiding pedophile priests by moving them from parish to parish while a Bishop.
The Forum will no longer be putting my blog on the editorial page of its website. They are doing a big company wide revision that will take much of the rest of 2018. The blog may scoll somewhere there later in the year. In the meantime, I will continue to blog and you can find it at https://freethinkerjon.blogspot.com/
DeleteAlso, my blog appears on Face Book, Red River Freethinkers. Thanks to everyone for participating.
Why is the response of the faithful to criticism so frequently arrogant and insecure? Is the Church above self-reflection and humbleness? Lindgren cites what should be provable or disprovable: fraud in churches is growing at a particular rate. Then he cites what is fact: the Church holds itself out as the ultimate moral authority. Shouldn't those holding themselves in such high moral esteem be better at following their own proscriptions than the non-believers? Is that an unfair expectation? That if your leadership week after week shames its sinners for using birth control or living in a gay marriage--under the unforgiving and not loving penalty of eternal burning in damnation--is it too much to expect that those very same leaders not sexually abuse children, and not cover it up, and not transfer the perpetrators to other parishes to re-offend, and not permit them to become laicized and marry and work at Disneyland, and to not report to civil authorities, and to not acknowledge the victims, and to ask for forgiveness from God but not apologize to the victims, to be pastoral to leaders of the church but not the most vulnerable vicitms: children?
DeleteBy his own admission and provable archives of blogs he has authored, Jon Lindgren is a relentless purveyor of bigotry and hatred. He incites, not educates.
DeleteSome say he a right to his opinion. He does. But does he have the right to dirty the minds of all those who read certain newspapers? No. What if his blog were about White Supremacy and was filled with hateful and bigoted racial commentary? Would you be standing up to defend him? Let him host his own blog but don't publish him via links from the Fargo Forum.
The Marcils, owners of the Fargo Forum, bear responsibililty for publishing Jon's hatred and religious bigotry. I can't think of a single blog he has written extolling the virtues of atheism. Perhaps there are none. With Jon, it is a non-stop assault on Christianity.
The Church's teachings on faith and morals is infallible. This God ordained and protects. Those who claim to be Christians and whose actions speak otherwise are called sinners. Some are great sinners. Pedophilia ranks as worse than stealing bubble gum. It is a grave sin and a scandal if committed by those in Church power, those ordained, those who say one thing but do another. It is a crime and should be punished as such.
But make no mistake, Jon holds himself above any religion. He claims moral superiority to all. So, please, no illogical journey to "if they are sinners, who are they to tell me I have sinned." The Church needs self-reflection and more measures in place to prevent such grave sins from occurring. This is always the case. To say it is not taking place and has not happened in the past is to be willfully ignorant.
I almost laughed at the computer screen when I read Matt's quotes! The obvious reality, from a freethinking perspective of course, is that defending belief in dogma is invariably inherently dishonest. Clinging to beliefs when overwhelming evidence refutes them is a classic case of "the self-intoxicated having room for God."
ReplyDeleteMoreover, the notion (common in the USA) that zealously defending one's beliefs ("passionate conviction") in the face of contradictory evidence is a virtue, is absurd -- it's a cognitive disorder! Worse, it's a disorder that leads to terrible decisions and policies.
Humans need religion for moral leadership like drunks need booze to become sober!
Laughter is the best medicine but too much medicine, e.g. opioids, can cause death.
DeleteHere's another link and quote you can die laughing from. I must say I didn't laugh but reflected seriously on the essay.
https://archden.org/letter-to-the-archdiocese-of-denver-on-the-abuse-crisis/
Oh, yes, glad to see Lindren is being dismissed by the Forum. His summary of the dismissal sounds more like he got caught in the shuffle. Really?
BTW, I am a sinner. The picture hanging in my house are not straight. I am in need of a hospital more than a museum. I have passionate conviction.
Delete"...glad to see Lindgren is being dismissed by the Forum" You have predicted several times my "blog is toast." One of these days you will be right. I will stop blogging because I will tire of it or the Forum will no longer benefit from its readership. Right now, however, you are wrong. The Forum will provide some link to my blog but not as frequently as they have. They want me to retain my readership as best I can so, hopefully, they can incorporate me into the later website design. You are free, however, to keep predicting that my blog is toast as you have continually done in the past.
DeleteMatt--Your frequent statements that this blog "is toast" reminded me of Samuel Clemems" (Mark Twain) obituary. This appeared in the 1890's. He did not die until 2010. After the incorrect obit was published he remarked, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."
Delete"Archbishop Fulton Sheen once commented that 'A Church is more a hospital for sinners than a museum for saints.'"
ReplyDeleteNot being familiar with this Fulton Sheen, I did a search and found his path to sainthood has been halted due to two churches fighting over his body. One proposed solution from religious scholar Donald S. Prudlo "I will offer no opinion here on which local Church should win, save by reminding the participants of a well-established custom, saints have heads and bodies. Relics, even major ones, are divisible. How advantageous to a cult to have two centers of veneration?"
Why stop at two? Lend a hand or an ear, give someone a leg up or the finger, something for the nuns perhaps. Priceless.
Mister Fred Rogers (Presbyterian minister but still a good neighbor)
“Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort.”