The Wrongologist

The Daily Escape:

(Today we’re leaving for Alaska and will have limited access to WiFi, so columns will be light and variable. Regular columns will resume on 7/1. In the meantime, if turbulence occurs, keep your tray tables in their upright and locked position and if you’re Trump, keep your tiny hands inside the blog.)

Wrongo isn’t sure who is the most famous Alaskan, but he really likes this comment by Sarah Palin, when asked if Trump’s followers were a cult:

Sarah! That’s the EXACT definition of Trump’s followers. And isn’t a cult just a religion that doesn’t have tax-free status? Maybe the difference is that in a cult, there’s a guy at the top who knows it’s a scam. In a religion, that guy is dead.

In other battlefields in the culture war, the Southern Baptists voted to uphold the expulsion of one of its most prominent mega-churches, Saddlebrook, because Saddlebrook had decided that women could be pastors. In the Southern Baptist Convention, preaching is a man’s job. From the Economist:

“The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), America’s largest Protestant denomination with 13.2m adherents, which begins its annual meeting on June 13th in New Orleans, has long treated women as subordinate to men. “Complementarianism”—the idea that men and women occupy distinct but equal roles, with men exercising spiritual authority—is the preferred term.”

On Wednesday the Convention voted by a two-thirds majority to amend their constitution to state that the Southern Baptist Convention “Affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder.” Their concern was the old slippery slope:

“….that female pastors are a precursor to acceptance of homosexuality and sexual immorality.”

If you think that sounds out of touch with modern America and more like the Taliban, this chart from the Economist shows that you’re not alone:

This means that the Southern Baptists are back where they were in the 1980s in terms of membership. More from the Economist:

“By the mid-1980s, 200 women had been ordained as pastors….But a year later conservatives commandeered the leadership of the SBC, and began to purge women from seminaries. In 1998 the SBC amended its statement of faith to affirm that a wife should “submit herself graciously” to her husband. In 2000 it said that only men can be pastors. Churches that disagreed were hounded out.”

Kind of explains the decline in membership. Also it isn’t the SBC’s biggest problem: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“In recent years hundreds of sexual-abuse allegations have surfaced, implicating pastors directly and in the cover-up. And ever more people are leaving the faith. In 2012 there were three baptisms for every congregant who quit. Last year the SBC lost two-and-a-half members for every baptism.”

Could it be that the SBC has some kind of a marketing problem?

This is a problem across the evangelical community: Women are meant to be meek, accommodating baby making machines. They have no sexual education. Home schooling leaves them unable to compete in a globalized work environment. It’s not about the scriptures, it’s about power and control.

That’s what cults are about. It doesn’t matter if it’s MAGAs or the SBC. Considering that evangelicals compose a significant portion of the voting GOP, this shouldn’t be a surprise. These people are fearful of what the future may hold. Like the MAGAverse, they long for a time that may never have existed. The Economist quotes the conservative leaders of the constitutional amendment:

“Once a denomination has female pastors, it’s usually just a matter of time until they ordain homosexual pastors….”

That’s probably true, but these people really have nothing to fear but fear itself.