Too much love

Remember how a week ago I talked about the new study from Pew that found that 20% of Americans have no religious affiliation? I said in part:

“…in my opinion, the rise of the unaffiliated has everything to do with the theocratic political agenda of America’s religious rightwing.”

Naturally, the far right religious extremists in the US had to try and spin this bad news about them somehow. Enter the anti-gay hate group, the “Family” Research Council who preached:

“As more churches move away from biblical authority, their attendance suffers. Just ask the Episcopal Church, whose pews are virtually empty after the decision to endorse homosexuality. It's time to push back on the spin that's feeding our weak brethren who say that compromising truth in pursuit of love is the way to reach the lost. Intuitively, people want to anchor their lives to something meaningful—something that demands the sacrifice and discipline of ‘taking up your cross.’ When a denomination abandons the truth and waters everything down to love, it reduces the church to another hour of Dr. Phil—which is something Americans can get without ever leaving home.”

So, in other words, people are leaving organised religion because there’s too much love and not enough churches with an anti-gay agenda. The “F”RC is typical of far right “Christians” in that it believes and preaches that the only real Christians are those who believe as they do—a far right, overtly political fundamentalism that mainstream Americans clearly reject, even if they remain in churches.

Too much love, huh? Our friends at the “F”RC would do well to remember that hate is NOT a family value. With advocates like them, no wonder organised religion is slowly dying in the US.