Terry Firma, though born and Journalism-school-educated in Europe, has lived in the U.S. for the past 20-odd years. Stateside, his feature articles have been published in the New York Times, Reason, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Wired. Terry was the founder and Main Mischief Maker of Moral Compass, a now-dormant site that pokes fun at the delusional claim by people of faith that a belief in God equips them with superior moral standards. He was the Editor-in-Chief of two Manhattan-based magazines until he decided to give up commercial publishing for professional photography... with a lot of blogging on the side. These days, he lives in an old seaside farmhouse in Maine with his wife, three kids, and two big dogs.
We’ve recently seen that well-known evangelicals are getting ready to board the Trump train. Christian leaders like American Values president Gary Bauer, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, and Family Leader president Bob Vander Plaats will all be present to kiss the Donald’s ring at a closed-door meeting scheduled to be held in New York City next month. The problem is that Trump, married three times, is known to be barely religious, so the Christianist supporters will have to get really creative to make their round peg fit Trump’s square hole (hold the jokes). That means looking for every indicator, no matter how far-fetched, that could demonstrate what a devout fan of God the blustery billionaire really is. Well, guess what — they have their proof! Read more
The drama is surely a bit much in this opening paragraph from a piece by New York Times reporter Ian Johnson: Along the valleys and mountains hugging the East China Sea, a Chinese government campaign to remove crosses from church spires has left the countryside looking as if a typhoon had raged down the coast, decapitating buildings at random. Still, this is what oppression of religion looks like. Read more
A Michigan Uber driver who, in February, shot and killed six people and wounded two others, including a child, says he was being controlled by a demonic force. Jason Dalton told police he had killed but was not a killer; that it was his Uber app that had taken control of him and led him to open fire on random targets. Read more
Sex with an underage prostitute? Sign me up, pastors Jason Kennedy and Zubin Parakh allegedly said. They were caught in a sting operation by Tennessee detectives late last week. Kennedy, a 46-year-old children’s pastor for Grace Baptist Church, and Parakh, a 32-year-old creative pastor at LifeHouse Church, were among 32 men and women arrested by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation in an anti-trafficking operation, the agency said Friday. Read more
