Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

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1. 

   As someone who produced dozens of nativity plays as a teacher and a Sunday School leader, that title ‘A Gay…

2. 

   The defence of a Christian view never seems to be settled by debate: exchange of facts, reference to historical events.…

3. 

   But …… Rwanda is a safe place: Parliament says so.https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/8/contentsSafety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024 S 2 Safety…

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   Religion can survive only on the most unquestionable assumptions. The statements made on Sundays on the BBC as if they…

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   Yes, if I’ve got anything remotely like a phobia, as an ex-fundy, its bibles, churches, tracts etc. I like to…

AMONG the many Chistians who have expressed fury over a beautiful rendition of Imagine by Trisha Yearwood and her husband Garth Brooks at the late President’s funeral on Thurday was Bishop Robert Barron, inset, of the Catholic Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota.

Barron, according to The Christian Post, issued an extensive statement on X expressing his utter disgust at over the permance of the “atheist anthem”.

I was watching highlights from President Carter’s funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. I found some of the speeches very moving. But I was appalled when two country singers launched into a rendition of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’.

He added:

Under the soaring vault of what I think is still a Christian church, they reverently intoned, ‘Imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try’ and ‘imagine there’s no country; it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.’ Vested ministers sat patiently while a hymn to atheistic humanism was sung. This was not only an insult to the memory of a devoutly believing Christian but also an indicator of the spinelessness of too much of established religion in our country.

https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1877407657658552583

Yearwood and Brooks were friends of the Carters and worked for Habitat for Humanity’s Carter Work Project for decades.

“WHAT? Why would ANY Christian have that sung at their funeral? Imagining there is no heaven and no Christianity at a Christian funeral is dark, indeed,” wrote Federalist editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway.

Paul Anleitner, a cultural theologian and podcast host, described Lennon’s song as:

A terrible substitute hymn from an empty substitute religion of our Secular Age. It paints with this thin veneer of profundity and hope over the hollow, and frankly frightening, vision of a global, homogenous monoculture that has lost all distinction and genuine diversity. It presents a new global religion that has subsumed all other religions and cultures and lies about the fact that its peculiar brand of secular progressivism is, in fact, a religion with a clear eschatology and proposed plan for the salvation of the human race.

Phew!

“Having Joe Biden lecture us about what a strong Christian Jimmy Carter was before the crowd sits through ‘Imagine’ with the lyrics ‘Imagine there’s no heaven/It’s easy if you try’ makes me question the authenticity of the assertion,” radio host Erick Erickson tweeted.

Father Patrick Mary Briscoe, a Dominican friar and former parish priest at St. Pius V Church in Providence, Rhode Island, penned an op-ed in Our Sunday Visitor arguing that “Imagine” replaces the hope of the Resurrection with “secular dreams.”

While the song may be considered an anthem of unity in our culture, its message is deeply opposed to Christian hope and the sacred purpose of a church.

He added:

The tragedy of ‘Imagine’ lies not in its longing for peace, but in its denial of the ultimate source of peace. True unity and justice cannot be achieved by erasing God; they are found in surrendering to him. In moments of mourning, the human heart yearns for assurance. A Christian funeral doesn’t merely console; it declares. It declares that death is not the end, that sin has been conquered, and that Christ has opened the gates of heaven.

Again, phew!

For stupity, this rivals reranged Catholic actor Mel Gibson’s most recent statement that:

I was born into a Catholic family. I’m very Christian in my beliefs. I do actually believe this stuff to the full … Who gets back up three days later after he gets murdered in public? … Buddha didn’t do that.

Carter, who described himself as a born-again Christian and taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, drew criticism in his later years for drifting from biblical teaching, such as when he made headlines in 2018 for claiming that “Jesus would approve of gay marriage.”

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