Is this what it means to “love the sinner, hate the sin”?

In Georgia (the country), Christian priests in black cassocks fired up a crowd of thousands to attack about four dozen pro-gay-rights demonstrators. And by attack, I don’t mean they hurled angry words. Their weapons of choice were rocks, trash cans, and anything else the Godly Defenders of the Faith could get their hands on. Fists, too.

A throng of thousands led by priests in black robes surged through police cordons in downtown Tbilisi, Georgia, on Friday and attacked a group of about 50 gay-rights demonstrators.

Carrying banners reading “No to mental genocide” and “No to gays,” the masses of mostly young men began by hurling rocks and eggs at the gay-rights demonstrators.

“Mostly young men.” How bleak to think that this atavistic hatred doesn’t appear to be going out of style as the older generations die off, which is the pattern in the West.

The police pushed most of the demonstrators onto yellow minibuses to evacuate them from the scene, but, the attackers swarmed the buses, trying to break the windows with metal gratings, trash cans, rocks and even fists.

At least 12 people were reported hospitalized, including three police officers and eight or nine of the gay-rights marchers.

Conservative-minded Georgians traveled from other cities to condemn the gay-rights demonstrators, and one told a television station that she had come to “treat their illness.”

“We are trying to protect our orthodoxy, not to let anyone wipe their feet on our faith,” said Manana Okhanashvili, in a head scarf and long skirt. “We must not allow them to have a gay demonstration here.”

There is no doubt about the occupation of those who initiated and led the worst violence.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Vacharadze of Identoba said that priests from the Georgian Orthodox Church had led the charge that broke through a heavy police corridor.

“The priests entered, the priests broke the fences and the police didn’t stop them, because the priests are above the law in Georgia,” he said.

I learned the other day that Georgia’s first lady is a progressive Dutch linguist, Sandra Roelofs. The Netherlands is famously tolerant of gay people and has allowed same-sex marriage for many years. Forgive me for being naive, but I hope she’ll speak up to try to talk some sense into the haters on the sideline. All good people in Georgia should raise their voices against this madness.

As for the violent priests and their gay-bashing troops, I suspect arrests and jail terms are too much to hope for, but a man can dream.

[image via the New York Times. Thanks to Nicolas Eyle for the tip.]

Thou shalt not steal. Remember that one? The Rev. John McGinn doesn’t.

A priest on Cape Cod has been suspended for plagiarizing sermons. The Rev. John McGinn, 65, of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Sandwich was placed on administrative leave earlier this month after the diocese learned he had allegedly been using other preachers’ sermons since 2006. They were reportedly taken from the subscription website sermons.com.

The Rev. Mally Lloyd, canon to the ordinary for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, told the Cape Cod Times as many as 15 sermons have been identified as direct copies.

A Singapore-based megachurch pastor and five of his deputies appeared in court on Wednesday and Thursday to answer charges of massive fraud and deception.

The 48-year-old pastor and founder of City Harvest Church, Kong Hee, is accused of embezzling some 19 million dollars to finance the pop career of his warbling wife, Sun Ho (photo).

According to the Sydney Morning Herald,

Based on Pentecostal teachings, the church’s “prosperity gospel” encourages the material aspirations of mostly young members, and uses music and drama for praise and worship. It often holds elaborate services resembling pop concerts.

Where’d the pilfered money go? For starters, Sun Ho moved into a Hollywood mansion. She appears to have spent lavishly to try to break into the charts. Here she is in a gilded video production of Fancy Free, a song that, aptly, is about dreaming of being a superstar. Its opening line: “Woke up feeling like a millionaire.”

Despite the 100% religion-free material-girl message, please understand that all this was done for the greater glory of god:

The pastor’s wife, now in her early 40s, was hoping international stardom would help spread the church’s message, according to previous reports in the Singapore media.

Singapore prosecutors say the accused channeled money earmarked for the church’s building into buying sham bond investments. Those investments were in church-linked companies whose accounts could be dipped into for the promotion of Ho’s music career.

[The conspirators] allegedly falsified church accounts to make it appear the bonds were redeemed, in an elaborate scheme the prosecutors called ’round-tripping.’ “The transactions were thus designed to throw the auditors off the scent of the bogus bonds,” said Deputy Public Prosecutor Mavis Chionh.

The pastor’s followers are undeterred (I guess you could say they have faith).

Church members have told journalists they trust Pastor Kong to spend their money in any way he sees fit.

That‘s the (holy) spirit.

And you know who else has it in spades? Pastor Kong!

“Christian, remember the goodness of God in the frost of adversity,” Kong tweeted after the court adjourned Thursday.

[image via source]

Amy and Samy Bouzaglo started their restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona, for the same reason they got married. “I prayed for him and God sent him to me,” says Amy, the co-owner of Amy’s Baking Company, of her husband. The restaurant is “what God wants me to do,” Amy believes, and where she can delight customers with what she modestly describes as her “God-given culinary talents.”

Except that, god or no god, a lot of those customers don’t actually appreciate Amy’s slop all that much. They are disappointed in the soggy pizza, the store-bought frozen ravioli that the couple tries to pass off as fresh, and the leaky, greasy hamburger patties.

Nor does the clientele love the interminable waits; the prima donna yelling matches between Amy and Samy; the spiteful tone in which the owners habitually address unhappy customers; or the fact that the tips customers give to waitstaff disappear in Amy and Samy’s pockets.

Think I’m being unfair? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Watch how things go from bad to batshit-crazy even before TV chef Gordon Ramsay arrives to try to bring some order to the chaos.

For you incorrigible rubberneckers, part 2 is here.

Not being greatly into the art of self-reflection, Samy and Amy made matters even worse after Ramsay’s show aired. They used their restaurant’s Facebook page for a torrent of insults and attempts at retaliation, again invoking god’s grand plan. For example:

Sweet Jesus that poor child.

More of Amy’s and Samy’s god-approved purple prose is here.

So the Creator of the Universe told Amy to go into the food service business? I’d say this is proof that either there is no god, or that he loves a sick joke as much as the next guy.

A Christian congregation in Kenya came to blows the other day when members couldn’t decide how the church should be run. Unspecified property was destroyed as the two groups fought over control.

One faction of the church had obtained a court order barring the other party from interfering with the running of the church. The order issued by High Court Judge William Ouko ordered the second party to return some of the church property it had seized including a TV set, keyboard, sufurias, plastic seats, and a generator.

The order angered the warring faction who denounced it and claimed they had an order that countered it. “We have an order giving us authority to be in this church and I do not understand how the court issued another contradicting order,” said one of the faithful.

The name of the house of worship: ‘Victorious Gospel.’

[image via source]

A South African mother told a court on Monday that she witnessed a local priest rape her five-year-old daughter. She said that the girl had been playing with the priest’s daughter at his home. When the woman went to pick her up, knocked on the door, and received no answer due to the loud music playing inside, she says she looked through a hole in the door and saw the priest having sex with her child.

“They were on the bed which was about three paces away from the door. He was naked, stark naked. I screamed when I saw what he was doing,” she said.

The woman told acting judge Thembekile Malusi that she called out to her partner for help and together they forced the door open. She said that Dyubele rushed to get a jacket hanging behind his door and covered the front of his body.

“I rushed to my child and I saw that she was still wearing her jersey and her nightie was pulled up. Her panties, pants and shoes were all off ,” she told the court.

The priest, Zukile Dyubele, says the whole thing is a misunderstanding and that he had only been “sleeping in that bed with both little girls.”

A forensic nurse found that the five-year-old had indeed been penetrated.

Undaunted, Dyubele’s lawyer claims the mother is accusing his client of child rape because of sexual jealousy, and that she must simply feel jilted because the promiscuous priest prefers other women.

[image via Gospel According to Hate]

Via Iranian Atheist/Agnostic Movement.

Here’s another take on the Bible story of Abraham and Isaac, courtesy of That Mitchell and Webb Look, a sketch show by godless Brit comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb.