U.S. religious prejudice unmeasured

Gallup released Thursday a poll which asked Americans about their views of Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. Having rolled all of Christianity into a single ball while ignoring Scientology, atheism and others altogether, it found that a whopping 53 percent see Islam unfavorably.

Mark Silk gets it exactly right when he says:

If Gallup had wanted to do something more useful, it would have gotten responses for other faiths, and differentiated the Christian category.

Read the entire, concise, piece here.

Holocaust-denier Bishop Williamson returns with his verbal wrecking ball

Williamson

The Vatican-SSPX talks are a “dialogue of the deaf,” Bishop Richard Williamson said in an interview with French anti-zionist Pierre Danet, posted at DailyMotion Tuesday.

Stepping on the pope’s toes, already aching after a tense peacemaking visit to Rome’s main synagogue last week, Williamson broke his months of silence by saying of the talks:

I think it will finish by becoming a dialogue of the deaf, because of two things. One: The two positions in themselves are irreconcilable. For example 2+2=4 and 2+2=5 it’s irreconcilable. Therefore of three things, one: either they say 2+2=4 , enounce reality and say 2+2=5 –that is to say the Fraternity would abandon the truth that God forbids us to do or that those who say that 2+2=5 convert and return to the truth or the two come half-way, that means everyone decides that 2+2=4 ½ . It’s wrong. Therefore, either the Fraternity betrays itself or Rome converts, or it is a dialogue of the deaf.

[Full translation of the interview here.]

The pope set off a firestorm of criticism by lifting the excommunication from four Society of St Pius X bishops last January, among them holocaust-denier Williamson. The pope eventually admitted his handling of the matter was a mistake. Yet controversy over the attempt to reconcile with the historically anti-Semitic SSPX continues to simmer.

In his most recent interview Williamson skates past his Holocaust denial, still without apologizing. Yet his interview is still rich in points of controversy. For example, he does say Christians have been “chased out” of the Holy Land and he defies mainstream Catholicism with the claim that Jews who don’t accept Jesus are no longer the “chosen people.”

Williamson’s comments probably do harm by giving resounding affirmation to negative views of the Vatican’s attempt to reconcile with SSPX. Yet he is not a spokesman for SSPX. Williamson is, in effect, speaking out of turn. His Holocaust denial caused such an uproar early last year that the head of the SSPX, Bishop Bernard Fellay, issued a gag order and Williamson was removed as head of the SSPX seminary in Argentina. Now at home in Britain, he lives in an SSPX home in the Wimbledon section of London in what he called “an unexpected but quite agreeable sabbatical year.”

Do you not wonder if Bishop Fellay will now further define for Williamson the restrictions of that sabbatical?

[H/T: Cathy Lynn Grossman ]

A predator’s phrase dictionary in the Matt Baker murder trial testimony

Christa Brown parsed the verbal signatures of a sexual predator from the testimony about Southern Baptist pastor Matt Baker in his Waco, Texas, murder trial.

Excerpting from Erin Quinn’s trial blog, Brown created a hair-raising phrase dictionary of sexually predatory grooming and controlling intimidation by a pastor who is systematically misusing his authority. For example, Baker’s former mistress, Vanessa Bulls, testified that:

• He told her to “just date your pastor.” [isolation]
• Baker took the divorce counseling he provided Bulls at church to a new level. He started saying she was beautiful and asked her to come over. [abuse of a dual, pastor/counselor role]
• He told Bulls during counseling “that God is such a forgiving God. I don’t think that God believes that a person can be with just one person for the rest of their life.”
• He told Bulls that no one would believe her if she told anyone what he did because he was a preacher. [use of pastor role to intimidate | the jury believed her]
• Bulls told Baker to turn himself in [for murdering his wife Kari by smothering her with a pillow] and he told her “God has forgiven me.”

She was testifying to events in a world where clerical predators flourish because in well-documented ways, they are allowed to flourish. Baylor University’s Diana R. Garland and Christen Argueta have documented the psychological profile and technique of sexually abusive pastors. The common themes of the church environment which allows clerical predators to flourish and as Brown says, “church-hop through Baptistland,” have also been well-explained.

More

• Profile & techniques of clerical predators
• Why predatory clergy flourish
• Clerical sexual abuse of adults is commonplace
• Religious sex offenders are the worst

The murder of Kari Baker and surrounding human devastation showed with startling drama how tragically lives spin out as a result of Baptistland’s refusal to apply well-known remedies to clerical predation. Investigators found evidence that Matt Baker had for years led “a secret life as a sexual predator.” Brown wrote:

Prosecutors said that he had made advances and assaults on at least 13 young women, including 4 minors. Yet, despite multiple reports of sexual abuse and sexual assault, Matt Baker was always able to continue his career through churches, schools, and organizations affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

When a Waco, Texas, jury found Matt Baker guilty Wednesday, it by implication indicted Southern Baptist failure to act forcefully to stop clerical predators in its midst.