Tea Party Nation Founder Attacks Methodists

[Whitney]

Tea Party Chrsitians: If you support the tea party you support a group who allows its leaders to bash and call for the removal of Christian denominations he doesn't like...think it's time to withdraw your support yet?  Is your denomination next?

Tea Party Nation Founder Attacks Methodists
By Dan

Polls show a significant minority of Americans voice support for the Tea Party, an anti-government movement tied closely to a variety of right-wing funders, lobbyists and causes. Whether or not we agree with them on specifics, we don’t doubt that there are civic-minded Tea Partiers frustrated about what they see as over-reaching government. But it has become clear that the Tea Party movement is tied more and more to religious and political extremists. The newest example is an online rant by Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips against, believe it or not, the United Methodist Church. Writing in a blog post on Sunday, Phillips attacks the church for its support of immigration reform and allegedly a “social justice manifesto [that] is like reading a socialist wish list”:

    “They want amnesty, they want ‘economic justice’, they opposed ‘global climate change’ (earth to the Methodists, man isn’t doing it), fighting global poverty (here is another hint, most poverty is caused by a lack of freedom and lack of a free enterprise system). Not shockingly, the Methodists side with the Islamists against Israel, and of course oppose America in Iraq.”

Phillips says his dream is “no more United Methodist Church,” a church he lumps in with “Socialists, Communists and Marxists”:

    “In short, if you hate America, you have a great future in the Methodist church.”

So says one of the “patriots” of a Tea Party movement whose supporters claim to be “taking back our country.” The closer one looks at the Tea Party movement, the clearer it becomes just what kind of country they really want America to be.

http://tfninsider.org/2010/12/21/tea-pa ... ethodists/

[KDbeads]

I'm not religious and I'm appalled at his guy's BS.
So now if we disagree with whatever fundie ideals he has we hate America?

Seriously, don't let this guy anywhere near me, I'll sic a randy rooster on him.

[Whitney]

I've found I get just as offended when other people's religious freedom is trying to be limited as I do when atheists are prevented from avoiding religion....freedom is more important to me than anything.

[Voter]

How about...freedom to teach ID in public schools?

[Whitney]

How about...freedom to teach ID in public schools?

ID is religious idea...the courts have already established that.  If you want to discuss it go start a new thread because to do so here would be a derail.

[Sophus]

Don't you like to see how Christians love each other?

[Recusant]

I decided to take a look at the original, full blog entry by Judson Phillips.  It exposes the Tea Party obsession with "liberty" for what it is; doublespeak.  Not really all that surprising.

 Then I began to read the comments.  At the time I read them, there were 100.  Perhaps that's the limit imposed by the particular software for the blog.  Now keeping in mind this is a blog entitled "Tenneseans Watching Federal & State Government" and that Mr. Phillips is a founder of the "Tea Party Nation," one would expect to find at least a few of his readers agreed with him.  I read every comment, though I admit that I only skimmed through some of the longer ones. Only one of them, comment #79, seemed to be in agreement with Phillips.  That was a rather plaintive one liner; "Why do they hate freedom?" which made me laugh.  Apparently there are (or were, hard to say) plenty of Tea Party "members" who are also Methodists, and they put their church before the party.  Either that or some church members instituted an e-mail alert to come read the blog and comment, because many of the comments were from Bible-quoting Methodists raking Phillips over the coals.  There were quite a few simple "You're an asshat" and "You need counselling" comments, but also several thoughtful comments detailing the work that the United Methodist church does, and the biblical reasons behind that work.  When they mentioned Phillips's leaving the church (most of them didn't) it was about evenly divided between those that said that he was welcome to come back anytime, and those that said they were very glad that he'd left.
I would call this a spectacular own-goal by Phillips.

[grim-reaper]

It sounds like the positions of the Methodist Church are a lot closer to the original teachings of Jesus than this Tea Party "founder" can tolerate.

[Velma]

As a former christian fundamentalist, I can tell you that most fundamentalists don't like anyone who doesn't think and believe like they do.  They often try to hide it, but it does eventually come out.