A church friend who lived in South Korea mentioned to me that there are a disturbing number of churches where the pastor claim to be an incarnation of Jesus.

I know that the Manmin Central Church is another church with this issue, and they run the Christian TV network GCN that has some US representation — including a show on NRB TV for some unholy reason.

Lots of crazy stuff people believe comes from a direct, literal reading of scripture, which is why it must be read through the filter of one’s own humanity and reason.

Lots of crazy stuff that people believe is refute by the Bible if they would actually read it carefully and study it.

Islam pretty much wrecks that model.

Jesus definitely represented them as separate, but Islam wasn’t the first to wreck the model. The Church often does not practice what Jesus preached, so to speak. And right now, there is a definite tendency to mix the two again, or to simply lie and say they have always been. My point would be that this is one of those areas where vigilance is especially necessary.

The word “religion” is a very imperfect container. It’s kind of like “art”. If you say it’s art, it’s art. If you say it’s religion, it’s religion. The Founders seem to have operated under the Western Enlightenment assumption that religion is a sphere and secular government is a sphere. Christianity is diagrammed that way by Jesus and the Apostles. Islam pretty much wrecks that model.

No, it’s not the Unification Church. There’s another one, believe it or not. “Church of God World Mission Society”. I had to look it up.

At one point it probably was pretty benign. In God We Trust on currency, for instance, is an example of a meaningless phrase. At the same time, we have allowed our government to become more involved with “faith based” this or that, and in Florida we were practically using church attendance as one criteria for getting one’s voting rights back after serving time. It is important for both sacred and secular that the two are not mixed in our government. I understand your point, but I would rather err on the side of caution.