Salman Rushdie warns of threat to freedom of expression in West
"Voice of the people: Evangelicals know cancel culture Related: B402, "...and good intentions it started with..." Briboy - Evangelicals perfected cancel culture. Now it’s coming for them. [...]Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, church youth groups coordinated book burnings and music bonfires to purge their world of evil art. On any given night of the week, televangelists and Christian activists could be found on cable news attacking their enemies by name and blaming them for the “moral decay” of America."
Also related: Religion is the real problem: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and GOP demonize Muslims, but too afraid to take on the real truth [...]More broadly, once one accepts, on the basis of no objective evidence whatsoever, religious propositions about the nature of reality, a supreme being, and mankind’s relation to alleged commandments issuing from that being, one confronts an inherent wild card: believers may decide to act on the texts they deem sacred, just as the texts tell them to do. Religion, in short, is the problem – and especially Abrahamic religion, with its monotheistic dogma dividing humanity into the saved and the damned. [ Half of evangelicals support Israel because they believe it is important for fulfilling end-times prophecy [...]And it would lead us inevitably to one conclusion: religion as a whole, and not just one strain of it, is the problem. None of its far-reaching propositions about the cosmos can be proved. None of them, consequently, deserve respect. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=169053118
Author Salman Rushdie gestures during a news conference before the presentation of his latest book 'Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights' at the Niemeyer Center in Aviles, northern Spain, October 7, 2015. REUTERS/Eloy Alonso
Rushdie, 75, was awarded the 'Freedom to Publish' award by The British Book Awards on Monday.
"We live in a moment, I think, at which freedom of expression, freedom to publish has not in my lifetime been under such threat in the countries of the West,” Rushdie said in a video message from New York broadcast to the award ceremony.
"The freedom to publish, of course, is also the freedom to read and the freedom to write, the ability to write what you want ... to be able to choose what you want to read and not have it decided for you externally."
Rushdie has long faced death threats linked to his fourth novel, "The Satanic Verses," which was banned in many countries with large Muslim populations upon its 1988 publication over passages deemed to be blasphemous.
“In the countries in the West, until recently, there was a fair measure of freedom in the area of publishing. Now I am sitting here in the United States, I have to look at the extraordinary attack on libraries, and books for children in schools," he said.
"The attack on the idea of libraries themselves. It is quite remarkably alarming, and we need to be very aware of it, and to fight against it very hard."
More than a thousand book titles, many addressing racism and LGBTQ issues, have been banned from U.S. classrooms and libraries in the past two years amid pressure from conservative parents and officials, the writers' organization PEN America has said.
Reporting by Farouq Suleiman, Editing by William James and Bernadette Baum
Farouq reports on general news across the United Kingdom and Ireland.
We all know cancel culture flourished in conservative churches before conservative politicians cynically made it one of their favorite pin on the donkey games. Still, it was with surprise and appreciation that i bumped into and read the the article below. First a tiny reminder:
"Voice of the people: Evangelicals know cancel culture Related: B402, "...and good intentions it started with..." Briboy - Evangelicals perfected cancel culture. Now it’s coming for them. [...]Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, church youth groups coordinated book burnings and music bonfires to purge their world of evil art. On any given night of the week, televangelists and Christian activists could be found on cable news attacking their enemies by name and blaming them for the “moral decay” of America. P -Evangelicals tried their level best to smear and shame any person or organization who didn’t behave or believe appropriately in order to forcibly craft a society according to their Christian values. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=170893163 P - "What in the flying fluck is wrong with people in fla? [...]It also bans classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation up to the 8th grade, legally reinforcing a DeSantis administration move to prohibit such lessons in all grades. Additionally, the bill strengthens the system in which people can lodge challenges against school books, another DeSantis initiative that has led to the removal of material he and his supporters argue are inappropriate for children.""
To the surprise, straight from the horse's mouth -- Cancel Culture Began in the Church
Robert Patenaude Director-Instructor at Bible-Literalist Institutes
Published Feb 12, 2022
After being in a wonderful old-fashioned missionary revival meeting for four days . . . after listening to missionaries weep as they preach and honestly appeal to hearts for souls the Bible, Gospel way . . . after watching altars full of young people (who don't need trap sets and electric rock guitars to pump them up) begin each meeting with a healthy session of prayer, after hearing the old hymns of the Christian faith sung by young and elderly alike . . . after seeing a local church demonstrate openly love for every member of a goodly number of missionary families . . . .
We see the following, written by Pastor T L Jones and posted by an old-fashioned missionary evangelist, Brother Michael Thurmond, and w say AMEN! AMEN! AMEN! Glory be to the Lamb that was slain . . . . _______________________________
I'm a traditional Baptist pastor. Nobody has to explain cancel culture to me. Traditional pastors, in every mainline denomination, were canceled years ago by those who [are] often referred to as contemporary Christians.
We were slandered.
We were mocked.
We were considered archaic and irrelevant.
We were considered far right and extreme.
We were accused of being unloving and without compassion.
We were forsaken and replaced.
We were relegated to the ecclesiastical dust ben of history.
Cancel culture didn't begin and gain traction on a godless liberal college campus. It didn't first flourish in major corporations or on Wall Street. Sadly, cancel culture began in church pews when someone decided that the Bible was outdated, Paul was a male chauvinist, pews were too uncomfortable, pulpits were authoritarian, preaching was dictatorial, and hymns were boring.
But surprise...
We (traditional pastors) are still here. Our congregations are smaller and our influence is less potent in the public square. But our message hasn't changed and we're not folding under pressure.
They only thought they cancelled us. They actually cancelled themselves as they moved further and further away from truth and [away from] those who preach it wholeheartedly and without apology.
We still love the world like we always have. We still have the only message than can save your eternal soul and give you meaning in life. We're not angry or bitter.
So, if you're tired of the fantasies and illusions you've been living and you have an interest in truth and reality again.
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