Pastor gives speech against gay rights

That was the single greatest thing I've ever seen in my life.

That was brilliant.

Nicely done, Rev. Snider.

Very nice done. I'll bet that set the council members back on their heels.

Wonderful. A beautifully subtle set-up for a verbal kick in the head. Well done, Reverend Doctor.

Springfield, MO is the world headquarters for the Pentecostal religious denomination called the Assemblies of God. If you are not familiar with the A/G, the two most famous A/G pastors to date were the Reverend Jim Bakker and the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart.

The A/G is the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world (followed by the Church of God, and then Four Square Ministry, and then the Churches of Christ). That city is heavilly populated by A/G ministers and A/G churches and A/G theological professors.

And then if you look at the Yellow Pages listing for "churches" in Springfield, MO, the number of Assembly of God churches listed is 43. Baptist churches number 233. UCC number just 3 churches.

http://www.yellowpages.com/springfield-mo/assemblies-of-god-churches?g=Springfield%2C+MO&q=assemblies+of+god+Churches




And then as far as how many of the above churches are podunk little nothing chruches of maybe 6 members who meet in someone's livingroom as opposed to the massive churches of sevral thousand members .... welllll ..... there are a total of FOUR mega-churches in Springfield, two of which are Baptist, one is non-denominational, and one is Assembleis of God.

http://hirr.hartsem.edu/cgi-bin/mega/db.pl?db=default&uid=default&view_records=1&ID=*&sb=4&State=MO




Not only are the corporate offices for the Assemblies of God located there, but so are FIVE different Bible colleges, THREE of which are directly affiliated with the A/G. (The other two Bible colleges in Springfield, MO are NOT of the Pentecostal flavor. Instead they are Baptist and Congregational respectively --and trust me when I say that Baptists and Pentecostals do not generally get along. And Congregationalists just keep to themselves.)

COLLEGE -- AFFILIATION
Evangel University -- A/G
Central Bible College -- A/G
Assemblies of God Theological Seminary -- A/G
Baptist Bible College -- Baptist Bible Fellowship International
Drury University -- United Church of Chrst

Meanwhile, there are several other colleges in the immediate area of Springfield, but those others are not religiously affiliated. And these five I have named here above are the heavy-hitting colleges and universities of Springfield with student body populations in the thousands.

No aspect of life in Springfield can escape even meager influence from the A/G. And then the extensive Baptist presence pretty much cements that town as being a seriously Bible-centered metroplis. I want to ultiately drive home the point that the segment of the Springfield population which is A/G is highly skewed toward accademia and Biblical scholarship. (In short, the A/G folks in Springfield are mostly very middle-class to upper-middle-class, tend to have college degrees, and are very active in their churches.)


So ............... I do not know what this man's denominational affiliation is (he got his doctorate from SOMEWHERE). If he is a doctorate-holding member of the clergey, then as a matter of sheer professional self-preservation, he MUST run around with the professorial crowd. So I am wondering which professorial crowd he hangs with there in Springfield (and how welcome he will be to their next clerical luncheon).

I've reposted this to facebook. Let the fireworks begin.

Awesome. All the time I was waiting for him to throw up or faint or whatever and then this. Very nice.

One of the comments on the link said that the twist was that he gets a pie in his face.

Amazingly, the actual twist was better than even a pie-facing.

That's what I'm talkin' about!

That was stunning. Truly genius.

That was fantastic. Brilliantly executed. I loved seeing some of the people behind him start to smile when they realize what he's doing.

Over the years, I've gone back and looked up sermons and letters to the editor and other arguments against abolition, suffrage, and equal rights for blacks, and seen that often, word for word, they're the same. The arguments are the same and often, the fights are always remarkably similar. It's a shame that as a society we seem to learn little from history.

regdog said:

Well done.


I know I've mentioned this before, but here in MA when Romney was governor he reinstated a long forgotten 1913 law banning out of state couples whose home state would not legally recognize their marriage from marrying in MA. The law was originally written about interracial couples and he used it against gay couples.

Click to expand...

Yes, and I will always see that and his entire governorship as simply as early presidential campaigning. I remember what I consider to be one of his early presidential campaign appearances under the guise of a rally against marriage equality. He held it on the steps of the State House, big flag behind him, band playing patriotic songs. I got really sick from standing in the cold and drizzle to chant "bigot" at him. Totally worth it.

I remember sitting by the computer and phone one day, making calls to his office and he went back and forth on killing the Governor's Commission, which was formed (by a Republican) as an education program because of the epidemic of gay teen suicide. In the end, he just gutted it and cut the funding.

Even back then I knew his anti-gay actions were just political opportunism, and I can still barely look at him. He makes my skin crawl. He hurt a lot of people because he just really wanted to win the presidency and I don't think he did one thing as governor without that aim. I don't think he wants to do the job, but I think he wants to win it.

""We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern." -- Mitt Romney, 1994

That was pretty Swift of him.