From the Washington Post:
“An ordained pastor with the United Methodist Church has been keeping a daily vigil outside the Waller County Sheriff’s Office and County Jail, where Sandra Bland died under disputed circumstances last month. On Monday, Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith let pastor Hannah Bonner know how he feels about her vigil by telling the pastor that she should ‘go back to the church of Satan that you run.’
Bonner recorded the Monday-afternoon exchange, along with a later conversation with the sheriff.”
As a friend pointed out, “If you’re perfectly willing to say that, unprovoked, to a white woman on camera,” that says something about the kind of treatment Sandra Bland faced from his department.
Tags: news, sandra bland
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That’s not even a burn considering that the actual Church of Satan is more reasonable than pretty much any modern religious institution.
I have been mislead about the methodist church! Looks like I know where I’ll be on Sunday from now on, worshiping Satan, as Satan intended, or something!
Also, SICK BURN, GLENN, YOU CLEVER BASTARD! BET IT TOOK ALL DAY TO COME UP WITH THAT GEM!
I apparently missed the fact that I was worshipping Satan as I grew up in the UMC. Kids, so oblivious!
I too grew up in the UMC and I remember it fondly as a place where Satan was really never mentioned. Was that also your experience? There was a real “focus on the positive” vibe there. All heaven, no hell. All Jesus, no Satan. All “hey, being good feels good!” and no, “hey, you are a dirty sinner”.
Anyhoo. Proud atheist now but if I ever believe in God again I’m going back to the UMC first thing! Bonus points if they let me worship Satan too!
(Oh I feel sort of bad about writing that last part. I think I can’t get on board with Satan, even though he’s imaginary and obviously the cool one of all the imaginary dudes. He is, like, SO mean.)
Satan IS super mean!
And he hates it when you call him Stan.
Did anyone else read My Date with Satan by Stacy Richter? Good book of short stories. Contains the above line.
The cardinal sin of Satanism is stupidity so I feel like it’s a religion I could get behind.
Yeah, not really mentioned at all. It was much more “Hey, God loves you and you should do your best to be good to other people and become a better person as much as you can.” At least that was what I got out of the sermons. Granted, I was in the choir, and everyone knows that the choir is just a hotbed of crazy radical sentiment…
I just had to laugh because I can’t really imagine thinking, “yes, because when I think of Methodists…I think of Satan”.
ETA: I was raised catholic, and if she were a catholic pastor (ha) THAT I could understand. Much more Satan there.
Well, Jesus kind of talked about evil, heaven, hell (in some form), evil, sin, and the enemy all the time. So I wouldn’t really say it was “All Jesus.” “Focusing on the positives” reads as code for “not actually Christian in any meaningful sense of the word” (which is not to say that shaming or damning people is the correct path either, but that evil and sin have to be addressed in a serious way for a church to be recognizably Christian). Not to defend this dude because UMC is clearly not satanist and he was likely being a misogynist about it, but it’s not a particularly Christian church either, even if a lot of serious Christians can be found in it.
I’m UCC in background, but attending a Methodist congregation, and yeah, Satan is really not a factor in worship.
Entertainingly, I grew up UMC and now go to a UCC church. Strangely, no noticeable Satan in either place!
there’s a lot that’s worrisome about small-town sheriffs, I think, where you’ve got a guy who’s basically got no practical superior in his immediate vicinity; I think it’s really easy for a guy like that to get accustomed to not being contradicted, and to start to lose his ability to cope with it.
I imagine this is compounded by the job of being a policeman, which trades in that resistance to being contradicted.
The ultimate utter lack of accountability in so many police departments, whether in Waller County, Texas or in New York City, is one of those things which I’ve only learned about as I’ve gotten older, and gets more terrifying with every passing day.
It’s bad no matter where it happens, but I think it’s a measure worse in places like Waller County, because it’s basically just a string of coincidences that anyone even KNOWS about this. These are the conditions for the worst kind of tinpot tyrants.
Seriously.
So, in this collection of short nonfiction, there’s a story by an author named Kirk Wilson that is the most beautiful and chilling indictment of the small-town police tyrant. I am biased (I know the writer) but I think the $3.99 for the kindle ed is worth it, just for that story. http://www.amazon.com/River-Teeth-Journal-Nonfict… (I can’t remember the title of the story itself, and my copy of the collection is somewhere in a box.)
Oh, man, i will give that a look, thanks!
This is what impunity breeds.
Who wants to bet her church doesn’t get raided like the Black church in Ferguson though?
Given the regularity with which I’ve heard the church in which I was raised denounce denominations that ordain women and discuss social justice issues as “little more than pagan,” I am weary and unsurprised to find that this minister is female. I mean, women are supposed to be making babies and casseroles, not taking public stands for racial solidarity against hideous wrongs, right?
Remember, after the Charleston AME murders, many female AME clergy got death threats. They probably still are, and it’s no longer news. There’s no end.
Oof, I thought this headline was going to lead to a more fun article than it did.
Oh, man, i will give that a look, thanks!
Wouldn’t it be fun if there were a summer camp for small town sheriffs, like a retreat or something, where they have to practice being contradicted? I’m imagining the Argument sketch in Monty Python; “hello I’d like to have an argument…” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y)