More on the snake in the White House

Hard to say whether the White House is a rats nest, hornets nest, or den of thieves.

Thank God that Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, Anthony Scaramucci, Mike Flynn, and others have been kicked out.

But we have one more who needs to go: Ralph Drollinger, the wolf in pastor's clothing who prays with our leaders one minute and tells them mothers should not work outside the home the next minute.

He preys on them as well as with them.

See this article by Evan Halper in the Los Angeles Times on August 3, 2017:

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-la-pol-trump-cabinet-pastor-20170803-story.html

Halper quotes Judy Chu, then state senator from Monterey Park, as saying 
“I was a member of the California Assembly [ in 2004] when Mr. Drollinger told the women legislators with children at home that they were sinners...."

Check out this report by Halpern and Jordan Rau on May 21, 2004, when Drollinger's admonitions toward women lawmakers in Sacramento with young children was first making headlines.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-me-pol-drollinger-archive-20170803-story.html

Thank you to my new friend Kathy Barbini for citing the LA Times stories about this guy on her Facebook page, Baptizing Feminism.

She points out that his credentials as a pastor come from Master's Seminary, a one-building affair next to Grace Community Church, which sits on Roscoe Blvd. near I-5 in the San Fernando Valley.

This mini-seminary has all of 19 instructors--compare nearby Fuller Seminary with 100 full-time professors and many adjunct and part-timers, or Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas with 91 professors.

The seminary's main distinction is that it forbids women to study there or to become pastors--a hard line not found in the ministry and teaching of Jesus.

Some of the profs at Master's Seminary are not even full-time--such as John MacArthur, whose main job is preaching and managing his 8,000-member church.  

So how does a guy who comes from such a diddly-squat religious education make it into the White House to lead Bible studies with the staff there?

He leans on his history as a basketball player for UCLA--that's how Kathy Barbini explains it.  The old boys club likes athletes.  

And boys' clubs naturally like to keep girls out of things.

It's bad enough to have a sexual predator as our president--we don't need this misogynist convincing those surrounding dt that the Bible sanctions oppression of women.

First of all, the Bible doesn't approve of sexism.  See the FAQs at my favorite Christian feminist website, www.eewc.com.

Secondly, men have used religion around the world for millennia to keep women away from education, political rights, business opportunities, and economic equality.

Men like Ralph Drollinger have to be stopped.  I'm not sure how to do it, but using the dreaded Media is one method.

Progressive evangelicals and ex-evangelicals on Twitter are onto him.  @dianabutlerbass  @ julieingersoll @pastordan @slacktivistFred @antheabutler @annelinstatter.

In addition to the LA Times, The Huffington Post, The Independent (UK), Capitol Weekly, Politicus USA, and others have exposed his presence in the White House.

Shining light on evil is one way of exposing it.  

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it," we read in the first lines of the Gospel of John.

Nauseating News

If you want to vomit, listen to this White House "Bible study," actually a propaganda session to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/capitol-ministries-bible-study/listen/the-profound-theological-importance-of-husband-wife-marriage-582847.html

Thank you to Kathy Barbini on her Facebook page Baptizing Feminism for letting me know about this problem and providing the link.

Thanks also to the Los Angeles Times for a glimpse of who Drollinger is and how he got started at John MacArthur's Grace Community Church in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles--article by Evan Halper.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-la-pol-trump-cabinet-pastor-20170803-story.html

See also an earlier LA Times article by Halper with Jordan Ran.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-me-pol-drollinger-archive-20170803-story.html

And this report in The Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-cabinet-is-attending-weekly-bible-studies-led-by-a-conservative-pastor_us_5980d63be4b02b36343e8699?utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_source=main_fb&utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063&section=politics

Bad News sneaks in with Good News

Bad news...  and I'm not talking about our president boasting his way into atomic bombing of North Korea.

Anti-woman, anti-gay Christians have sailed into the White House on the coattails of dt.

Here's the Washington Post on Aug. 1:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-cabinet-is-attending-weekly-bible-studies-led-by-a-conservative-pastor_us_5980d63be4b02b36343e8699?utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&utm_source=main_fb&utm_medium=facebook&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063&section=politics

Thanks to Carol Kuruvilla for investigating and reporting on the sexist & anti-gay aspects on Huffington Post on Aug. 2:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trumps-cabinet-is-attending-weekly-bible-studies-led-by-a-conservative-pastor_us_5980d63be4b02b36343e8699

The pastor who leads these studies, Ralph Drollinger, has reportedly claimed that mothers who work while leaving children at home are sinful and that Catholicism is the “world’s largest false religion.” He’s also a climate-change denier and virulently anti-queer.

His group is Capitol Ministries.  https://capmin.org/

Thank you to Kathy Barbini for telling me about this Bible study.  She's making a documentary on feminist work for equality in Christian churches.  http://www.baptizingfeminism.com/.