Preying on the faithful

“In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.” – Mark Twain

We’ll defer to the excellent By The River blog for news on how much more enlightened we are in the 21st century:

Clueless clergy endorse Thompson

As I watched the video of a group of 25 black and one white clergy endorsing the black candidate, Linda Thompson, I couldn't help but recall something I learned in 35 years as a newspaper reporter: clergy tend to be among the least reliable sources of information out there.

Not all of them, of course. But many. They often are not very worldly, and tend to believe that anyone who professes to believe in God is credible, no matter the evidence to the contrary.

They also are on the gullible side: in the 1980s and 1990s, Proctor & Gamble went nearly insane trying to stop a completely false rumor that its famous moon-and-stars symbol was of Satanic origin, and that it gave a portion of its profits to the Church of Satan.

The pathetic blogger slogs on, noting one of the endorsing clergy, a resident of Steelton, called Thompson the "ambassador of the Kingdom of God as well as the people of God." Read By The River's full take on the clergy's endorsement here.

So Linda Thompson was sent to us by God. Apparently He’s in a smiting mood. Will He take her back if we sacrifice a virgin or something? We haven’t got a volcano, but we could toss one into the incinerator.

The clergy has insisted their stamp of approval is not in any way related to an endorsement by their respective churches. After all, to endorse a candidate from the pulpit is illegal and would put their cherished tax-exempt status in jeopardy.

Yet during one Sunday worship service, a minister exhorted his flock to put “their hands together for the next Mayor of Harrisburg” before Linda Thompson took the pulpit to address the congregation.

Questioned later, Thompson claimed the good Reverend didn’t endorse her from the pulpit he was “prophesizing.”   However "prohesizing" is not listed among the permitted activities by the IRS.

Click here for the story aired on WITF this morning. One can only imagine what is contained on the audio that didn't make the edit for the story.