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Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

That's really messed up. What kind of churches are these?

Small non-denominational evangelical churches mostly, I don't think I was ever a member of a church where the congregation was more than 150 people. Many were into the prosperity gospel that were closely tied to people like Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin and their like.

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

And yeah, Photon, in Canada those churches? I could see it in the southern USA, but really?

I've only ever lived in Alberta and Saskatchewan, so yeah Canada. They're out there, I don't think I just happened to go to the only ones with these views. They're probably harder to find nowadays as you suggest but people I used to interact with I still see on Facebook and their feeds still are full of anti "homosexual agenda" rhetoric and how God's going to punish Canada because we're more accepting of "teh gays".

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

And I've never heard a word of anti-semitism interacting semi-regularly with devout protestants around my age; quite the opposite, as they all seem to be intractably pro-Israel.

Yeah it was a weird thing, they were pro-Israel the nation, but there was always an anti-Jewish vibe, that God had turned his back on them and that it was important for them to reject their Judaism. I remember having many special speakers come in that were highly celebrated because they were converted Jews.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I'm certainly not here to pick a fight with you Photon, but I'm curious about the churches that you attended.

Small non-denomination evangelical churches across Alberta and Saskatchewan, but they were real churches that met in real buildings, not some kind of weird underground thing.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I guess the message is that there are good churches and bad churches, there are good mosques and bad mosques, there are good religious leaders, and there are bad religious leaders.

There's good and bad, but I think it's even more complicated than that.. I think the vast majority are "good" in that they honestly believe deep in their hearts they are good. But many bad things are done in the name of good when the good is a "higher" good. And even ones that have some bad are mostly good. It's hard (for me anyway) to say a church is bad when it does a ton of work in the community improving people's lives, feeding the poor, helping sick people, etc, and then just happen to publicly shame members who have a baby out of wedlock or preach against the gay agenda. It's complicated.

None of the churches I went to ever overtly advocated for violence. They were always taking refuge in "love the sinner, hate the sin". But there was always the militant imagery of fighting against the satanist homosexual agenda, the righteous protection of children against the threat of having them around "those people" (because the incidents of pedophilia was proven to be much higher), the spiritual warfare of struggling against principalities and powers that drove the acceptance of perversion.

Fear and hate covered by a thin veneer of love the sinner hate the sin.