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Jonathan Poletti

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Published in

ʙᴇʟᴏᴠᴇʀ

·Pinned

Let’s talk God.

I went looking for facts on Christianity and the Bible. What I found wasn’t what I heard in church. Let’s re-read “religion”—with facts this time? If you’re switching to a paid Medium membership, support me by using this link! Tough Talk About the Bible What Christians are told is clearly falsemedium.com Evangelicals = Lies Let’s read a religionmedium.com Stories of Different Bibles Manuscripts of the Bible that are…strange?medium.com

1 min read

1 min read


Published in

𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲

·1 day ago

Freddie Mercury’s draft of “Bohemian Rhapsody” surfaces

Let’s look at the epic song in its first version — Is there new evidence available about one the most famous mysteries of Pop Culture? What the hell is Queen’s song “Bohemian Rhapsody” about? The legendary song feels epic, but incomprehensible, which seems to have been how its author, Freddie Mercury, liked it. A draft version has just emerged into public. I went in for a look. How the song was written has been mostly a blank.

LGBT

7 min read

Freddie Mercury’s draft of “Bohemian Rhapsody” surfaces
Freddie Mercury’s draft of “Bohemian Rhapsody” surfaces
LGBT

7 min read


Published in

ʙᴇʟᴏᴠᴇʀ

·May 27

Top 10 Gay Men in Evangelical America

A religion has its secrets — If you thought that queer men in the Evangelical world were just the closeted choir directors of Southern Baptist churches — well, you’d be wrong. This ‘Pride’ month, I’m thinking about a difficult place to be gay, gayish or otherwise ‘queer’: in America’s largest religion. Evangelicalism doesn’t point them out, but fear not! They’re there. 1. King James I (1566–1625)

LGBTQ

10 min read

Top 10 Gay Men in Evangelical America
Top 10 Gay Men in Evangelical America
LGBTQ

10 min read


Published in

ʙᴇʟᴏᴠᴇʀ

·May 24

What cuts did Christianity make to the Bible?

A religion edits its “sacred” text — The Bible was written by God, so Christianity claims. The religion doesn’t have an original manuscript. Is that the sort of thing you just throw away? The Bible ends up being known only by much later copies. For the New Testament, scholars found some 5800 manuscripts in the Greek language. None are identical. There are some 500,000 textual differences. As one study put it, there are “more variants than there are words…”

Religion

7 min read

What cuts did Christianity make to the Bible?
What cuts did Christianity make to the Bible?
Religion

7 min read


Published in

ʙᴇʟᴏᴠᴇʀ

·May 17

Is the Bible’s God a ‘mother’?

Let’s look at a deity’s feminine side — I went to learn more about the Bible, and ended up meeting a woman that I had never even heard about in church. Her name is God. She’s right there in the Bible that religious people read, though they don’t recognise her presence. She isn’t hiding. They just—can’t see? To learn about religion is seen as breastfeeding. That is clear in the New Testament writings, like in 1 Peter 2:2–3, where the believer is to “crave pure spiritual milk” (cf. …

Religion

6 min read

Is the Bible’s God a ‘mother’?
Is the Bible’s God a ‘mother’?
Religion

6 min read


Published in

ʙᴇʟᴏᴠᴇʀ

·May 11

Christians love child drag queens—they call them “altar boys”

Let’s look at some religious hypocrisy? — The issue of children in and around drag shows is a hot-button issue in right-wing discourse. There’s rampant charges of “grooming,” “child abuse,” etc. I’m trying to figure out what to think about children in drag and in proximity to drag queens. But I’m confused. Don’t Christians love making children dress up in women’s clothes to do theatrical performances with sexual predators hovering nearby?

Religion

6 min read

Christians love child drag queens—they call them “altar boys”
Christians love child drag queens—they call them “altar boys”
Religion

6 min read


Published in

ʙᴇʟᴏᴠᴇʀ

·May 8

A genius of Christian music went missing in 1975

The unknown story of Linda Rich — I’m thinking again about the genius Christian singer-songwriter no one has heard of. Linda Rich released three albums from 1969 to 1975 on a label that disappeared. Sometimes I go looking up information about her. In her high school yearbook, sophomore year, I found the only clear portrait as seems to be available. She’d ducked out of all class photos. It’s a story of a Christian girl from Augusta, Kansas, a small town known for an oil…

Religion

7 min read

A genius of Christian music went missing in 1975
A genius of Christian music went missing in 1975
Religion

7 min read


Published in

ʙᴇʟᴏᴠᴇʀ

·May 7

Top 10 Lesbians in Evangelical America

Guess who runs an anti-queer religion? — As I’ve been looking over the history of America’s #1 religion, I noticed something odd. Straight white guys seem to run the show, but really they don’t. There are male clerics up on stage. But the religion is substantially staffed by women. Among them, key leaders have been typically unmarried, and seem to have close female companions. I realized: Evangelicalism was run by lesbians.

Religion

7 min read

Top 10 Lesbians in Evangelical America
Top 10 Lesbians in Evangelical America
Religion

7 min read


Published in

ʙᴇʟᴏᴠᴇʀ

·May 4

Did my post on Charles Stanley get into the New York Times?

I’m a little stunned — In 2020, I began to do profiles on Evangelical leaders. Several have gone viral — especially one on Charles Stanley, the legendary pastor in Atlanta. For “Divorcing Charles Stanley” I spent weeks going through old books and newspapers, and focused on his divorce in the late 1990s. It’d been a lurking secret in the Evangelical world. Details had been hazy. I found a story of a Christian woman intent on divorcing the most powerful cleric…

Media

4 min read

Did my post on Charles Stanley get into the New York Times?
Did my post on Charles Stanley get into the New York Times?
Media

4 min read


Published in

ʙᴇʟᴏᴠᴇʀ

·May 1

When Asians arrive in Evangelical America

Trigger warning: it’s some messy, nasty religion — You might think that Evangelicals are a lot of white folks, which is how they seem to like it. But Asian Americans tend to show up from time to time. I’m thinking of those odd moments when Asians have been seen on the religion’s lily white stage. The stories are tinged with racism and colonialism, and horror endings—as gets passed off as ‘God’. 1. Kenneth Nally

Race

7 min read

When Asians arrive in Evangelical America
When Asians arrive in Evangelical America
Race

7 min read

Jonathan Poletti

Jonathan Poletti

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