Church Soup Ep: 04 (Elevation Church, Supreme Court, Sparkle Creed, Texas Rangers, and more!)

Welcome to Church Soup, the only news show on the internet.

I'm your host Keith Foskey, though most telemarketers call me Foskey, and one guy I used to work with called me Foxy.

So say it however you like.

Our top story.

Elevation Church, a megachurch in North Carolina, has decided to voluntarily withdraw its cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Pastored by Stephen Furtick, Elevation has been affiliated with the SBC for over 20 years.

The letter regarding their departure, which was sent to the SBC Executive Committee, did not give a reason for the decision.

A group of SBC pastors were asked their thoughts about the departure, and their response was, Stephen Furtick is a Southern Baptist? Really? In legal news, this past Saturday marked the one-year anniversary of the striking down of Roe v.

Wade.

Estimates show that there were close to 25,000 fewer legal abortions from July 2022 to March 2023 when compared to the period before the court's decision.

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke about the impact of the decision, saying, quote, we knew this decision would create a health care crisis in America, end quote.

Unfortunately for the vice president, it was difficult for her to get through the speech because it's almost impossible to hold a microphone with blood all over your hands.

President Biden also commented on the anniversary of the decision, but as is often the case, no one understood a word that he said.

And Corn Pop was a bad dude.

In more legal news, the Supreme Court handed down several controversial decisions this past week before going on its annual summer break.

Here with a breakdown of these decisions is The Church Soup senior legal correspondent, Matthew Henson.

Thanks, Keith.

A series of opinions issued by the United States Supreme Court on Thursday and Friday affirmed some shocking and radical positions rarely seen in the court's history.

Those positions being that the president is not Congress and that the First and Fourteenth Amendments do in fact mean what they say.

The court held by a six to three vote in Students for Fair Admissions versus Harvard and UNC that racism is in fact racism and that preferring or disfavoring applicants based upon their skin color is in fact what we fought a civil war and passed three amendments over.

In 303 Creative versus Alanis, the court held that the First Amendment bars the government from forcing you to publish or express a message with which you disagree.

This one involved a website designer who stated that she was unwilling to create websites expressing the profaning of marriage.

Finally, in Biden versus Nebraska, the court held that the Heroes Act of 2003, passed after 9-11, does not in fact allow the president or his education secretary to become Congress because he feels like it.

The shortened version of the opinion was, if you want to do this, have Congress pass a law.

Something I thought we all learned in Schoolhouse Rock, but apparently not.

The court now goes to its summer recess, having given self-righteous legal scholars plenty to write whiny columns about until this time next year.

Back over to you, Keith.

Thank you, Matthew, for that important report.

In blasphemy news, a video has been making the rounds through social media of Pastor Anna Helgen of the Adena Community Lutheran Church leading the congregation through the, quote, Sparkle Creed, end quote, which was written by the Reverend Rachel Small-Stokes, updating the words of the Apostles' Creed.

I believe in the non-binary God, whose pronouns are plural.

I believe in Jesus Christ, their child, who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads, and saw everyone as a sibling child of God.

I believe in the rainbow spirit, who shatters our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity.

I believe in the church of everyday saints, as numerous, creative, and resilient as patches on the ace quilt, whose feet are grounded in mud, and whose eyes gaze at the stars in wonder.

I believe in the calling to each of us that love is love is love, so beloved, let us love.

I believe, glorious God, help my unbelief.

Amen.

Now, I'm rarely without words, but I honestly don't know what to say, so I'm going to cut to my wall of reactions to make a choice.

I think I'm going to go with five.

Seriously, though, I create parodies of church life.

I have dozens of videos which joke about the eccentricities often found in modern churches, and I could not have written anything more ridiculous than that.

In college news, Texas Christian University's 2023 spring semester included a course entitled The Queer Art of Drag, which required students to engage queer theories and develop their own drag persona to debut at TCU's annual Night of Drag.

So to all Christian high schoolers looking for a university which will really upset your parents, try TCU.

In sports news, the Texas Rangers have stood out this year as the only Major League Baseball team without a pride night.

When asked about the reason for being the lone holdout, the team released a statement which read, Our commitment is to make everyone feel welcome and included in Rangers baseball.

The Texas Rangers baseball team just surpassed Cordell Walker and James Trevett as my favorite Texas Rangers.

Though happy about their decision to forgo pride night, Pentecostals and Baptists have both decided to continue to boycott the Rangers because they are keeping their Harry Potter night.

In unreasonable news, the ACLU has criticized the state of Florida for not providing gender affirming care to Duane Owen, who had been on death row since 1984.

Owen, who was executed on June 16th for the murder of multiple women, claimed that he did so as part of a ritual to harvest their hormones and turn himself into a female.

Upon his execution, the ACLU tweeted, The state of Florida never provided medically necessary gender affirming care to Duane Owen, causing her enormous suffering and violating her right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment for the more than 30 years she was in state custody.

Now it is the opinion of this newsman that the only medical treatment that Owen deserved was given through the lethal injection needle on June 16th.

And quite frankly, the only thing which was cruel and unusual was the 30-year burden the state placed on the taxpayer.

Finally, this coming week, the nation will celebrate the Fourth of July, commemorating its 247th birthday.

Many churches will be planning to celebrate the Sunday before with patriotic songs and sermons.

Shout out to anyone who puts the craziest thing you've seen done in a church service during a Fourth of July celebration in the comments.

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