A pastor in Beaverton, Ore., is suing a mother and daughter for $500,000 after they allegedly posted bad reviews of his church online, KATU News reported Saturday.

Julie Anne Smith and her daughter left Beaverton Grace Bible Church several years ago. She said the church subsequently shunned her and her family.

Smith then went online and wrote Google and DEX reviews of the church, and also began a blog called “Beaverton Grace Bible Church Survivors,” the report said.

“I thought, I’m just going to post a review. We do it with restaurants and hotels and whatnot, and I thought, why not do it with this church?” she told KATU News.

Pastor Charles O’Neal responded with a lawsuit, claiming that the church had been defamed.

Smith said her daughter and three online commenters were also targeted by the lawsuit.

“What somebody does in the church is one thing, but when you get out into society we have the right to free speech, and it may not be what people want to hear, but we absolutely have that right,” she said.

Congratulations Pastor Charles. Now significantly more people know that a couple former members think your church is a cult and that you sue people who disagree with you. I’m sure this is going to help your church grow.

For what it is worth, I emailed the woman who is writing the blog and offered my legal help. These lawsuits are mostly just about intimidating the person writing the criticism.

Below are a couple of links.

• Unscrupulous Man sends in this link to a blog poking fun at Mormons. It’s pretty funny. (This morning, I had the court clerk ask me if I was a Mormon. I was like, “Uh, are Mormons allowed to booze? Because, maybe.”)
• Also, here is a link to a story in the NY Times that looks inside the operations of Trinity Broadcast Network. I will never understand why people give money to televangelists, but clearly they do. And they give a lot.

Okay folks,thank-you for your patience. And know that Jesus still loves you, even though you read this blog.

Judah Smith Salary

Number 2 on that list is

Spanking Your Wife For God

People clearly have trust issues with how much Judah makes…and also have some weird fetishes.

Personally, I don’t care about either.

Hey everybody I wanted to let you know about a great event coming (back) to Portland. HOLLA IF YOU HEAR ME is an event that was first put on at the The Justice Conference back in February and is MC’d by City Bible Church’s own (not really) Eric Knox. Those at CBC during the early 90’s will remember Eric as the token…uh…basketball coach. Yeah, that’s right…basketball coach. He led the Temple Christian Lions to 2nd place in 1A basketball back in 1995…oh…and he played at Oregon State with The GARY PAYTON (how’s that for an intro?) He then went on to found The Well Community Church in Portland and also Sojourn Village in California.  Anyway, he’s a pretty good guy that most people here at City Business would like (and, yes, that is the kindest thing ever written on this blog).

Meanwhile, organized religion itself is in trouble. The Catholic Church’s hierarchy lost much of its authority over the American flock with the unilateral prohibition of the pill in 1968 by Pope Paul VI. But in the last decade, whatever shred of moral authority that remained has evaporated. The hierarchy was exposed as enabling, and then covering up, an international conspiracy to abuse and rape countless youths and children. I don’t know what greater indictment of a church’s authority there can be—except the refusal, even now, of the entire leadership to face their responsibility and resign. Instead, they obsess about others’ sex lives, about who is entitled to civil marriage, and about who pays for birth control in health insurance. Inequality, poverty, even the torture institutionalized by the government after 9/11: these issues attract far less of their public attention.

The prosperity Gospel is a farce and is turning off a generation of Christians. And I am somewhat impressed that a major news publication recognizes what so many people on this blog and other places on the internet have come to realize for themselves — You don’t need church to be a Christian.

One interesting wrinkle in this situation is that the suit is being brought the granddaughter of the founders of TBN.

Their granddaughter, Brittany Koper, recently filed court papers that include allegations of $50 million in financial shenanigans at the world’s largest Christian broadcasting network. Her suit was followed by another from a Koper in-law, who detailed opulent spending at the network on items such as private jets, mansions in California, Tennessee and Florida and a $100,000 mobile home for Jan Crouch’s dogs.

But, of course, Brittany is going to burn in hell because — TOUCH NOT GOD’S ANOINTED!

So talk about whatever or give me your best topics to discuss. I’m always looking for ideas.

And as always, I really appreciate your readership.

My brother and some of his friends are attempting to develop a Webseries about Homeschoolers and are raising funds on Kickstarter. I think it is pretty funny. Check it out:

If you like and want to donate, great. If you hate it, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Currently, evangelicals tend to force young adults, especially young women, into simplistic sexual categories. They are either “pure” or “impure,” “whole” or “damaged,” “virgins” or “sluts.” There does not seem to exist a vocabulary within evangelicalism with which to talk about men and women who are sexually active, but not promiscuous.

But like it or not, nearly every study you find shows that unmarried Christians are just as sexually active as unmarried non-Christians. With the majority of young adults waiting until their late twenties to get married, it’s getting harder and harder to wait until marriage for sexual intimacy.

Now, I’m not saying that this is okay, or that evangelicals have to abandon their convictions regarding sex and marriage just because times have changed. But if evangelicals feel that the word “slut” is the only appropriate one to use for a woman who is sexually active, then we have a real problem on our hands

In the US, young Christians are just as promiscuous as non-Christians. When the church refuses to acknowledge this fact, they push young Christians to either leave the church or lie. Neither of which is a particularly healthy option.

Mars Hill basically told the young man that as part of his discipline, he needed to sign a church discipline contract, which included writing out his entire sexual history for the leadership to peruse. The young man politely told the leadership: no, he was going to find another church. And as with any ultra-controlling group, the elders at Mars Hill freaked out and tried to keep anyone from the church from seeing him again. The church sent out a letter to all of the young man’s friends detailing in what circumstances and situations they could hang out with him.

Read the whole thing. It’s one of those stories you will find hard to believe.