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Ten More People Who Give Christianity a Bad Name

by FlameHorse
fact checked by Darci Heikkinen

This list is a sequel to one written years ago. It is not intended to promote or denigrate any religion. It only looks at ten prominent people who call themselves Christian yet whose words and deeds prove them to be quite disingenuous. Only living people are included, and they are not listed in any particular order.

Related: 10 Of Christianity’s Most Profitable Preachers

10 Pope Francis, et al.

The priest’s confession: What the Catholic bishops knew – The Fifth Estate

The Catholic Church has known for decades about the predatory pedophiles among its clergy, and with the film Spotlight about the sex abuses rife throughout the Boston Archdiocese, the horrifying scale of such abuse was finally brought to light. Benedict XVI, now retired, and John Paul II before him both knew about the molestation and outright rape committed over the course of decades by hundreds of priests around the world. One of the worst offenders was John Geoghan, whom John Paul II finally defrocked in 1998. Geoghan would ultimately be murdered in prison.

Around the world, the Church has routinely kept such crimes as quiet as possible, apparently to save face (and to avoid lawsuits). It has moved such pedophilic predators from one church to another where their crimes continue. One of the highest-profile pedophilic priests still alive is Theodore McCarrick, who was Archbishop of Washington, D. C., from 2001 to 2006. His abuses stretched back to the early 1990s.

Pope Francis finally defrocked him in 2019, but Francis is also on record stating that pedophilic priests are “children of God” and should be loved. He argued that condemnation of such a person is a must but that the condemnation should be “understood as an act of charity.” This sort of soft response to such a horrid crime as abusing a child probably does not sit well with the victims and their families.[1]

9 Douglas Vincent Mastriano

How Christian Nationalism is Shaping Pennsylvania’s Governor Race

A state senator of Pennsylvania who strongly opposes the Democrat Party and proclaims that every election victory for that party is the result of Democratic voter fraud, especially Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. He personally sold more than 300 bus tickets to people who traveled from Pennsylvania to Washington to participate in the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protests, which degenerated into violence. His attempts to overturn that election’s results were so forceful that fellow state senator Art Haywood lodged a complaint against him arguing that he should be disqualified, as an insurrectionist, from holding public office via the 14th Amendment.

Mastriano campaigned for the governorship of Pennsylvania in 2022, losing to Democrat Josh Shapiro. Mastriano’s campaign was founded strongly on Christian Nationalism, and he portrayed himself and anyone who voted for him as having been called by God to cleanse American politics of sin. He raised money for and spoke at a far-right conference that year in support of the QANON conspiracy theory that a secret cabal of Democrats and liberals are trafficking young children among themselves for sex. At this meeting, he supported the theory that 9/11 was a false flag operation coordinated by the American government and that Adolf Hitler faked his own death.[2]


8 Lou Engle

The Call Returns to Washington DC – CBN.com

Engle is a charismatic Christian preacher who was in charge of TheCall, a Christian religious movement lasting from 2000 to 2018, in which he and hundreds of thousands of others traveled to various American landmarks, beginning with the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where he preached strongly against “liberalism” in the American government. He is still active and preaches against the apostasy of the United States, primarily caused, in his view, by the national toleration of abortion. It has been argued that his mass gatherings in favor of Christian Nationalism helped inspire the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol building. Rioters at that event chanted, “Christ is king,” and prayed loudly for God to destroy liberalism in the American government.

Engle has preached that conservative Christianity is necessary to prevent divine judgment against the United States because of its government’s acceptance of abortion and homosexuality. He traveled to Uganda in 2010 to support that nation’s criminalization of homosexuality. In March 2017, he organized a three-day event in Washington, D.C., in which he preached for an end to witchcraft and the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe vs. Wade. He has compared his anti-LGBTQ+ views to the South seceding from the Union immediately before the American Civil War. He has called on opponents of gay rights to emulate Confederate general Robert E. Lee.[3]

7 Ann Hart Coulter

Ann Coulter Clashes With Ben Shephard Over Anti-Muslim Tweets | Good Morning Britain

Ann Coulter is an American conservative columnist who has been active for years in political commentary. She politicizes everything she writes about as the Left versus the Right. She always sides with the Right, or Conservatism, as being Christian and the Left as being atheistic, Satanic, or in some way directly opposed to Christianity. To this end, she advocates intelligent design in opposition to the theory of evolution, calling Darwinism an obsession of the Left, “which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death.”

Coulter considers hate crime laws to be unconstitutional, and in 2021, she stated that women should not be permitted to vote. She has called herself “a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don’t you ever forget it.” She has also stated that the United States is a Christian nation and has argued in favor of state religion, endorsing Christianity as that nation’s official religion, despite its Constitution’s First Amendment guaranteeing all citizens the right to freedom of religion.

In addition, she is on record as of 2011 as stating, “waterboarding, not bad, though torture would have been better.” She defends herself as not anti-Semitic even though she tweeted in 2015, “How many f—ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?”[4]


6 Lauren Opal Boebert

Lauren Boebert Filmed Being A HUGE Hypocrite

A sitting Congresswoman from Colorado, Boebert strongly advocates Christian Nationalism. When speaking at a church in 2022, she said the church should direct the government, stating, “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk. That’s not in the Constitution.” Although the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear in the Constitution, the First Amendment forbids any American governmental power from establishing any religion.

She not only opposes same-sex marriage but even opposes the Equality Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, claiming that the Act supports “the supremacy of gays.” This seems to defy an act Jesus committed when he fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish and did not ask anyone whether they were conservative or liberal, homosexual or heterosexual, or what god or gods they worshipped. He just fed everyone out of compassion.

Boebert opposes abortion for any and all reasons, even in the cases of rape and when carrying the fetus to term would endanger the life of the mother. She is a strong proponent of several aspects of the QANON conspiracy theory, especially, in 2021, the theory that President Trump would declassify documents proving corruption throughout the Democrat Party, which would force multiple resignations and permit the Republican Party to retake both Houses of Congress. No such documentation or resignations took place.

In addition, she defended the actions of the rioters in the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol building as some form of righteous insurrection. During the riot, she tweeted basic information on the current whereabouts of various Democratic lawmakers, including Nancy Pelosi, thus possibly endangering their lives.[5]

5 Robert Gregory Bowers

Synagogue gunman guilty on all charges

The murderer of eleven innocent people at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 2018. He is currently awaiting execution on death row. He had spent years frequenting far-right websites, especially the social media site “Gab,” where he posted conspiracy theories promoting white supremacy and racism against Blacks, Jews, and many other races of people. His Gab account gave the argument, drawing from John 8:44, in which Jesus denounces the people, mostly Jews, listening to him as children of the Devil, that Jews should, therefore, be killed before they can exterminate all white people. This is the “white genocide” conspiracy theory. His account also stated, “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.”

Bowers must not have understood that Jesus was Jewish, and he certainly didn’t heed Jesus’s teaching, “love one another even as I have loved you,” when he stormed the synagogue and gunned down eleven human beings. During his attack, he shouted, “All Jews must die.” In the immediate aftermath, as he was being treated for his own gunshot wounds, he exulted in what he had done and wished he had been able to kill more.[6]


4 Marjorie Taylor Green

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Bigotry Could Cripple Her State’s Economy

A strong proponent of anti-Semitism, white supremacy, and Christian Nationalism. Green promotes many conspiracy theories that have been widely denounced and derided, including QANON. She has even called the 9/11 terrorist attacks a hoax. She has called for some Democratic lawmakers, including Barack Obama when he was president, to be executed.

Once the COVID pandemic became global, she argued that getting the vaccine was the same as accepting “the mark of the Beast,” a reference to Revelation, which says that all those with the mark would have it on their hands or heads. Her statement is in line with a far-right conspiracy theory that accepting any federally suggested vaccine is a pledge of allegiance to Satan.

In 2021 and again in 2023, she advocated for a “national divorce” of red states from blue states, which is a call for secession and possible civil war. Probably her most well-known statement in support of anti-Semitism came when she blamed the Camp, California, wildfire of 2018 on “Jewish space lasers.” Her controversial statements in support of white supremacy and especially her calls for various lawmakers to be put to death for treason finally resulted in her being removed in 2021 from all House committee assignments.

In 2022, she opposed student loan debt forgiveness since the executive administration at that time was a Democratic one, even though she had personally accepted a loan of $183,504 in student loan forgiveness for herself.[7]

3 Joel Scott Osteen

The Troubled History Of Joel Osteen

Osteen is one of the most high-profile televangelists currently appearing on television, and he is so popular among his adherents because he preaches “prosperity theology.” By this, he promises people that if they donate money to his church, God will bless them with personal wealth, which can take the form of landing a better job or even winning the lottery.

Such theology is, of course, antithetical to what Jesus preaches in the Gospels, namely that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.” Jesus says this after he tells a rich man to sell everything he owns, give it to the poor, and then follow him. Prosperity theology also defies a principle taught by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

It is easy to understand the fairness in Paul’s argument since if doing good works could get someone into Heaven, the rich, who can do much more with all their money, would always have a much better chance. Yet Osteen is worth over $50 million and lives in a 17,000-square-foot mansion in Houston, Texas. Idiocy, unfortunately, is not a sin, and Osteen’s congregation falls for his teaching hook, line, and sinker, donating millions to his church in the hope that this will please God. Osteen promises them it will. Jesus never owned a house, and God doesn’t need the money.[8]


2 Kenneth Max Copeland

Full Interview: Preacher Kenneth Copeland Defends Lavish Lifestyle

Copeland is guilty of exactly the same anti-Christian preaching as Osteen, making millions from Christians mainly via television with his weekly show Believer’s Voice of Victory and his website’s streaming service. His net worth is believed to be about $300 million, and his ranch in Forth Worth, Texas, has a private airport with at least five airplanes.

Aside from preaching prosperity theology and consequently raking in millions of dollars worth of donations, he also preached strongly against the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. On March 29 of that year, he recorded himself during a weekly sermon claiming to have destroyed the viral pandemic by blowing it away with the breath of God. He has taught his adherents to be skeptical of modern medicine and instead to rely on their faith to heal themselves and others.

Copeland has been criticized for calling his mansion a parsonage to avoid paying taxes per state law and for using donations to purchase a private jet valued at $20 million for his personal vacations. He argued that owning a private jet was biblical and that he did not want to get into a commercial jet filled with demons.[9]

1 Donald John Trump

House Passes Resolution Condemning President Donald Trump’s Racist Comments | Hardball | MSNBC

Donald Trump has said a great many overtly racist things throughout his career in politics, denouncing immigrants, especially from Mexico, as rapists and drug dealers; he has made horribly racist comments against Black people, stating in a Twitter message in 2016, “the overwhelming amount of violent crime in our cities is committed by blacks and Hispanics.”

His racist remarks and refusals to apologize for them could fill a book. It is sufficient to note that as a presidential candidate, he became instantly popular with far-right, white supremacist hate groups, including the KKK. He used the pro-white racism inherent throughout the far-right voter base for his political gain.

Trump successfully politicized the Christian religion into a weapon the Republican voter base has wielded in its support of him as the candidate sent by God to purge America of illegal immigrants, liberals, and anyone the far-right, predominantly white Protestant voter base considers to not be Christian. Neo-Nazis routinely attend his rallies, and during the January 6th Capitol Hill riot, some of his supporters were photographed carrying pictures of Jesus wearing a red MAGA hat.

None of this mentions the many accusations against him of sexual misconduct, rape, adultery, and dishonest business practices.[10]

fact checked by Darci Heikkinen

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