Anti-Christian Ted Turner bankrolling NCC venture
The Layman Online, January 16, 2002
The National Council of Churches announced Jan. 15 that it has received a grant from the Turner Foundation – the philanthropic arm of media mogul Ted Turner, who has called Christianity a “religion for losers” and Christians “bozos.”
Turner has had a long-running vendetta against Christianity – once calling Catholics who observed Lent by using ashes to smudge their foreheads “Jesus freaks.” He later apologized.
Turner told the World Peace Conference in 2000 that he turned from his childhood faith because it “confused the devil out of me.”
In its place, Turner favors “indigenous” religious faiths and the things humans have in common – “culture, language, love of birds, butterflies, wives and flowers.” Turner is divorced from his most recent wife, actress Jane Fonda, who left him after she became a Christian.
In 2001, Turner told The New Yorker that Fonda “just came home and said, ‘I’ve become a Christian.’ Before that, she was not a religious person. That was a pretty big change for your wife of many years to tell you. That’s a shock.”
In a tongue-in-cheek commentary in 2001, Christianity Today said, “You’ve gotta love Ted Turner (actually, you really do; the Bible commands it). His 1990 comment that Christianity is “a religion for losers” is probably the most cited of recent anti-Christian comments … He’s also been in trouble for calling the Ten Commandments ‘a little out of date,’ adding, ‘If you’re only going to have 10 rules, I don’t know if [prohibiting] adultery should be one of them.'”
The National Council of Churches says it will use the Turner grant (amount unspecified) to provide a “Web-based electronic advocacy network” that “offers religious people of all faith communities an extensive stock of information and practical, specific actions for stewardship of creation, a concept included in many theologies.”
The NCC calls the new group the “Interfaith Climate Change Network” and says its purpose is to advocate “such energy-smart public policies as mass transit, stricter vehicle emissions standards and development of clean and renewable energy.”
The announcement cited the theory of some scientists that human activity is contributing to rapid climate change and that “global warming is undoubtedly real.” Many scientists disagree.