Josie sent me this link, and I didn’t want to put it in the thread where HeleninEire shared the sad news about her sister.
Show me your budget—and I’ll tell you what you value.
~ Joe Biden
Jesus spent most of his time healing the sick.
Today, we have politicians in Congress with “Christ-follower” in their Twitter bios — but they’re trying to kick the sick off their healthcare.
And they’re willing to shut down the government to do it.
— James Talarico (@jamestalarico.bsky.social) October 2, 2025 at 8:19 PM
Nice to see the hypocrites being called out!
What can we do to spread the word?
Something to think about?
Tony Jay
Once he turned 34, Jesus saw the error of his peacenik hippy ways, and took a corner office up in Heaven where he lobbied God on behalf of a succession of Imperial powers, based on who would fund the construction of the blingiest temples.
It’s all in the Gospel of St Donnie. True story.
Mr. Mack
We need hundreds like Mr. Talarico. We are getting hammered in the churches. There are a thousand churches within a 20 minute drive from me, and I’m willing to bet there isn’t a single one with a Democratic leaning message being hurled at their congregations.
They Call Me Noni
Mom told me that all you really need to know about a person you can learn by how they treat kids and animals. The first atrocity that I recall was separating children from their parents at the border and the treatment of the most vulnerable has done nothing but ratchet upwards during T2.0. Grateful he doesn’t like pets.
And I do appreciate the Pope calling out the pro-life wingnuts on their hypocrisy.
Melancholy Jaques
@Mr. Mack:
I doubt that the people who go to those churches are looking to hear any Democratic leaning messages.
Mike E
@Tony Jay: to the right hand, indeed.
piratedan
@Melancholy Jaques: to be fair, I could hope that tolerance and a bit of judge not lest thee be judged would be applicable as there appears to be a decided lack of the former and way too much judginess from their crowd.
Nukular Biskits
Good (late) mornin’, y’all.
While all of us are hypocrites to some extent, self-identified conservative Christians take it to Olympic athlete levels.
No one who continues to support, make excuses for, promote and defend Donald Trump & his toadies has any credibility to claim to be a Christian.
And, here in MS, a lot of these Liars for Jeebus love quoting Bible verses on Sunday in their social media posts. Should Hell actually exist, quoting Bible verses on Sunday ain’t gonna save them from burning there for an eternity for their hypocrisy.
Professor Bigfoot
@Mr. Mack: No Black churches in your area
ETA: for real, if you’re a Christian who actually believes in the Word and tries to live by it, seek out a Black church. You will be welcomed with open arms.
Remember– Dylann Roof was welcomed.
piratedan
also too, to be OT, one last gentle reminder regarding the Jackal Meetup at my place next Saturday. If you are considering attending please RSVP to WG with your e-mail and she will give me your email so that I can give you an address to Google Map to. We can nosh and sip on the Rivah and share our incredulity of the current administration
Looking forward to meeting fellow jackals and allowing my doggies to bask in their attention and be told what good boys they are.
Gretchen
What did HeleninEire say?
Suzanne
@They Call Me Noni: The Pope has also been outspoken today about the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, the antisemitic terror attack in Manchester, and the human dignity of refugees and immigrants around the world. So far, I am liking this guy.
Suzanne
@piratedan: Having met you some years back at a meetup in Tempe, I can testify that you’re fun and intelligent people! I wish I could make it down to your new place. But if any jackals have ability/availability….. highly recommended.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: There are a few people that I am willing to call “your Holiness,” and the late Pope Frankie was one of ’em (The Dalai Lama being another).
So far that White Sox fan is proving to be a righteous man; may he continue.
Nukular Biskits
@Mr. Mack: @Professor Bigfoot:
Within a half mile of my house, there are 8 houses of worship of various denominations/beliefs (including one Jehovah’s Witnesses and one synagogue).
Based on the number of vehicles in their respective parking lots, most have, at best, only 20-30 attendees.
What kind(s) of messages are being preached, idunno, but I do take some comfort in the fact that attendance at conservative evangelical churches is declining.
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
This is one of those times I really wish we could post images here.
Apropos:
Actual footage of me walking in a church
Professor Bigfoot
@Nukular Biskits: There are a couple of Black churches near me; one about two blocks away and though they have no parking lot, the streets around their church are *packed* on Sunday morning.
Though I’m now an “atheistic agnostic” (there’s always the possibility of as-yet undiscovered physics, after all!) and a humanist, I still have enormous respect for the church I grew up in, that my sainted Pops was a minister of.
Professor Bigfoot
@Nukular Biskits: Man, get outtta here! (snicker, chuckle, guffaw) X^D
Another Scott
@Gretchen:
She let us know that her sister Mary passed away.
:-(
Best wishes,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@piratedan: I am re-upping the original post from September because I am willing to bet there are people who missed the earlier discussions.
I got wedding zoom RSVPs from each of the 6 of my posts that went up across the whole week.
WaterGirl
@Gretchen: Helen’s sister Mary passed away.
edit: I see Scott already answered.
debit
@Professor Bigfoot: I live across the street from a black church. One winter day I was out shoveling. It was bitterly cold, I don’t have a boulevard so when the plow comes through it throws up half the street onto my sidewalk. I’d already cleared it once, and resignedly went out to clean it up again when the crew working on the sidewalk for the church saw me. As one, they came over and started to help. When I protested that I was fine, they didn’t need to, one of them paused and simply said, “When god sees you trying, he sends help.” Bless them. They are great neighbors.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: I took the elder two Spawns to Rome some years back, and we happened to be there on a day when Papa Francesco was giving a message. I made them go, which annoyed them at the time (everything was in Italian, of course)….. but now they both are grateful. Much respect for him. Very pleased with Leo so far, also hoping that continues.
I was raised in Presbyterian and Methodist churches, and I’m just not able to believe in anything supernatural at all. But I actually don’t think that’s what faith is or should be about. I think ethics and relationships are what it’s about.
brendancalling
My go-to is still muttering loudly to myself or anyone in earshot about how everything is so much more expensive whenever I’m at the grocery. “Jeebus, $11/pound for beef? So much for ending inflation….”
debit
@brendancalling: My daughter works in the front end of a high end grocery store where people expect to pay more. Even so, the customer feedback about prices has been loud, angry, and sometimes with tears.
WaterGirl
@brendancalling: I think those stealth messages / hit and run messages can be very effective.
I do it as a comment to someone else, but now I will have to consider the muttering to myself angle.
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
Growing up in Meridian, there was a Black church (my unscholarly definition here: a church with +90% African-American attendance) just down the hill from the house. Every Sunday it was packed and services usually lasted well past noon and the music and singing could be heard the entire time. Although I knew a lot of the folks who attended (having attended school with many), I never went. Back then, most congregations were not mixed; i.e., white folks when to “white” churches, black folks went to “black” churches.
I won’t insist this is a hard rule, but it’s my observation attendance at Black churches has been (and probably still is) as much about socializing and community as it was actual worship. That’s not to say those who attend other churches aren’t motivated likewise, but it just seems to be more predominate in Black churches.
Plus, black folks definitely know how to dress better for church on Sunday! ;>)
Geo Wilcox
@WaterGirl: I’ve been doing that at the grocery store as well and some folks I KNOW voted for Trump are grumbling a lot.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: I tried to explain to my cousin that I simply don’t believe in gods OR monsters; or any other supernatural phenomena.
What I believe in is my species and my homeworld.
Professor Bigfoot
Remember that during the Enslavement the ONLY place/time that Black folks had among themselves was church.
The Civil Rights Movement of the ‘50s was organized and led from the churches.
TBH it is the ONE thing I miss about church. I am an unbeliever in the supernatural, but the human connection in the Black church is central to its existence.
Edited for clarity!
Ishiyama
This is politics, but it is also a moral lesson:
If a deep red State like Nebraska has a majority in favor of legalizing weed, how many votes has the Democratic Party lost since 1976 by continuing to embrace the bipartisan & totalitarian War on Drugs? Why do you think that many so white boys don’t give give a sh*t for your individual personal freedom? If you don’t see the problem, you won’t find a solution.
Professor Bigfoot
Because they never have.
The entire “war on drugs” and cannabis prohibition is ENTIRELY about oppressing certain groups of people- Black and brown people; and John Erlichman himself admitted as much.
They don’t give a damn about our rights because they don’t believe we deserve any rights. That we should “not have any rights a white man must observe.”
TONYG
@Tony Jay: Actually, that’s pretty much what happened. The various flavors of Christianity over the past 2,000 years are responsible for at least as much murder, torture, theft, slavery and other crimes as the other major religions.
HinTN
@Nukular Biskits:
You got that right! One Sunday in the early afternoon I was in Kroger and there was an African American gentleman there who was dressed to the nines. Three piece suit, yellow shirt, yellow tie, yellow socks (!), and what appeared to be spit shined shoes. I complimented him and he allowed as how he had just come from church.
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
Likewise.
In my previous life, we regularly attended a “mixed” church (which, ironically, is not far from where I now live) for 15 years. For me and my then-spouse, it wasn’t about doctrine, etc, but about community and connectedness.
Jackie
@WaterGirl:
Did you front page it? I somehow missed all six invites. But, I’ve been skipping posts lately – too much crankiness in the comments of late.
Nukular Biskits
@Ishiyama:
This seems to be a recurring thing in “red” states; i.e., voters passing ballot initiatives opposed by Republicans and Republican lawmakers then doing everything possible to outright sabotage the ballot initiative.
Here in MS, voters passed an initiative to legalized medical marijuana back in 2020, only to have the conservative state supreme court throw it out as well as the entire ballot initiative process.
ETA: Edited for clarity.
princess leia
@Nukular Biskits: I think that community and connectedness is the real “church.” The rest…is the power structure to keep some people out. But the gathering in and together- seems pretty transcendent and powerful and loving and mighty. That’s the God of my understanding.
Glidwrith
@Nukular Biskits: I wonder sometimes, how many of these evangelical churches are actually being supported by their congregation?
There’s no requirement to report income, so it strikes me as a great way to money launder or for foreign interests to further propaganda.
HinTN
@TONYG: Obligatory
Mel Brooks – The Inquisition
trollhattan
Really want Dems to start calling Pastor Mike and his ilk false Christians. They hide behind their false doctrine in defense of each and every vile thing they do to the citizens they supposedly work for, and as we’ve learned over recent times the way to go after the enemy is attack their strengths.
Don’t cede this ground one inch. Say this again and again. Say it in front of the cameras, say it to their faces, put them on their back heel and never relent.
Ishiyama
@Professor Bigfoot: Dear Professor: I don’t usually reply when you say something that I disagree with, but it’s pretty clear that you know very little about people like me, and my brothers, and my friends with whom I grew up. Do you even know how many white boys have died, or gone to prison to be raped and brutalized, because of marijuana prohibition? Do you want to hear about the white boys I had to represent on murder charges because some high school kid was selling pot, and they decided to rob him, but things got out of hand? Or the white boy whose friends decided to rob a pot dealer, and he was fool enough to go along with the plan? (I also observed the young blonde prosecutress giggling and smirking with glee at sending some hapless young Black man to prison for years, so don’t assume that I am ignorant of that side of the issue)
Dismiss our concerns as selfish, or short sighted, but don’t claim that we haven’t suffered, too.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Okay, it felt like 6, but it looks like it was 4.
Mike E
@Ishiyama: “… some of my best friends are…” lol
Professor Bigfoot
@princess leia: I’ve referred to my late Pops as a pastor, but he was much more a minister.
Looking after and taking care of and supporting the people in Christ’s name was his thing; and he was *well loved* for it.
He’s been gone almost 20 years now and I still very much miss his wise counsel.
MagdaInBlack
@Ishiyama: But you know he is correct when he says pot/drug prohibition was originally based on racism.
Professor Bigfoot
@Ishiyama: Of course it gets white people too.
But that has never stopped white men from enacting policies and procedures that are MEANT to harm Black and brown people.
I never said anything about YOU— I don’t know jack shit about YOU.
But white men, as a goddamn demographic, don’t give a good goddamn about the rights or lives of anyone other than themselves.
And I’m so sorry you cannot see this.
Professor Bigfoot
@MagdaInBlack: Many Americans* are unwilling to accept that this government, these laws, this society have erected policies specifically intended to harm people who are not straight, white, and Christian.
Just as they’re unwilling to do any self-reflection and mindfulness about their political choices and beliefs.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(edited for clarity)
Ishiyama
@MagdaInBlack: While marijuana prohibition is rooted in racism, Nixon’s War on Drugs was directed at the hippies and our psychedelic culture. I didn’t see any Black people lifting a finger to defend us. If you never dropped acid, don’t preach.
Professor Bigfoot
@Ishiyama: You really believe that you white people were the primary targets?
Very well, nothing more need be said.
Well, other than that the Irish were slaves, too. 🙄
Ishiyama
@Professor Bigfoot: Did I say that I didn’t see the racism inherent in the War on Drugs? Yes, you don’t know my experiences, but that is beside the point, when it comes to matters of public policy. Maybe offer something that appeals to white boys, but doesn’t deprive anyone else of their freedom?
Omnes Omnibus
I am so glad that Rev. Rick’s guest post was effective. ::checks earpiece:: What?! Oh, never mind.
MagdaInBlack
@Ishiyama: Stating a simple fact is not preaching and I’m not sure where dropping acid became a qualification for anything.
That being said, I’ll just sit back and let the Professor handle this.
It’s a lovely Sunday, enjoy.
MagdaInBlack
@Omnes Omnibus: Btw and apropos of nuthin, since you’re a Wisconsinite: Minocqua Brewing Company is teaming with my local progressive radio, WCPT 820, to do a podcast called “Up North” about..progressive politics in Wisc.
Maybe you’re interested.
Ishiyama
@Professor Bigfoot: I said that Nixon launched the War on Drugs at a specific target, which was psychedelic culture. Do you know different? Were you there when it happened?
That is separate issue from the Reagan anti-cocaine crusade, or the 1920s anti-marijuana crusade.
Two things can be true at the same time; lumping all white boys together is as simple-minded as any other racialist classification. I don’t intend to rebut you every time you use that frame, but I don’t have much respect for your intellectual integrity.
Nukular Biskits
@MagdaInBlack:
Must be nice to have a progressive radio station. I’m jealous.
Down here, we have a statewide network that carries water for Republicans when it isn’t running sports shows/games, “Christian” stations and, of course, a bazillion iHeart stations.
Ishiyama
@MagdaInBlack: In my world, one is not a adult until one has had a spirit journey. LSD, mushrooms, or mescaline required in order to be eligible to vote.
Omnes Omnibus
@MagdaInBlack: I am a little on the fence about the owner of the MBC. He seems a little grifty to me, but it sound like a cool program.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ishiyama: You might just be a bit of an outlier.
MagdaInBlack
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah he kinda gives me the same vibes. Little too used car saleman-ish, maybe
eta: on the other hand, wcpt has broadcast from his place in Madison several times and he seems all in on promoting the cause.
Maybe just overly earnest rubs me wrong. I dunno.
MagdaInBlack
@Ishiyama: I see. Ok then.
piratedan
@Suzanne: tyvm, I enjoyed MTG with you too!
and WG tyvm!, been a lot going on over the last few weeks and schedules change, just wanted to make sure that those that wanted to congregate could do so. Figured face-to-face would be nice for some peeps reinforcing that there are faces behind keyboards…
WaterGirl
@piratedan: Did you see the question about location at #19 in the meetup thread
edit: And I see that you had just replied, so I will take that as a yes. :-)
MagdaInBlack
@Nukular Biskits: You can catch some of their programs on YouTube. Hal Sparks on Saturday morning is one.
heartlandsignal.com/podcasts/
Jackie
@WaterGirl: I misread. I thought you meant the invite to the actual wedding video. Earlier this week you teased about posting the wedding video with proper password. That’s what I thought you were referring to. Sorry for misunderstanding! <face in palm>
Professor Bigfoot
@Ishiyama: I don’t give a flying fuck for white boys.
White boys have been the bane of my entire existence from the time I started elementary school.
White boys have advantages and privileges that are NEVER afforded to me or people like me.
This is like demanding that Black folks mourn Charlie Kirk- that motherfucking shit is not going to happen.
Professor Bigfoot
@Ishiyama: I distrust white men because of my experiences with white men.
I don’t trust a single one of you because more than one of you has stabbed me, personally, in the fucking back.
I’ll trust a white man when he has demonstrated real allyship to the rest of us; and right now, I don’t see that from you.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Oh, now i understand.
We are still working out the logistics so there has been no post to VIEW THE WEDDING VIDEO or for RSVPs. Yet.
Professor Bigfoot
@WaterGirl: You’re gonna do a post with the entire wedding Zoom? AWESOME!!
It was absolutely lovely, wasn’t it?
Sure Lurkalot
@trollhattan: Better yet, let’s divorce religion and morality. History has shown time and time again there’s a tenuous connection between them
Morality in a new key! Respect and concern for life in all its forms, grateful stewardship of the planet for its prodigious gifts.
Archon
@Tony Jay: Christianity and the current American right wing ethos couldn’t be more different. The fact its merged into some political/religious identity is surreal and scary.
jonas
@Mr. Mack: It’s not about preaching a “Democratic” or “Republican” message — it would be nice if they just stuck to actual Christianity. American evangelicism has just gone full-on pagan. Literally. Their idol is that QAnon shaman and didn’t Kash Patel say he hoped to meet Charlie Kirk in “Valhalla”, ffs?
trollhattan
@Professor Bigfoot:
How do you reckon The Great Society came about?
Karen Gail
@Professor Bigfoot: I firmly believe in monsters; watched two of the lecture and threaten a room full of officers. Someone speculated that there was over 25,000 years of military experience getting lectured by a talking head and draft dodger. I also watch the end results and the “sizzle reel” of raid in Chicago; there are monsters and they walk among us, they look like us, the ugliness rarely shows on the outside.
Professor Bigfoot
@Karen Gail: Okay, I meant supernatural monsters.
You’re absolutely right, there are plenty of human monsters out there, and currently they rule us.
Professor Bigfoot
@trollhattan: One of the few white men worthy of trust spearheaded it.
And he’s still hated by white people today for Viet Nam and who generally either don’t care about the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act or are actively hostile to them.
Should I trust white men I don’t know just because they say “trust me bro?”
Professor Bigfoot
HEAR, HEAR!
Karen Gail
@Ishiyama: I didn’t know you need to take drugs in order to have a spirit journey. I was taught that taking drugs interfered with a spirit journey. Not everyone got a spirit journey from LSD or peyote or mushrooms, some got nightmares that haunted them for years.
Karen Gail
@Professor Bigfoot: Me too, I distrust white men because of my experiences with white men. I distrust police for the same reason; being a police officer doesn’t mean that they won’t hit on a blond woman and not take “no” for an answer.
hitchhiker
I know this thread is dead, but I have to say it anyway. Joe was slipping a little of his Catholic theology into that statement. The version I learned is in Matthew 6:21.
Many decades ago when I was involved with one of those big, healthy liberal UCC churches, I ran their annual stewardship campaigns a few times. We had an operating budget back then of about a million dollars, a lot of which went toward keeping the old building functional and open to the many groups that depended on being able to use it.
But I was always bothered by how generously the various boards treated themselves to catered dinners and retreats. That passage from Matthew was at the front of my mind a lot. It meant exactly what Joe said: your budget is a moral document. It exposes your values like nothing else can, in black and white.
Where is your treasure, there is your heart.
Professor Bigfoot
@Karen Gail: It’s that sense of innate entitlement that they tend to exude, isn’t it?
The worst ones I had to deal with in Corporate America were the loud “Praise Jesus!” every ten minutes types.
I know from bitter experience how they’ll sabotage you, lie about you, steal from you.
Then turn around, smile, and say “trust me, bro!”
trollhattan
@Professor Bigfoot:
Trust who you wish, nobody can tell you otherwise.
As an Eisenhower kid I have lived vast changes in the nation and the lurches forward still net more gain than the slides back have lost us. It requires an ahistorical lens to claim otherwise.
We are in a deeply hazardous time, run by a pernicious political minority. Giving actual and potential allies a permanent side-eye is to me, capitulation. YMMV.
Scout211
Blocked from federalizing the Oregon National Guard? No worries, Trump will find his National Guard troops in California. Grrrr.
trollhattan
The latest in unconstitutional presidential actions is happening here on the Left Coast. Stay tuned.
For better or worse, my kid happens to be in PDX right now, trying to avoid the many several-miles square antifa mob scenes.
trollhattan
@Scout211:
Jinx!
Professor Bigfoot
@trollhattan: when nearly 2/3 of white men voted directly for white supremacy, you bet your pale white ass I’m gonna distrust and disbelieve what white men say unless (again) they demonstrate true allyship to the rest of us.
I DO NOT SEE THIS in the vast majority of white men.
Perhaps you do.
trollhattan
@Professor Bigfoot:
In your Weltanschauung, who comprises “the rest of us?”
Professor Bigfoot
@trollhattan: ALL of us who are not straight white and male.
ALL of us who’ve had our human and civil rights curtailed by white men.
White men whose rights have NEVER been questioned since the Founding.
When the Supremes declared that “the rest of us” had no rights a white man was bound to respect, they DEFINED the rest of us.
Any more questions?
dnfree
@Mr. Mack: The old mainstream churches that at one time were the majority of Protestant churches in the country (United Methodist, Presbyterian, Evangelical Lutheran, United Church of Christ, even Episcopal, for example) aren’t explicitly political but they do contain a fair number of liberals. Most favor abortion rights (choice) and most even accept gay marriage (which has resulted in splits in some denominations). Most have female pastors. They don’t have ‘Democratic” messages, but they have human rights messages.
You can in some ways differentiate Protestant Christian churches based on whether they are fundamentalist (believe everything in the Bible is literally true and disbelieve in evolution) and whether they see women as “should be submissive and can’t be preachers”. It would be good to recognize that many of your Christian neighbors are Democrats, including many Catholics, depending on whether they prioritize being anti-abortion or social justice. Don’t tar them all with the same brush.
That’s not even counting the Unitarian Universalists. They aren’t even all Christian, and some of them are atheists!
Similar divisions exist within Judaism.
dnfree
@Melancholy Jaques: See my comment above, and others.
dnfree
@piratedan: There’s a certain amount of “judginess” being applied here toward Christians, and it’s counterproductive.
Gloria DryGarden
@dnfree: even episcopal?
thise fundamentalists, who believe everything in the Bible as literal… based on which translation is used, and whatever their pastor says. And often taken out of the cultural context in which the Bible writings were set.
dnfree
@Ishiyama: In my world, having had a “spiritual journey” as a religious qualification on voting would be unconstitutional just as it would be to say someone had to be a Christian. I haven’t taken drugs and I’m not about to. What is up with this thread?
dnfree
@Gloria DryGarden: “even Episcopal” was kind of a joke, because you know the Church of England just named a woman as Archbishop of Canterbury and some global members are ticked off. I’ve asked mentioned before that my brother, a baptized Methodist, married in an Episcopal church and had to be rebaptized by them, whereas if he’d been Catholic his previous baptism would have been okay. So they both are and aren’t Protestant.
prostratedragon
MagdaInBlack
@dnfree: It did kind of go weird there, didn’t it. “You can’t vote unless you found ‘god’ the same way I did” is part of how we got to what we are dealing with in this country.
ffs.
MagdaInBlack
@prostratedragon: Have you seen the one where they claimed they “were boxed in by 10 vehicles” and so shot a woman.
It’s quite ridiculous, and even I, a suburbanite, said that’s just Chicago traffic.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: and he is also anti-AI as well, which I really like.
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: I didn’t really understand until I visited the Martin Luther King site in Atlanta that the Black ministers were the only Black professionals/leaders didn’t depend on any outside authority for licensing or accreditation, so they had the freedom to stand up for their community in a way that a Black teacher, doctor, or lawyer couldn’t do.
StringOnAStick
@Professor Bigfoot: We have a weekly ukulele play along group we go to though I now play guitar and my husband always did, we were welcomed. The main thing is people love it for the community aspect of it all; getting together to sing and have fun with people you’ve met there is great, plus no sermon is involved. It can be as many as 70 people though 40-50 is more common. This particular group is a bit notorious in the ukulele world because we mostly do rock and roll, very little Hawaiian music because people want to have a raucous good time. I’ve been to other ukulele groups (like in HI) where it’s a bit too much like going to church for me, even some where half the songs were hymns of some sort. Our group is the opposite of that.