Donald Trump’s first criminal trial is scheduled to start next week. When he was elected it seemed the world slipped into a different, disturbing timeline and nothing here on Weird and Wacky Wednesdays seems all that weird anymore. Consider that the Republican nominee is facing nearly 100 criminal charges in multiple venues over the coming months and he is likely to be convicted long before election day. After having been found responsible for defaming a woman he raped and committing fraud in his business dealings in New York, he has been ordered to pay nearly $500 million in damages.
To bring in some cash, Trump is selling bibles. Of course, there is no copyright on the bible and so, beyond the printing and shipping costs, it’s all profit. The Trump version also includes copies of some important US legal documents, such as the Declaration of Independence. One would think it’s some form of blasphemy to include such material in a revered religious book, but few seem concerned. One wonders about the morals of some people who claim to find their morality in religion. This week on Weird and Wacky Wednesdays we’re going to look at some bad things done by religious people.
The bible has some uses not widely condoned
Our first story comes from an incident that took place on Easter Sunday. Easter is a religious holiday that lands on a different date every year, seems to have no origin connection to eggs and rabbits, and most stores seem to remain open including the Walgreens in Clearwater Beach Florida. The police say that Peter Owens, 35, went to the Walgreens looking for headphones. He got into a verbal altercation with an employee of the pharmacy and the store manager attended to request that Mr. Owens leave the store.
Mr. Owens is said to have then used a bible he was carrying to strike the manager on her face before leaving the store.
When the police located him, he claimed that the manager was rude and that was the reason he hit her. He was released on bond and arrested again after having attempted to steal shoes from Walmart.
Mr. Owens may be getting his morality from the good book. There is no word of Walgreens and Walmart in the bible which is a bit of an oversight.
The church lady has needs too
In Ontario a church employee, Elizabeth Sarginson, 50, was charged with fraud over $5000 for directing more than $275,000 of money destined for the church to her personal bank account. It turns our churches have revenue from things like hall rentals, weddings, concerts and the like. Sarginson’s job duties included collecting the payments for these events and she is said to have taken the money for herself.
One wonders why churches should need money. And besides, if the church is bringing in such large amounts, should they not redistribute this to those in need? And perhaps Sarginson was as needy as anyone?
The thefts are said to have taken place from October 2020 to January 2023 so one may speculate that most of this time she was working from home. I would suspect thefts of this sort proliferated in this period and apparently even God didn’t see it coming.
Pastors ain’t perfect
If you Google “Pastor arrested” as I have, you will find a lot of stories about sex assaults. These are disturbing stories rather that wacky stories and therefore not properly the subject of this series. You may find the story about the pastor who tried to push a person into a deep fryer, which we covered a few months back.
One might conclude that a number of pastors make bad decisions despite, presumably, knowing the bible a lot better than Donald Trump. A Colorado pastor and his wife were recently charged with defrauded parishioners out of millions by selling them a fake crypto currency.
In a sense, all crypto currencies are fake. They rely on faith rather than something backing them. And a pastor, who asks his congregation to put their faith in god may be tempted to also tell them to put their faith in a cloud-based currency that no responsible government ever would.
The Colorado Securities Commissioner filed civil fraud charges against Eligo and Kaitlyn Regalado accusing them of targeting members of the state’s Christian community by promoting a cryptocurrency they invented called INDXcoin.
The couple created a cryptocurrency exchange they called Kingdom Wealth Exchange through which they sold the worthless tokens from June 2022 to April 2023. They used the victim’s money to fund their “lavish lifestyle,” it is alleged.
Many Christians believe that they will be forgiven in the eyes of God if they repent their sins. Some have observed that this incentivizes criminal behaviour because forgiveness is easy to come by. The earthly courts are not particularly forgiving, however.
