City Transportation Czar and Believer’s Edge Leader on Paid Leave

How do I know which religion to place my faith in? Hinduism? Muslim? Christian? Buddhist? Going for Christian just because it is the dominant religion of the place I was born in seems too easy. I'm going to need to see a few miracles before I pick one.

Thanks to freedom of Religion in the U.S., he can worship anyway he wants, as long as he doesn’t hurt himself or any other living creatures.
Just thinking about all the good things S.B. could have done with his 2.5 months of salary he got for doing squat. Taxpayers lose again.

"To accomplish this goal, we will commit ourselves to growing and activating our faith in four areas of mastery; Personal, Family, Career, and Kingdom Calling. We're here to pray for you and lift you up in the Lord, so don't hesitate to call or send us an email."
Kingdom calling?...wait, what?
Please don't pray for me. But if you must pray for me, please DO hesitate to tell me about your praying for me.
They just cannot help themselves, always selling, always.

Focus on Dayton's bad decisions on the job, not his cult membership.

Well, I looked at the most recent video on their site. Seems pretty innocuous, really, standard Christian mens' group stuff. Not my cup of tea, but not subversive. What I found a little odd was their holding the movie Braveheart as a model of their purpose and intention. And they have the sword from the movie. Okay, bunch of medieval Scots fighting for independence from the Brits--that's your model for how to be Christians in the 21st century? Seems a little juvenile. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see anything added to that site in several years. The videos aren't dated, but there's no mention of Covid, and the most recent comments are from 2018 (so many happy birthdays). Are they even still meeting? I don't know, looks like a tempest in a teapot.

Time to renew appreciation for the tie proven wisdom of our nation's Founders: John Adams particularly warned against mob rule, and built in as many protections against it as possible. (Electoral college; representative democracy; no direct democracy, checks and balances; three separate but equal branches of government - all designed to protect from mob rule.)Pretty well documented in contemporaneous literature what the Founders felt about fundamental governance principles. They would be shocked to see how much freedom and liberty we have now thrown away with the growth of the deep state, government employee unions, and unelected large government administrative agencies which violate much of what they tried to put in place - limited government and powers retained by the states versus a large centralized federal government. Just read the Federalist Papers by Madison, if nothing else, but there are volumes of original writings that let you explore what the Founders were thinking, and hoping for. Theirs indeed was a truly exceptional experiment in self-governance, that became the light of the free world at the time. No more hereditary monarchies or military dictatorships. That is what made America exceptional. And experimental.

He must be a very valuable employee to the city.

Highly paid, yet has done NO WORK for 2 1/2 months and hasn't been missed.

Great to see your money so well spent?

This is an interesting red herring lead-in to a much bigger story. Dayton, arguably, THE most powerful man in the city, filed an HR complaint that he didn't get his self-created promotional position because of discrimination of religion, his. But the REASON this is floating up is because some council members found out he was a leader, if not founder, certainly a recruiter, of an all-white Christian men's group that includes some very prominent developers in this town, whose projects seem to be 'untouchable' by City Hall.
So a big question should start percolating for citizens, and clearly did for councilmembers who brought this up....given the group's mission is clearly stated to use their power to influence government, among other things:
To what extent did Dayton use his power in the city to advance members of the group's projects / agendas?
If you don't see a problem here, you're not paying attention.

Sadly, this situation did remind me of Mercy Culture Church.
Detailed from a liberal point of view here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/07/11/mercy-culture-church/

Looks like a bad deal for Dayton if he won’t even step up and defend himself.

Kinda weird that the Founding Fathers were OK with religion, Freemason beliefs being included in the Constitution and Bill of Rights and had no problem with religious people and Freemasons leading government, but now there can't be any because of an uneducated, illiterate and ahistorical take on seperation of church and state. I can't judge if this is a cult or not, but at least they aren't running around telling us we are all gonna die if the temperature goes up a degree F.
I guarantee you that there is at least one high ranking county employee who is a firm believer in Edgar Cayce and who has passed out literature to co-workers.
Should he/she be fired? Nope. Judged on the merits of performance on and at the job

WHO in the City of Santa Barbara's HR Department hired this freak in the first place...?

The group is similar to Isis.

Another scurrilous article by Nick Welsh. As mentioned above, Nick conveniently omitted a couple of lines which would have more accurately described the group. But then, it wouldn't have been click bait, right Nick? I had a friend, since passed, who was a member of this group. It is a men's group. They are upfront about their values. Many churches and synagogues in Santa Barbara have men's groups. These churches and synagogues also have women's groups. Bad faith has been Nick's MO for years.

If it is all so innocent, why has Dayton been on a two plus month paid leave of absence? He's very well-paid, probably close to 3x the city average pay, plus very valuable benefits, and that length of time when others have to be doing his work is expensive.

Another snowflake/professional victim.

SEPARATION of church and state! Have your personal beliefs, but if you lead an organization that actively states you plan to influence the government and you are a government employee, that violates the separation.

Religious people, dogmatic people, and cultists are all around and amongst us. They obtain positions of power and work to shape society the way they’d like to see it. Beware. The question is, did he do anything unethical or illegal? What were the city council members specific concerns? Was he any good at his job, and how did his religious views manifest in the workplace? Were the council members out of line, or just doing reasonable due diligence? Alas, we may never know, because it will all be considered a confidential personnel matter.

I am no friend of organized religion (nor of dogma generally), but the First Amendment (together with the 14th Amendment which extends those rights to state governments) guarantees the right to freedom of religious expression as well as freedom of association. Joining the government and then writing theocratic laws is a violation of the separation of church and state, but members of a religious organization pledging to be activists in their community in line with their dogma is not only not a violation of the separation of church and state, it is protected by it, and plenty of other such organizations exist. I personally find an all-male Christian ministry rather creepy, but my personal opinion isn't legally relevant and neither is anyone else's. (Don't expect me to agree with Randy Parks on anything else ever.)

Something is rotten in virtual Santa Barbara. I looked at the BELIEVER’S EDGE website. Looks like it was created in 2021 by Rick Girard.
The site profiles one of it's member's. I will cut and paste and leave the name out.
How long have you had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?
2 1/2 Years
Briefly share how you have come to faith in Jesus Christ.
I was brought to Jesus Christ by my wife XXX and saved by Dave Goss of Light and Life Goleta
How do you want the Lord to use Believer's Edge ministry in your life, career, etc.?
To help me through tough times with my marriage and my fiancial issues with finding work.
How did you hear about Believer's Edge?
Through a fellow member Gabrielle
Finally, what city do you presently live in?
Santa Barbara
This member died in 2014 and if you look at the site it shows BELIEVER’S EDGE members wishing this man a "Happy Birthday" as recently as 2018 and also in 2015/2016.
Founding fathers had the right idea of separation of chuch and state.
Scary stuff.