America's Got Hypocrisy: Who's The Best At Screaming TOLERANCE! Loud Enough?

In a way, Terry Jones, the Florida Pastor of a pitiful 50-member congregation, has done a big favor to progressives everywhere: his Quran-burning pledge has rooted out the hypocrites and reinforced our views of the hardcore bigots. Many of the people who have made a cottage industry out of demonizing Muslims and Islam are competing with each other to see who can shout "tolerance" "brotherly love" "American values" and "Christian" while vilifying Jones as "un-Christian" "contemptible" "disgusting" and "bainless."

It should come as no surprise that the loudest voices come from the most bloviating bunch of bigots, the Southern Baptist Convention. Leading the pack to give the affair a slight down-home ambience was Greg Magruder, senior pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Gainesville. He set the tone for the rest in giving the most whitewashed (pun intended) portrait of Southern Baptists:

Magruder, whose church is aligned with both the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Southern Baptist Convention, said Baptists have historically stood for religious freedom for everyone.

"Therefore, I stand with my Muslim, Jewish and Christian friends here today and plead on the basis of all our sacred texts that the Gainesville community commit to love God, love your neighbor and promote religious liberty for all," Magruder said at the Sept. 2 press conference. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." 

Have you stopped laughing yet? Who can forget the famous statement made by then-president Bailey Smith: "God Almighty Does Not Hear The Prayers Of A Jew"!! And the anti-Muslim statements made by some of your top 10 favorites make any statement of brotherly love look as if it must be coming from Mars:

Jerry Falwell on 60 Minutes:  “I think Muhammad was a terrorist."

Pat Robertson: "Islam wants to take over the world and is not a religion of peace."

Franklin Graham: "an evil and wicked religion." 

And let's not forget Rod Parsley's famous statement that America was created "to destroy Islam.

Of course, that was then and this is now:

Chuck Colson: "I find Jones’s plan to burn the Koran foolish and contemptible,"

Rev. Richard Cizik of New Evangelical Partnership: "I say, 'Shame on you,'"

John Hagee:  in a letter to Jones dated Sept. 7, : "What you propose to do is an absolute violation of to the Bible." 

Richard Land, director of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission: "I think it is appalling, disgusting, and brainless."

Pat Robertson: "This guy is looking for attention. He's looking for publicity. … I think it's horrible what this guy is doing."

 

Hey, the fun's just starting and the bandwagon is immense. 

But the show might have a few laggards and "no-shows." Some truly hardcore Muslim-haters are having a hard time making up their minds on how to approach this situation: as of this writing there is no word from Rod Parsley, Franklin Graham, Lou Engle, Tony Perkins, and Ken Copeland to name a few. That arbiter of everything moral (therefore chief Muslim-hater) Bryan Fischer, has chimed-in in his usual backhanded way:

But the response to Rev. Jones' plan proves something we have been saying from the beginning: Islam is a religion of violence, not a religion of peace.

There is irony in that perhaps the best, most heartfelt and genuine contribution to the criticism of  Jones and the affair comes from Richard Eubank, leader of the VFW:

 The Raw Story:

"There is nothing to be gained and everything to lose from this selfish act. Our war is against a small number of religious extremists who kill indiscriminately and without remorse. Let's not allow an equally small number of religious extremists in America to widen the war." 

While I'm sure Mr. Eubank defines Terry Jones and his "flock" of sheep-like bigots as a "small number" we should perhaps include in that group the hyper-hypocrites who have demonized Islam while extolling the virtues of having freedom of religion.

UPDATE: Pastor Jones has a lot more in common with Fred Phelps than when people first started to compare the two. So stay tuned - there's a lot more to this show!

We Don't Have To Be Nice, Ctd: Goodness Is Our Sole Propriety

 

I've always had a problem with the phrase, "It's the Christian thing to do." Somehow I always imagine it being said with a slight air of contempt. It's always said by self-righteous old ladies (English ladies, to be sure) with their noses firmly pointed towards the sky and their eyes looking down at their underlings. To me, it is the most insufferably arrogant phrase in our very difficult, but very precise language and it conveys to the listener that the person saying it, like others of his or her ilk, have a corner on goodness. 

So in the midst of the furor brought about by the Cordoba Center ("Ground Zero Mosque"), I'm wondering when the phrase will be uttered. Oh, it's been bandied about in several ways by that paragon of Christofascism, Bryan Fischer (he of the SPLC-listed hate group, American Family Association), but not with anything even resembling compassion, even condescending compassion. (He said that deporting all Muslims would be "compassionate" but he couldn't be heard thereafter above the laughter).

The Christofascists will certainly have a difficult go of it: the closest they can come to "the Christian thing to do" is to tolerate the building of the Center, but they won't do that since they've been demonizing Muslims so long it would be totally out of character. So here is an instance where "the Christian thing to do," becomes different than "the American thing to do." Again, a stumbling block, but one which Christofascists are certainly more experienced in handling. For years, Christofascists have made equal rights for gays "unAmerican" in their circuitous reasoning, so they will somehow turn the freedom of religion for Muslims into an attack on America's principles. Don't ask me how they will do it, but there will be ads/billboards demonizing Islam and Muslims. Maybe they'll cling to that imaginary string (a leftover from some Southern Baptist minister's sermon) that Islam is not really a religion, but a cult of bloodthirsty thugs. And when they get through demonizing, we'll be glad if the KKK moves in on the spot.

Forget the "insensitivity" issue. It's dead. In it's place will come "evil." Christofascists will talk of evil more than any thing else from now on. They have to use force. Maybe force will be "the Christian thing to do."

Now the GOP has chimed in and said it will definitely make the GZM a talking point in midterm elections. Why? Is it necessary for politicians to take a stance at all? To Christofascists across the country it definitely is, because involving politicians only lends credibility to their stance: more politicians on their side is the "American" bridge they need. It will be "the American thing to do."

Rob Kall of OpEdNews had an interesting take on the situation:

The world we live is no longer so simple, so small that we can speak to one group and assume another group will now know what we've said. It hasn't been for a long time. Yet this is how the opponents of the Cordoba building, which is not being built on Ground Zero, are acting. They need to come out of their caves and wake up to the reality that their small, bigoted response does not stand the smell test, when they claim failed Muslim "sensitivity." On the contrary, their own sensitivity to the threat to America is the problem.

I will agree that Christofascists are zenophobic because they realize the wisdom of taking on one country at a time, but Kall is wrong when he thinks that they will ever "come out of their caves." Many of those "caves" are Fundamentalist congregations owned by the new "Christian" leaders like Tony Perkins, Rick Warren, Rod Parsley and Lou Engle.  And if they come out at all, it will be too late.

America's pop religious icons are coming very close to expelling Muslims altogether, from jobs, from homes, from America. And they will somehow manage to take Bryan Fischer's  "compassion" and fashion it into one big, righteous package: "It's the Christian AND American thing to do." I don't know exactly how or when (or who), but someone like Tony Perkins will re-enact Queen Isabella's expulsion of Muslims and Jews from Spain which, being the "Christian thing to do" allowed people to keep their lives in some warped worldview of compassion and humanity. And of course, it won't be "nice" just "Christian." 

And "good."

The Outbreeders: Mandating A Baby Boom For The Culture War

             

Flooding The Nation With  

Christian Rightwingers

Imagine a country full of home-schooled children who are taught that people who do not believe what they believe, act the way they act, live the way they live deserve to be discriminated against, deported, incarcerated, or worse... Sounds like a B movie filled with tykes whose eyes emit laser beams, vaporizing people they feel threatened by, doesn't it? 

Well, that B movie is just the thing envisioned by Bryan Fischer's D-class intellect.  The reasoning goes like this: the left has so many pro-choice people, feminists and homosexuals that the right will outbreed them and (insert maniacal laughter) take over the world!  

Bryan Fischer of the AFA:

What this means quite simply is that liberals are breeding themselves out of existence ... All this represents a marvelous opportunity for conservatives. We can regain political control of this country by simply following the biblical mandate to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”

Of course, the thought never occured to Fischer that  some gays, feminists and pro-choice peopler might be bred in the process, because true Christians NEVER have gay,  pro-choice or feminist children. Note to Fischer: breeding to outnumber doesn't guarantee complete extinction, unless you couple overbreeding wityh conscious genocide - the kind that your friends want in Uganda (and Zimbabwe and Texas).

And those conservatives he speaks to, none of them are "on the dole" are they? Popping out kids for the sake of a political population explosion means that the parents better have the means to support them. Fischer is a typical pro-lifer who confuses being "pro-birth" with "pro-life." After the infant gets slapped on the butt and cries, Fischer doesn't care what happens to the kid. Pay for those kids? Their homes, their food, their clothes, their education? Don't be ridiculous! Once that kid is born, the parents have to make do.  Let them shell out for Fischer's beliefs. After all, that's the American way! And if the kid winds up becoming a criminal on death row, well, Fischer will never attempt to stay his execution. So it's pop kids out as fast as possible, imbue them with as much hatred for liberals as you possibly can, hope they survive to voting age, then sick them on an unsuspecting Congress (OK, the last may not be very hard to do). Pretty cool idea, huh?

QUIVERFULL

The Quiverfull movement espouses having as many children as possible, faithfully following the dictum "Be friutful and multiply." If every child is a "gift from God" then the movement's followers can be viewed as somewhat greedy. But according to some, Quiverfull people are more than greedy for "gifts from God", they are "culture warriors":

wikipedia:

On July 25, 2005, ABC Good Morning America segment, "Is eight really enough?" Deborah Roberts interviews Rachel Scott, author of "Birthing God's Mighty Warriors". Rachel Scott discusses the trend toward larger families, managing finances with more mouths to feed and she states, "when good people stop having kids, society fails."

If this militaristic stance seems familiar, look back to  evangelical leaders like Rod Parsley and Lou Engle. Their sermons are filled with militaristic jargon that would make a general proud. The unfortunate thing about religious militarism is that too many congregants react emotionally and physically to it. 

Fundamentalists aren't very good with metaphors.

And the militarism is most effectively used on children from day one. Breeding little armies is very "fruitful". One of the most blatant examples of "breeding for God" has been cable TV's Duggar family. The family's promoting over-population to such an extent that one wonders about the parents' motives: are they supporting the kids or are the kids supporting them? 

A century and a half ago P.T. Barnum would have figured out a way to make the Duggars a sideshow in his circus. Or at least Michelle Duggar: "Meet the amazing woman who just can't stop bearing children!!" But in essence, they've already done that to their family and in this day and age, being a sideshow, ahem, I mean a celebrated family, can be very lucrative. They can afford to propagate.

More kids! More kids! Don't Abort! Seriously, Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins (to name a few) are getting frightfully demented with their hypocrisy. Can you imagine how the Duggars would be treated if they were black and on food stamps? Perkins would have  advocated forcibly tying Michelle's tubes at least 10 kids ago as well as questioning the "morality" of the parents for introducing the children to welfare and poverty.


Quiverfull is also promoting sterilization reversal surgery. As yet it hasn't purchased fertility drugs en masse, but give it time. 


Critics of Quiverfull add one more flaw in the crank 'em out movement: 


wikipedia:

Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, a former ardent Quiverfull adherent, birth-mother of eleven children, and former editor of Gentle Spirit Magazine, argues that the Quiverfull movement is one "in which women and children are routinely and systematically subordinated and subjugated by the men in their lives - fathers, husbands, older sons,. . .pastors, elders, leaders - as a matter of biblical principle." Seelhoff charges that Quiverful adherents "never talk about the victims of the movement, other than to distance themselves, to explain how it is that the victims are aberrations."

The most famous victim of Quiverfull's proselytizing has been Andrea Yates, the Houston housewife who drowned her five children in a bathtub on June 20, 2001. 

Her first psychiatrist, Dr. Eileen Starbranch, warned Yates and her husband against having more children, stating in Yates's medical record two days later, '"Apparently patient and husband plan to have as many babies as nature will allow! This will surely guarantee future psychotic depression."

From the Dionne Quintuplets to Octomom, extreme fertility will always be a headliner, but the topic has never really had political implications. Until now.

The Duggars are slated to headline Tony Perkins' Values Voter Summit

Fascism in America Will Be Wrapped In A Flag, Carrying A Cross and Have a VERY Raspy Voice!

Is Lou Engle The Most Dangerous Man In America?

In 1996, editor (AU magazine) and writer Rob Boston wrote The Most Dangerous Man In America? Pat Robertson And The Rise Of The Christian Coalition. I've read the book and appreciated its straightforward take on Robertson's hypocritical form of Christofascism. I recently perused some of the reviews of the book on Amazon.com:

But the man [Robertson] is fringe. He's dumped his own personal fortune into his misguided ambitions. His movement is fading. At worst, all he did was channel folks who would have otherwise supported Pat Buchanan or third parties behind the established Republican candidate. His "Family Channel" - his main cash cow - is long gone, and the 700 Club will be off the air when the Disney Acquisition of the Fox Family Channel is complete.

Pat Robertson is history, not the bogeyman.

That review was written in 2002. "The 700 Club" is still broadcasting specious stories of "inspiration" and "decadence" and Pat Robertson is still broadcasting his talks "with God" and somewhere in America a little old lady in a rest home or a trailer park still touches the screen when Robertson appears hoping that he'll manage to cure her hemorrhoids. Yes, Pat Robertson is still with us, but his bloviations about Katrina, Haiti, Hugo Chavez, Ariel Sharon and all things gay have chipped away at the man's charisma. Many people think that senility has finally settled in Robertson's brain.

The problem is that Robertson still gets recognition. At 80, Robertson has a bigger political base than his father (Senator Absolom Willis Robertson) ever achieved. He has the ability to get attention wherever he is.  And he uses that recognition with wild abandon.

But is he still the "Most Dangerous" in America's all-male political elite?Or has raspy-voiced evangelical Lou Engle taken over that role? Fiery preachers have come and gone, but Engle's violent speech is in league all its own:

My son, Jesse, he's nineteen years old. God has given him dreams, to go to San Francisco to launch a house of prayer - one block frpom the Castro District - where homosexuals boast the dominion of darkness. He's going there with weeping in his heart. With a dream that prayer is stronger than the dominion of that spirit.

...he's starting to cast out homosexual spirits out of our new converts. Its scary as hell... but fathers are to send their sons into the darkest places. ...St. Francis - Francis means 'free man'. San Francisco is the City of the Free Man.!

This last pronouncement I looked up. "Franciscus" means Frenchman. And while Francis, in some etymologies, means "free," Francis does not necessarily mean "Free man!" BTW: interestingly, the nickname "Francis" was given to Giovanni ("John") di Bardone by his father who was, at the time, an Italian cloth merchant enamored of all things French.

O.K., so that's a little picky, but expand Engle's half-truth into an hour-long sermon. Throw in some quotations from one Bible translation, then from another. Keep on demonizing, demonizing, demonizing until people think that a place like San Francisco has everyone practicing Satanism on the streets. Make people think that walking near 18th and Castro is an act of foolhardiness or extreme courage for anyone who is righteous. Make them think that everyone they see will automatically go to hell if they do not listen to your message. Make them think they may be coerced into homosexual acts in order to obtain dominion over a person's soul.

Engle uses pre-teens and teens in an indiscriminate, manipulative, and destructive way: both he and his son use Fundamentalist Biblical buzz-words constantly and never, ever let up. From start to finish, they never give the teenage mind a chance to question, a chance to think. The teenager is bombarded, pummeled with  confusing sentiments:

TheCall belief and intent has never been about promoting hatred toward the homosexual community as a whole or towards individuals who identify as LGBT. We have always sought to offer a message of love and redemption to those with same-sex attractions, though at times our communication could have been expressed more effectively and graciously.

Considering the vehemous condemnation of an entire group of people as being possessed by demons, any statement of the sort is disingenuous at least, or an ugly lie at most. I've tried to figure out exactly how teens have gotten hooked on his sermons: he has no more charisma than any other street preacher who screams redundant word after redundant word. In a sermon given to "Holywood", Los Angeles in 2007 during a pre-TheCall rally, (and during the most virulently anti-gay portion), Engle refers to "God" 44 times, himself ("I") 31 times, "Dream" 15 times, "Mel" or "Gibson" 10 times, "Jesus" 6 times, and "Christ" 4 times. "Love" is never mentioned. 

Like Rod Parsley, Engle's rhetoric is somewhat military in tone, but "blood" is given a more commanding presence. Like other firebrand preachers, the frequent mention of "God" is the vengeful, jealous, self-righteous God of the Old Testament.

Engle, along with Scott Lively and a small band of other preachers/lawyers were very instrumental in encouraging Uganda on its "Kill the Gays" bill. It would be unnecessary to say more, but to the politically and morally obtuse: Lou Engle bad - tolerance good.

To The New Puritans: Religious Freedom's Tough, Isn't It?

At Least, for the "Christian Only" Crowd! 

Did the landing of the Mayflower signal the first country to have true religious freedom? Were the Pilgrims establishing a society based on the freedom to worship (or not to worship) as one sees fit?

Of course not. Puritans were simply fleeing Anglican rule. If there would have been a Puritan-tolerant country that was more civilized while offering free land, you can bet your last dollar that they would have settled in it instead of North America. The Puritan arrival was simply the result of intolerance fleeing intolerance. How long did they put up with Native American religions? Long enough to survive through the first winters on the benevolence of the Indians. It's a wonder the Indians were compassionate at all - the smell of hypocrisy can be quite a strong deterrent, even to people as empathetic as the Massachusett tribe). But eventually, the Puritan Ethic reared its head and the heathens were sorry that the Mayflower ever made it across the pond:

The first Native American translation [of the Bible], completed in 1663, was made into the language of the Massachusett tribe, which the Puritan colonists then promptly wiped out.

                                                          - Ken Davis, Don't Know Much About The Bible.

Back across the Atlantic, after Puritans gained prominence the most prominent Puritan, Oliver Cromwell, had this motto emblazoned on his heraldry:

Pax Quaeritur Bello
Peace is sought by War

Anyway, let's fast forward and concentrate on today's New Puritans.

By the way, who are today's New Puritans? Well, they're the ones who scream "Anti-Christian!" the loudest while softly whispering "Christian Only." The New Puritans are the ones who want tolerance for themselves, but insist on intolerance for other religions. The New Puritans are seeking their fortunes in the New World of Africa while being kept busy keeping their fortunes (and what dignity they have left) intact in America. And throughout all of their attempts at defense and expansion, a transcendent theme is becoming more evident: Christian Supremacy. Rick Warren slyly presented snippets of Christian Supremacy to Muslim-Americans last July 4th. Men like Rod Parsley and Pat Robertson have openly declared the preeminence of Christianity over every other religion, declaring them to be evil. And with his warped sense of history, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council shows just how much of a Supremacist he really is:

"While it is true that the United States of America was founded on the sacred principle of religious freedom for all, that liberty was never intended to exalt other religions to the level that Christianity holds in our country's heritage. Our Founders expected that Christianity--and no other religion--would receive support from the government as long as that support did not violate peoples' consciences and their right to worship. They would have found utterly incredible the idea that all religions, including paganism, be treated with equal deference."

Yeah. And some animals are more equal than others.

Christian Supremacy has been simmering for many years under the guise of "freedom of religion," simply because there were no formidable religions other than Christianity. Protestants could be content with bashing Catholicism, Catholics could revel in labeling Mormonism a cult and the most adverse enemy of all, Judaism, was never really a threat. What Christian Supremacists didn't expect was that the notion of religious freedom would somehow work against their notion that eventually everyone would become Christian. Blinded by the arrogance involved with the "One True Religion," they've been broadsided by America's determination not to show deference to any one religion. 

 

In other words, the New Puritans have at last noticed the Indians: True Religious Freedom.

 

Simply Christians or Simply Terrorists: The Violence of Christofascism Comes Home To Roost

Both Progressive and Regressive Christians (aka Religious Right or Christofascists) are still reeling with the news about "Hutaree", its zeal, its militarism, its expanse and the fact that it views itself as 'Christian'. 

From Right Wing Watch:

"Many mainstream media outlets, like ABC and CNN, are irresponsibly reporting that those arrested in Michigan in the alleged plot to murder law enforcement officers are 'Christians,'" said Dr. Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission. "Even if they identify themselves as Christians, what they were allegedly planning is absolutely contrary to Christianity. They may have illicitly co-opted the Christian faith to justify their murderous intentions, but it is defamatory for the media to keep referring to them as Christians. They are simply terrorists."

So, were the knights of the Crusades 'simply terrorists'? Is Repent Amarillo really a terrorist group? What about Rev. Rod Parsley? Where is the dividing line? 

Dr. Cass is, of course, grasping at straws in attempting to distance himself and others of his Religious Right flock: it's rather counter-intuitive (much less, hypocritical) to say that anyone who identifies themselves as Christians are not Christians. Christians around the country have been saying that everyone should have the right to call themselves Christians. Also, a strange parallel of intolerance shows itself in the Christian view of the organization known as NAMBLA - National American Man-Boy Love Association. Christofascists point to it as an accepted and almost typical gay rights association - which it is not. They also extend its premise to all gays. What Cass is avoiding is this: militarism and potential violence exist in  today's American Christian landscape. Hutaree is an extreme (but real) version of Rod Parsley's vision of Christian soldiers. It's tone and rhetoric are equivalent to Repent Amarillo. It's hatred of non-Christians (Jews, "pagans," Muslims) is just as bad as Fred Phelp's hatred of gays or Father Charles Coughlin's anti-Semitism seventy years ago.

 

The dividing line, America seems to think, is between words and action. Christian pastors can spout all the military rhetoric they want. They are protected twofold: freedom of speech and separation of church and state. They have nothing to do with the actions taken by fringe groups. 

This is obvious, inane self-deception. Actions are almost always the result of words, especially when they take effect in the brains of an illiterate: the Elmer Gantrys egging on the Elmer Fudds.

HUTAREE

"Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment," Hutaree.com reads. "The only thing on earth to save the testimony and those who follow it, are the members of the testimony, til the return of Christ in the clouds. We, the Hutaree, are prepared to defend all those who belong to Christ and save those who aren't. We will still spread the word, and fight to keep it, up to the time of the great coming."

Compare this statement to the one put out by Repent Amarillo:

A soldier for Christ wants to leave no man behind. We will fight unto death for the cause of eternal life through Christ Jesus. We will wage a good spiritual warfare until our King calls us home. May we leave this earth desperately clinging to one more lost soul.

The arrogance of today's Christofascists make them lax in regards to monitoring and censoring fringe groups like Hutaree. That inability to expel groups from more mainstream Christianity before violence starts may lead to a long period when Christian groups spend too much time and effort defending themselves, telling people what they are NOT than focusing on their real goals. This may seem a boon to secularists like myself. The problem with that is that people will have to die to achieve it. 

"Hutaree" is evidently a made up name which means nothing. It may, however, come to mean "violent but stupid Christofascists."


Just a thought.

Publish Post

Oral Roberts Gets Taken By God While Rod Parsley Gets Taken To The Cleaners

As a tribute to the late Oral Roberts, Rod Parsley decided to make a plea for money because the supernatural was involved in his shaky finances. It was Oral Roberts who told his TV flock that "God was going to call me back" if he didn't raise $8m for his ministry. He actually raised the money on that line (one donor gave $1m).

Parsley's request has been smaller, but no less theatrical: "Will you help me take back what the devil stole?" The problem with Parsley's request is that the "devil" in this case was a two-year-old whose parents won a $3m law suit against World Harvest Ministries because he was disciplined way too harshly at Parsley's Church's day care center ("Cuddle Care")

... and beaten by the same man who years earlier was accused of the same abuse in the same place! Rod Parsley is evidently not a good judge of character. In the first incident, Richard Vaughan, an employee of the school, but with no background or license to teach, insisted that the child received a skull fracture in a tussle with another two-year-old!

from Right Wing Watch:

The ruling stated that "Vaughan's trial testimony regarding the incident was inconsistent both with previous accounts he gave and with the testimony of other witnesses" and that nobody from WHC even inquired about any injuries supposedly suffered by the other child (E.Y.) and that "E.Y.'s father insisted his son had not collided with Z.C. and had not been injured in any incident with Z.C."

And as horrific as that incident might seem, the Faietas (parents of the child in the lawsuit) found out that trying to approach Parsley or anyone else at World Harvest Ministries would result in a total shutout:

When, however, Lacey Faieta returned to WHC two days later and attempted to meet and discuss the matter with Jack Johnson, WHC's headmaster, he refused, telling her he had been advised not to speak with the Faietas. The next week WHC sent the Faietas a letter ordering them not to come on the property and threatening them with criminal prosecution for trespass if they returned to the school. The letter contained no exceptions and provided the Faietas with no means to schedule any further meetings with WHC personnel. The Faietas received no further communication from WHC.

For more detailed coverage, read Pam's House Blend ("The Devil Stole Rod Parsley's Brain") or Right Wing Watch.

Oral Roberts was the founder of the "prosperity gospel" game and was eulogized by the likes of Pat Robertson and Joel Osteen. He was also one of the leaders of Christofascism and through his school, ORU (Oral Roberts University) gave us such outstanding Christian leaders as Ted Haggard, Kathie Lee Gifford, Kenneth Copeland, Michele Bachmann and Ned Flanders.

So now that Oral Roberts is dead, who is going to take the mantle of "world's greatest moralizing moron?" My bets are on Pat Robertson. True, he does not pronounce the word "anus" like Roberts did ("ah-nus") and it's more than likely that Robertson will be declared totally senile by his son Gordon, but Robertson is more well-known than his son and after his passing, my bets will be on Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son and stern Fundamentalist friend to non other than the Divine Sarah (no, not Bernhardt, but Palin.)

Then again, the title of "world's greatest moalizing moron" might just go to Rod Parsley. After all, calling a justifiable child abuse settlement a "demonically inspired financial attack," keeping a child abuser in his employ at the same position after a serious attack, telling his congregation that the USA was founded in order to eradicate Islam and spewing militaristic phrases that hint of religious intolerance and violence, well, those actions might be construed as both moralizing and stupid.

Of course, the race is still running and there are more Ted Haggards and Jimmy Swaggarts to be found out.

Stay tuned...

It's an EPIDEMIC!! Palin Has a Crazy Pastor Too!!!

Maybe Not in the Mold of Wright, Hagee or Parsley, But Hey, It's a Start!

Thank you, Andrew Sullivan! I saw your piece on Rev. Larry Kroon of Wasilla Bible Church and couldn't resist it:

[In his July 20, Sermon] ...Kroon placed Zephaniah in a modern context, warning that the sinful habits of Americans would invite the wrath of God. “And if Zephaniah were here today,” Kroon bellowed, “he’d be saying, ‘Listen, [God] is gonna deal with all the inhabitants of the earth. He is gonna strike out His hand against, yes, Wasilla; and Alaska; and the United States of America. There’s no exceptions here — there’s none. It’s all.’”

Now this statement doesn't exactly make him a CRAZY pastor, or one that's saying "God Damn America!" but it does sound a bit Christofascist. From the Wasilla Bible Church Statement of Faith:

We believe that based upon Christ's death for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential. We believe that all people are lost and without God in their natural state; but by the grace of God those who exercise genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ are saved - justified, baptized into his death and born again, from above, by the Holy Spirit.

Jn 1:12,13; 3:1-21; Rom 3:23,24; Eph 2:8,9; 1 Pet 1:23

The Statement of Faith declares the Wasilla church to be absolutely inerrantist. In other words, the Bible is right in EVERYTHING it says, including miracles and doctrine (and the sun revolving around the earth, at least according to Joshua) The website smacks a bit of misogyny: it has a workout class for women but not for men (they don't need it - they're men!). It's not (gasp!) a megachurch (no fog machines or skateboard parks). It doesn't have a "campus", but I think it has a parking lot. All that will change, however, if Sarah Palin becomes Vice President. People will make pilgrimages to WBC and Rev. Kroon will be broadcasting hellfire and brimstone to millions. Here's his take on "sin":

Sin is saying, ‘I’m not going to listen to the voice of God.’ And there’s nothin’ more personal than sayin’ ‘I don’t want to hear You.’ Sin is saying ‘I want to do it my way;’ and there’s nothin’ more personal than saying ‘I don’t trust Your way.’

Hmmm. Then what about Original Sin? Does the fetus tell God, "Hey, I want to do it MY way, and I'm not coming out until I want to!" Yes, Kroon's sermon (and possibly, doctrine) was full of holes, but so what? He's speaking for God and you never ever question God.

The sparse website and this one sermon gives us very little to go on, but I'll venture a guess that Rev. Kroon is thoroughly Christofascist.

Just a thought.

A First: "...Our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters"

"...surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination."

All hail the radio! It helped me multitask. And think. Much better than TV. While Obama spoke, I took notes and wrote down feelings as I never could while watching him on television. I was able to focus on what he had to say rather than be distracted by how he said it. I had seen him enough times to envision all the motions (and emotions) coming from this man. And I just wanted to hear the words. I knew that his speech would be well thought out and I intended to give it the same amount of thought that it, in turn, deserved. I listened, tapping at my keyboard occasionally. When it was over, I did my laundry and worked out a little. I kept trying to remember the words that sank in the most.

Some of them sunk in. Some didn't. For the ones that didn't, I read a transcript of his speech. To me, it was not awe-inspiring. Michelle Obama's speech was far more heartfelt in that respect. Yes, it was well thought out. But most of all, it was what it NEEDED to be: clearer about his policies than he has been before, forthright and a little bit demanding. O.K., a whole lot demanding. It did not paint John McCain as someone completely on "the other side," and therefore, wrong in everything. Rather, it implied that McCain is out of touch with reality, just like the Bush administration has been these part eight years. The speech also reminded Democrats what they were: fighters for a better world view, equality, compassion and reason. He said "We're the party of Roosevelt. We're the party of John F. Kennedy."

Other phrases that stand out:

• "Failure to respond" - an outright indictment of George W. Bush's whole presidency
• "Change doesn’t come FROM Washington, it comes TO Washington" - a good catchphrase for his campaign.
• "This election is about YOU." - a throwaway line that nonetheless arouses people's sense of entitlement.
• "...deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital...live lives free of discrimination." Of course that hit home. I don't think the phrase "gay brothers and sisters" has ever been used before in a major political campaign. "Brothers and sisters" gives people an acknowledged equality. But it's an equality some people will deride as giving "perverts" or "sinners" the same rights that "normal" people have. He's definitely going to get a lot of flack from that one remark. Malkin, Coulter and Limbaugh will have a field day with it, not to mention Parsley, Hagee, Robertson, Graham, Perkins, Dobson, etc
  

And then there's -

"We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes."

There was only one wrong note in the speech that, to me, stuck out vividly:

"Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world..."

I doubt that. Our "culture" is being scorned or laughed at by many countries who keep a close eye on American politics, religion and sociology. We have become what we have craved and continue to crave: entertainment. The lack of diplomacy, erudition, compassion and reason that have come out of the Bush administration is causing us to look like Keystone Kops chasing after the hero and heroine. It will take years of diplomacy and "good will towards men" to heal the wounds of a selfish yet righteously arrogant administration. A large, socially uneducated segment of our society believes that we should embrace what many would consider to be a theocracy. The separation of church and state was one of the wisest of ideologies coming from men who saw the tyranny of government to religion as well as the tyranny of religion to the people.

O.K., I'll get off the soapbox. It was a good speech that NEEDED to be spoken.

Before I sign off tonight, I "discovered this great site called "Wordle.net" (I shouldn't say "discovered" because it's obvious from the site that a lot of people know about it!)You can paste any speech you want in it and it will come up with the most used words in the speech. You can edit it any way you wish. It's fun and very revealing about the speech. I created one for Obama's speech - just click on the link below: