Combat Satan With Rapture Kitty's "Post Non-Rapture Reading List" - Seriously!

OK, we've had enough laughs to fill a black hole. We've gone to "rapture parties" across the country. We've heard more about Harold Camping than we care to know. 

Now what? 

We can be compassionate and reach out to those people whose lives (and faith) were destroyed by believing in an isolated, totally ignorant ideology. By reaching out, however, I don't mean we should become like God's Ambulance Chasers (evangelicals who prey on disaster victims); instead, I mean we should offer them education. 

Camping, 89, said of the rapture in a May 11 interview with New York magazine, "The Bible has every word in the original language – it was written by God. Incidentally, no churches believe that at all, they don't hold the Bible in the high respect that it ought to be."

If Satan has an arsenal, literalism is probably his weapon of choice: it closes minds faster and locks them up tighter than any other evil strategy man could ever invent. Fundamentalist leaders know this to be true, which is why they always seek out the uneducated or the spiritually lazy: literalism ensures control. 

Victims of literalism, whether through loss of home or loss of faith, need to know that there are minds - accessible minds - that do not talk down to them, give them panaceas, nor promise to restore their faith. Today's biblical scholars, textual critics, historians and theologians are not hiding in some dank, dusty library (although many cannot be found in Christian bookstores, either), but in mainstream  bookstores and on the net. Of course, some Fundamentalist preachers will go so far as to ban them from becoming ancillary material in Bible Study classes, dismissing them as "pop culture" books not worthy of study. An author's expertise, published works, or educational pedigree are never considered. 

But if your minister balks against you reading the works of Biblical textual critic Bart Ehrman, for example, it may be time to look at your minister's credentials. Christians are not known for their prowess at vetting pastors (e.g. "Bishop" Eddie Long).


I've been writing a book titled "Sacred Cows Make The Best Hamburger" (for too long) and I've been able to gather some books that may help the people who are too tied to Fundamentalist doctrines to see the forest from the trees. You read them: they may help you explain to them how literalism/Fundamentalism damages more souls than it saves.


Each of these titles has a link to Amazon.com - not because you should buy them, but because you can read the reviews - and you'll get referrals to other titles. They're listed in order of difficulty.

Kenneth C. Davis - Don't Know Much About The Bible: Everything You Need To Know About The Good Book, But Never Learned. This is an ABSOLUTE MUST READ FIRST. Why? Because even though a few of Davis' historical premises have been disputed it clearly explains two basic things most Fundamentalist preachers don't want you to know about or consider: the Bible was EDITED and its inconsistencies are legion (actually mega-legion!). Davis goes about questioning/explaining the Bible book-by-book and does it with understanding and humor. This book is not a put-down of the Bible, but a thoughtful and thorough analysis put in ways that the average reader can understand. Naysayers about the book will point out that Davis has included Don't Know Much About The Bible in a pop series ("Don't Know Much About ..."). Don't listen to them, because the primary purpose of the book is to get you to asking questions about the Bible.


Edward T. Babinski - Leaving The Fold - Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists. Most former Fundamentalists turn atheist or agnostic. For them, religion was a painful experience and they wanted to rid their lives of it. Babinski is a biologist and blogger about evolution, but this book is not written by him as it is edited and put-together by him. The stories are riveting and some of the "former" Fundamentalists will surprise you.


Gary Greenberg - 101 Myths of the Bible - How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History. Greenberg is President of the Biblical Archeology Society of New York and there' no disputing his scholarship:

Myth #50 God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah

The Reality: Sodom and Gomorrah were mythical cities that never existed.

(Bishop) John Shelby Spong - Rescuing The Bible From Fundamentalism. This book became a bestseller almost as much for its controversy than for its content: Spong was considered a radical within the Episcopal Church...and he still is:

The biblical scholarship of the past two hundred years has simply not been made available to the man or the woman in the pew. So mainline Christians allow the television preachers to manipulate their audiences, most times to their own financial gain, by making the most absurd biblical claims without their being called to accountability in the name of truth. (Pat Robertson, anyone?)

Bruce Bawer - Stealing Jesus - How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity. Bawer states immediately that the first Christians would never have recognized Fundamentalist Christianity and that if exposed to them, they would have wondered how these "men of God" could have "stolen" Jesus.


Chris Hedges - Losing Moses On The Freeway - The 10 Commandments in America. Christ Hedges is a frequent and welcome contributor to OpEdNews. Losing Moses On The Freeway helps show how the Golden Rule plus the Ten Commandments shape the lives of everyday people in America and how Fundamentalism distorts them.

Garry Wills - What Jesus Meant. Pulitzer Prize-winning Garry Wills (Lincoln) is a good philosopher and a very good theologian who brings home the meaning of Jesus' sayings and proverbs.  

Bart Ehrman - Misquoting Jesus. Bart Ehrman is one of the world's foremost biblical textual critics: i.e., he knows the history of the Bible, ancient Hebrew, ancient and classical Greek, Coptic, Aramaic and Assyrian. New archeological discoveries (like the Gospel of Judas) are always proffered to Erhman before most anyone. Misquoting Jesus shows us just how much Jesus may have said and what was written later, translated, rewritten and re-translated. Probably the most valuable lesson on the Gospels and their discrepancies, Erhman tells the reader to read the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) horizontally (e.g., all three first chapters, then all three second chapters, etc.). It's an exercise that will astound you!


Elaine Pagels - The Origin of Satan. Pagels is the world's pre-eminent scholar on the Gnostic Gospels, those writings which were discovered in 1947 from Gnostic Christians. In The Origin of Satan, Pagels shows that Satan, or Sai-tan was developed by Christianity as a means of demonizing Judaism. 

Karen Armstrong - The Battle For God - A History of Fundamentalism, The Bible - A Biography, The Great Transformation. Karen Armstrong is arguably one of the world's best scholars about all world religions. Admittedly, she is not an easy read, but once you realize what she is presenting and how she is presenting it, you feel richer for having read her books. Of particular note is The Great Transformation, which looks at the parallels of religions and societies during a particular time before Christianity. It's a fascinating study, but not for everyone.   

***


In the end, we all have to realize that religious belief is serious stuff. Writers like me may joke about it from time to time (ok, I do it most of the time), but when belief is blind belief (as with Harold Camping's followers) it has the power to ruin believers' lives. Coaxing believers to read something contrary to their beliefs is difficult, but it may be the only strategy there is to put people's beliefs back on a safe, even keel. 


And remember this:


Fundamentalism: it's Satan's greatest masterpiece.

My First Christmas With God, Pat Robertson, and The Devil

I'm not really looking forward to Christmas this year. It's a day away, but I'm over it all: overweight, overworked, overdrawn and overwhelmed. Eight months ago we were forced to move to a smaller place, so despite the Christmas tree, the apartment looks as if it's going to explode, spewing boxes of nick-knacks and old bank statements over the rest of the apartment complex. If it does, "Christmas" will be somewhere in the rubble, but don't look to me to find it. Instead, I'll be dealing with other things, like the fact that there's no money for the usual presents, that I look like hell because I haven't been able to keep up my exercise regimen and that my former partner (for whom I'm a caregiver), has just been told that his liver cancer is inoperable and he will live only nine months.

But, you know, I can handle all of that. I've been through worse (I think).  The real reason I'm not looking forward to Christmas is because this will be my first Christmas as a minister (I just received my ordination papers  -along with a supply catalogue!) AND my first Christmas in a war with God. Oh, up until now, I've had a very good relationship with Him, but my being a minister changes that relationship. Notice that I said a "war with God," not a "war against God." I have to deal with Him as a comrade-in-arms.  It's now me and Him against His nemesis. Satan? No.

Pat Robertson.

You may think it an easy war, seeing that Pat has become so senile that even his proteges distance themselves from him whenever a natural disaster occurs, but war under any circumstance, as they say, is hell.  Of course, Robertson's old partners-in-crime have gone: Jerry Falwell, Jesse Helms and the old "Cadaver of Congress", Strom Thurmond; Oral Roberts, his University and his memory are fading away; the Crystal Cathedral will soon be a mass of glass shards and few people remember that alarmingly insipid little man, Rev. Lou Sheldon. But like weeds that Robertson so judiciously sewed into the nation's ground, new, vigorous, (and deadlier) strains of self-righteousness and hypocrisy have already taken their place: Tony Perkins, Bryan Fischer, Bill Donohue, Lou Engle, Cindy Jacobs to name but a few.

So I have to prepare for war - and on Christmas! I have to shine up my old verbal zingers and invent new ones. I have to research and catalog as many self-righteous hypocrites as possible (a daunting task seeing that there were so many this last year ala "Bishop" Eddie Long) while their hypocrisies keep pummeling us like giant hailstones. I have to build a barracade of educational references to use against falsehoods. I have to assure everyone (and God as well) that we will prevail. And I have to build alliances, maybe even with the Devil ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend"). See, I can rationalize anything just as well as they can.

Oh, there will be some wicked fun in store for me: the latest dimiwitted, hysterical rant is that gays "stole" the rainbow symbol from Christianity and now good Christians want it back! Coming up with barbs about that one will be delicious. Cream pie, anyone?

In the past, however, I've been able to juggle life's personal exigencies with the demands of an activist: this year, however, I will need to have more drive and stamina suited to a minister. This year, Christmas comes with a powerful caveat: the beautiful love and hope may only intensify the hypocrisies.  Will I  have the stamina to write/fight against not only Pat Robertson, but all the other televangelists, the lobbyists, politicians and frauds? I honestly don't know. My ministry goals are simple: help people survive by getting them back on the track of charity, compassion and social justice - those things that Glenn Beck is telling us to avoid at all costs. But the simplest of goals can require enormous effort, and placing a "Rev." in front of my name will put me in hostile, uncharted territory.

Christmas. Oh joy.

Demonizing America - Part III: SPECIAL REPORT - HELL HOUSES - Causing Teen Suicides Or Rescuing Souls?

DEMONIZING AMERICA, Part 3: Prologue


The following two paragraphs are excerpted from the 2005 edition Hell House Outreach Kit by Pastor Keenan Roberts of New Destiny Church of Arvada, Colorado. While this kit may have been updated, the basic scenes are being played in Hell Houses across the country. 

* Gay Wedding ($45) — This energetic scene will give you another powerful weapon in your arsenal against the homosexual stronghold and the born-gay deception. The demon tour guide conducts the ceremony that actually involves a young married couple. (The wife dons masculine make-up for the necessary male look.) The tour guide pronounces them “husband and husband”. Then the scene utilizes a time warp to move several years into the future with one of the partners dying of AIDS as demon imps swarm into a hospital room. This package comes with the originally produced rock-n-roll wedding march CD, the air of evil background music CD and the death drum track also on compact disc.

* Gay/Lesbian Suicide ($45) — This scene creatively combines two cutting-edge issues into one script. The drama for the scene calls for a spiritual battle between the angel of the Lord and the demon tour guide. They wrestle for Jamie's intellect as she struggles with whether or not God has made her this way. This script captures an incredibly compelling exposé that unmasks the “born-gay” lie.

DEMONIZING THE DEMONIZERS

For once, I'm at a loss for cynical words. I can't demonize someone - simply because to do so would be pointless. People who are caught demonizing are already demonizing themselves. Hypocrisy is like that. 

Once when I was a kid, my dad took me and my cousin Pat to a "Haunted House", put on by the local Chicagoland flower-grower, Otto Amling. It had real actors in skeleton costumes who said "boo" a lot, and had a mechanical "Frankenstein" who lunged at you when you tried to go out the back door. I took it in stride as fun. Pat, however, did not. He held my father's hand so tight my father mumbled something about circulation. When we left, he was as white as a sheet. Pat was three years older than I was. I was nine.

With the spate of teen suicides caused by bullying, it is impossible for some people to see today's Hell Houses as anything but the worst demonizing force ever devised by man. Based on the morality plays of the Middle Ages, they take young people through vignettes as horrific as any Halloween film or venue. And even though they've been parodied and laughed at by others*, their purpose, they insist, is not to scare, but to save. And they are very, very specific about who and what they want today's youth to be saved from. 

I spoke to Pastor Keenan Roberts of New Destiny Church in Arvada, Colorado last week. Pastor Roberts has been selling "Hell House Outreach" kits to churches across the country for the past 19 years. His "Hell House" kits provide a full working script complete with suggestions on props, costumes sound effects. As a cottage industry, in fact, it has been very successful. 

To be fair, I won't quote Pastor Roberts extensively because as every good writer knows, quotes can be edited in such a way as to be very, well... demonizing. Instead I will cite a few key phrases and paraphrase what he believes about Hell House and the current situation.

Pastor Roberts' primary points were:

1. He does not have connections with churches who purchased hell house "kits" and scripts. Therefore, he does not know if any have edited their scripts considering the present situation of teen suicides.

2. People don't really understand Hell House and its purposes. He asked me to define "demonizing". "Our calling is to help people understand what the Bible says. We have choices - and choices that are outside of God's plan are sins."

3. A Hell House simply states that it does not condone homosexual behavior.

4. Media is unfair because it uses "filters of convenience," meaning that it uses one set of criteria and applies it to the whole concept of Hell House. He noted that media criticism was not pointed quite as much to the issues of pre-marital sex and abortion as to the issue of homosexuality.

5. Hell House should be considered a "rescue operation." "You can't point at us and say 'you're part of the problem.'"

6. "Don't shoot the messenger"

Pastor Keenan, I should relate, seemed very sincere in his efforts to impress upon me that what he was doing was right.

But if you look at the text above and the video below, you will now find out how difficult it is not to demonize Pastor Roberts.** A Hell House states more than "we don't condone homosexual behavior"; it states in big, bold letters BECAUSE YOU ARE IN SATAN'S GRASP, YOU ARE A SINNER AND WILL BE PUNISHED BY EVERLASTING HELL. Quite overshadows any message of love, doesn't it?

The most salient point in the entire Hell House script is the depiction of homosexuality as a bad (read: sinful and unhealthy) choice that is spread because activist homosexuals need to recruit young people as part of their "agenda." The immutability of this point cannot be stressed enough: anyone believing otherwise is an un-Christian liberal. Criticism about other aspects of the script are also met with scorn. (e.g.: parents across the country have voiced criticism concerning Hell Houses' violence. They are brushed aside as not knowing the true meaning of Hell Houses.) But the tenacity by which Hell Houses cling to the original script may be more indicative of the respect/power churches demand: alter the script in any way, and that power deflates.

HOW FAR WILL THEY GO?

The legends that sprung up from Columbine were tenuous as actual facts about the shootings began to trickle in. One legend, however, did not die - at least in the minds of Hell House producers: the legend of the martyrdom of Cassie Bernall. 


The legend was simple:  one of the gunmen supposedly asked Cassie if she believed in God, and when she replied "yes" he shot her. The media and Cassie's parents focused on that last moment extensively. The problem was, that's not what happened: 


wikipedia:

Most examinations of witness testimony state that Cassie was not asked anything before she was shot. According to witness Emily Wyant, who was hiding under a wood table with Cassie, Eric Harris said "peekaboo" before shooting Cassie, while Cassie continued to pray silently.It is believed the famous exchange actually took place between Klebold and Valeen Schnurr, and was mistakenly attributed to Bernall.

The Bernall's website still carries the legend and makes no attempt at hiding the fact that it is still up for sales of the book, She Said "Yes."


Salon. com, Sept. 30, 1999:

The belated media outing of the truth about Cassie Bernall raises questions about why the story took so long to find its way into print. Misty Bernall's book landed on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list at No. 14 this week, with 350,000 copies in print and more than 250,000 already sold, according to the publisher. In the past three weeks, the Bernalls have appeared on Today, 20/20 and Larry King Live, among others. The story has inspired a massive surge in Christian youth groups' recruitment around the country and overseas.

Hell Houses also play fast and loose with other issues: e.g., the abortion scene ends with the young girl DYING because of the abortion. Medical journals have consistently stated that about one girl in one MILLION ever expire from an abortion. Another point: prepared scripts have been edited to suit the ideas of each church. While some churches may prefer to tone down the violence and demonizing, some even ratchet it up, even including Muslims or other religious or ethnic groups they deem headed for eternal damnation. Pictures from the Freres  Corbusier performance show the abortionist wearing a yarmulke (Jewish skull cap).

LOVE THE SINNER



Some scholars believe that the proper exegesis of Christ's philosophy of love was that it took more courage to love your enemy than to hate him. He also knew that the concept of loving your enemy would be a hard sell - in fact, downright unpopular. 


It still is. In days of war, intrigue, terrorism and distrust, loving your enemy - or even those who are "different" - has never been harder. This brings about the question of culpability and its admission in regards to Hell Houses. You see, one small piece of demonization can make it nearly impossible to love the person at whom it is directed. And any extreme demonization can entirely cancel out all of the commands to love someone, particularly if those commands are voiced afterwards. In other words, no matter how many times someone tells you that God wants you to love someone, that plea has been rendered moot and senseless by the first disparaging word about them.


Telling the public that Hell Houses do not demonize and instead demonstrate love is almost ridiculous. I say "almost" because there are people who believe Hell Houses preach the "love-the-sinner" meme effectively. They must believe - if they are to support their church. And we must accept the fact that they exist, because to think otherwise would be dangerous:

A 2001 study published in the Journal of Psychology found that “the belief in an active Satan [is] directly related to intolerance toward gay men and lesbians.” Given that all of the gay and lesbian characters in Hell House scenes are condemned to hell by Satan and his demons, this research raises serious questions about the impact of Hell Houses on impressionable youth.

One upset parent wrote that Judgment Houses (aka Hell Houses) are just another form of child abuse:

It has been said that “hell serves the holy purpose of cradle to grave intimidation,” and this is exactly what that church is attempting to do. But for civilized people, including most Christian people, what they did can be considered child abuse. They can only be thankful that with the separation of church and state, child protective service agencies cannot do anything about it. 

A review from Newsweek of the Les Freres Corbusier New York production:

"It was a grotesque and shocking imagining of contemporary secular culture, an extreme version of the way some very conservative Christians may think the unsaved live."

 CBS Texas affiliate 2008:

"One skit is a girl on Facebook," says Houghteling. "She meets a friend and gets raped and the demon says she deserved it."...[Reporter] Houghteling tells CBS 11 News that the message Trinity Church is sending to the young members is that if you struggle with certain issues then God has no place for you."

BULLY ENABLERS

One of the most frequent taunts that are used against gay teens is, of course, "you're going to HELL!"  I should stop at this point, because the correlation to Hell Houses is so obvious. But it doesn't seem obvious to the producers and supporters of Hell Houses. The denial of Christian Right stalwarts like Pat Robertson and Tony Perkins of the increasingly strident Family Research Council has demonstrated that the rhetoric of any debate will be contentious. To them, demonization does not exist. Neither does the possibility of enabling bullies to torment students.

Fortunately, there are Christian groups across the country that have taken a stand against vehicles such as Hell Houses:

With clear implications for the Hell House message, the Council of Bishops, Elders and Christian Leaders, which represents organizations and congregations that reach 98 million Americans, has publicly stated that they are “united“united in [their] rejection of all forms of fear-based religion” and refuse to “cooperate with or support political or religious leaders who caricature and condemn the lives of gays and lesbians.”

THE NUMBERS ARE OUT THERE - SOMEWHERE

The only concrete numbers I have been able to come up with are from 2007: approximately 1.6 million people visited Hell Houses. “Hell House Kits” were distributed to 800 churches across the US and 18 countries. Some churches reported that their Hell Houses received 12,000 visitors per year and utilize as much as 300 people either as professionals or volunteers. Every year since 2007, the numbers have increased.

So have the number of teen suicides and reported instances of bullying in schools. Concerned parents and educators are going over past research and teen suicide statistics. The future may hold a surprise for supporters of Hell Houses. Until then, however, culpability is the predominant issue. Some people may have already asked themselves (as I have done): do the producers and supporters of Hell Houses honestly think they aren't culpable in any way? Can they take one more look at the scenes, the scripts, the props, the acting and say that teens could not in any way be affected in such a way as to contemplate suicide? Or contemplate bullying as an accepted behavior, especially if it's bullying someone who's "going to hell" anyway? Some Hell Houses have been driven to given advance warnings that emotional distress might result - before they go on with the performance! Some attending children are under 12 years old. Are Hell House churches so bent on tormenting youth into salvation that they will risk inflicting severe emotional stress? Do they care at all?

From Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council on the subject of gay teen suicides:

Despite how threatened they are by the truth, there is nothing more compassionate than trying to rescue people from a lifestyle that is physically and emotionally destructive. GLAAD doesn't see it that way. Just as they did with Matthew Shepard, they're exploiting Tyler Clementi's tragic death as a weapon to scare Christians into retreating--or, in this case, as a way to pressure the media to muzzle any opposition.

As you can see, Perkins is a master at demonizing, especially when he's defending himself: he never talks about any gay organization without framing it  in  "battlefield" terms.

So what do we have now? At best, we have a group of dedicated Evangelicals burying their heads in the sand for God. At worst, we have ...

Tony Perkins, Bryan Fisher and Lou Engle.

EPILOGUE:

If nothing else, I hope that I have conveyed that this is an urgent issue that must be addressed NOW. Just as some evangelicals see the Halloween season as a fleeting chance to save souls, others must take this chance to save lives. If you know of a Hell House in any area in the country, please contact your local media to investigate it and contact local child welfare organizations to help organize protests. It's vitally important.

UPDATE: Another gay suicide has been reported: Corey Jackson, of Warren, MI (Detroit), hanged himself last Tuesday. Corey was a 19 year-old sophomore at Oakland University. Police and friends denied that it was a consequence of bullying. PROBLEM: The portrayal of gays as "making a wrong choice" still sends a message to gay youth: "if you keep on being the way you are, you're going to hell."

*Landover Baptist Church has the Lake of Fire Dunking Booth.

**I am biased, to be sure: my 6-year stint at the AIDS Emergency Fund in San Francisco showed me then just who were the demonized and who were demonizing. In the one photo above, I might as well have been that demon who was talking to the young man in the hospital bed, the only difference being that I wasn't telling him that he was going to hell.

To read the first two parts of DEMONIZING AMERICA click HERE and HERE or go to The Devil and Dan Vojir

Demonizing America - Part 2: "Kill Them All! God Will Take Care Of His Kind!"

Like it or not, the concept of bullying has been with man since the very beginning of his existence. We called it "survival of the fittest," to rationalize terrorizing the weaker species. During ancient times, bullying took the form of slavery. It took the form of victors lording it over vanquished: male rape was seen as an excellent form of bullying as well as slavery, which, if one thinks about it, is perhaps the ultimate form of bullying. In the Bible,  the ultimate bully was embodied in Goliath, the man-mountain whom the Philistines sent out to daily harass and taunt the Hebrew armies. Some people argue, however, that the ultimate bully was the God of the Old Testament. Israel was His schoolyard. Look what He did to poor, defenseless Job!

On a bet with Satan.

Size and strength characterized bullies whether in personal size or number of soldiers in an army: Napoleon and Hitler were considered bullies by the relatively defenseless Eastern European countries: when Neville Chamberlain waved the paper treaty with Hitler in front of the Britons and declared "peace in our time,"  the Czechs cowered with the thoughts of the bully Nazi army  - which did, in fact, march into Czechoslovakia days later.

Whatever the form, however, bullying was always a state of the strong ruthlessly handling the weak.

Religious bullying is not new: if you think of one sect purposely taunting, terrorizing, then ultimately killing off another sect as bullying, then you're right. The first case of western civilization genocide was the bullying, then annihilation of the Cathars of Southern France. They were different than anyone else, wore different clothes, worshipped not in churches but out in fields, did not eat meat, did not believe in hierarchy such as bishops and were extremely good to their neighbors. Naturally, the pope hated them.

To publicize their heresy, they were forced by the Church to wear yellow crosses sewn onto their tunics (demonstrating that Hitler wasn't very original) and routinely had their hands cut off, the only reason being that the church considered them heretics. Their numbers continued to grow despite the vicissitudes imposed on them, until the pope had a plan: get together with the king of France, Louis the VIII,  take their lands and simply eradicate them. That's when the battle cry above was born: while beseiging the city of Beziers, one of Louis' commanders asked the papal legate how he could tell the 200 Cathars from the rest of the 15,000 Christian citizens of Beziers. The legate's answer went down in history: "Kill them all - God will take care of his kind." Louis and Clement's strategy claimed approximately 120,000 lives over a period of some 20 years, becoming the first genocide in modern history. It was known, of course, as the Albigensian "Crusade."* 

Revisionist "historians" of Christianity always seem to overlook the Albigensian Crusade, perhaps because it not only stained the church of the Middle Ages but because it also gave rise to another dark era of religious bullying: The Inquisition. For hundreds of years, men like the legendary Torquemada  carried out the bullying of Jews and Moors (Muslims) in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and scattered places across the rest of Europe. 

I remember the evening I went to see the film adaptation of Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. A nun was holding a makeshift sign that said "Lies, lies, lies!" But while the movie focused on the Church organization, Opus Dei, it did not touch upon the Albigensian Crusade to any substantial degree. That was, to me, the typical philosophy touted by almost all of America's religious leaders: never admit to anything and never, ever apologize. And if you have to apologize, do it when people won't remember what you're apologizing for. The Vatican recently apologized to a very dead Gallileo for imprisoning him, and the Southern Baptist Convention apologized for its part in the institution of slavery 140 years after the U.S. condemned and abolished the inhumane practice.

Just how many religious people in America know of the "dark side" of their religion?  The percentage would be closer to "0" than you think. Today's religion and yesterday's history aren't exactly friends, which is why we're seeing revisionists cropping up, so that people of faith need not apologize for anything. One wonders if people actually know about the first Christian theologian - Tertullian - and his last-minute conversion to Montanism or that many of the Vandals and Visigoths sacking Rome were Arian Christians.  How they would react to the stories about the concentration camps for pagans in Skythopolis, Syria?  Or the persecution of heretics? And for the last hundred years little has been made about Martin Luther's horrendous anti-Semitism (he wrote the seminal work, On The Jews and Their Lies)

Other instances of religious demonizing, then bullying, were the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (40,000 "heretical" French Protestants massacred in one day), Native American Indian slavery ("ungodly heathens" forced to build and work on the California Missions - approximately 50,000), and Chatila (massacre of 1500 Muslims by Christian Phalangists). Bullying on a continuous scale came in the form of The Crusades (millions of Jews and Muslims killed in the an untold number of major wars, minor wars and massacres), Charlemagne's forced conversions of the Saxons (legend of Widukind) and in later years, the Russian pogroms and massacres of Jewish villages and settlements.

The worst incident at demonizing in history?  There are so many, but arguably the most vile was the "Blood Libel" of the Jews, so strongly entrenched into the European psyche that it took hundreds of years to convince Christians that Jews did not kill gentile children to drink their blood for secret ceremonies. (BTW, this gave rise to the Jewish Legend of the Golem)

DEMONIZING PWAs

Many people were demonized during the "Age of AIDS" (1982 - 2000).. PWAs ( People With AIDS -primarily gay men) were the new lepers since during the first years medical establishments and health organizations were uncertain about how contagious the virus was. There were a few faith-based agencies in San Francisco during the beginning and the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles stepped up to the plate in 1986, but so very many churches abstained from doling out compassion. They just weren't up to the courage of Father Damien.

The Christian Right's eagerness to demonize gays, politicians and non-Christians became evident with the like of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and Pat Robertson's 700 Club. Of course, statements from people like Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms didn't hurt either:

Americablog:

Sen. Jesse Helms says the government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct," The New York Times reported Wednesday....

Pat Robertson:

- I have a zero tolerance for sanctimonious morons who try to scare people.

- I know one man who was impotent who gave AIDS to his wife and the only thing they did was kiss.

Such was the fervor of the Moral Majority at the time, that it seemed as if they danced in the streets while people were dying in the streets: "Thank you God, you have sent a plague to our enemies."

THE LAST HOLDOUT?

Probably the most obvious (and the most vicious) holdout as far as demonizing PWAs is concerned is the powerful Southern Baptist Convention. Almost thirty years after the start of the epidemic, the SBC still cannot point to the sponsorship of any faith-based agency dealing with AIDS ...in this country. They lauded Mike Huckabee in 1996 when he wanted to quaranteen PWAs (the casual contact theory had been disproven years befor then, but Huckabee still pushed the quarnateen - to his own embarrassment years later). Today, they still follow Jesse Helms dictum that helping AIDS victims in Africa was fine because they were "all heterosexuals" while all AIDS victims in America were perverted sodomites.***

Next Up: 

Demonizing America - Part 3:  HELL HOUSES - Causing Teen Suicides Or Rescuing Souls?

* Scholar Steven Runciman wrote:

"High ideals were besmirched by cruelty and greed ... the Holy War was nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God".

 **"That massacre, said Pope Gregory XIII, gave him more pleasure than fifty Battles of Lepanto, and he commissioned Vasari to paint frescoes of it in the Vatican"."

***I may be wrong on this since my research is over a year old. 

Heather Knows Best: Two Moms Really Can Make A Right!

And She's No Accident!!

This event has two important revelations:

First: for the first time since I've covered the machinations of FOX News, it has managed to get something from the left right (got that?). OK, I'll start again: FOX News has dared to put a gay-positive piece (from Reuters) in its daily net news! Yes. OMG! And it didn't edit the headline.

Which brings us to the second (and more important) revelation:  Children of Lesbian Couples Do Well in School, Life. Oh, some of the other MSM picked it up, (TIME/CNN did a good piece, but the headline said Study: Children of Lesbians MAY Do Better Than Their Peers), but Fox News stated it as a straight news piece.

The Christian Right is reeling from the shock at both the results of the study and the fact that their biggest voice dared to publish those "inspired by Satan" results. Do they have enough time to launch a counter-attack? Of course,  you can bet that members of the Christian Right community are hatching plans to thwart reporting in as many MSM venues as possible.  

They've already attacked co-researcher Nanette Gartrelle as a lesbian and therefore biased. But they have another Elena Kagan on their hands, in a sense because, like Kagan, Gartrelle and  her co-author, Henny Bos have flawless academic careers: (Gartrelle) MD: Center of Excellence in Women's Health, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California and JD: Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, Los Angeles, California,  (Bos) Graduate School of Pedagogical and Educational Sciences, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of America was the first to fire a shot at the study:

"You have to be a little suspicious of any study that says children being raised by same-sex couples do better or have superior outcomes to children raised with a mother and father," she said. "It just defies common sense and reality."

But "Common Sense and Reality" in this case, are both on the side of a lesbian's children: who but a person  who has experienced discrimination is fit to raise children who might be discriminated against? In a sense, Wright is also condemning the journal Pediatrics, a trusted judge of such findings. Like other medical journals, Pediatrics subjects a rigorous investigation to each and every study it publishes. Is such a criticism rational?  Bryan Fischer of the radical Right American Family Association is, at this writing, podcasting a tirade against the study, citing past (discredited) studies by the mouthful.

The study, labeled US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study: Psychological Adjustment of 17-Year-Old Adolescents, was conducted over 17 years with 78 sets of lesbian parents who underwent in vitro fertilization and resulted in these findings:

Results According to their mothers' reports, the 17-year-old daughters and sons of lesbian mothers were rated significantly higher in social, school/academic, and total competence and significantly lower in social problems, rule-breaking, aggressive, and externalizing problem behavior than their age-matched counterparts in Achenbach's normative sample of American youth. Within the lesbian family sample, no Child Behavior Checklist differences were found among adolescent offspring who were conceived by known, as-yet-unknown, and permanently unknown donors or between offspring whose mothers were still together and offspring whose mothers had separated.

Conclusions Adolescents who have been reared in lesbian-mother families since birth demonstrate healthy psychological adjustment. These findings have implications for the clinical care of adolescents and for pediatricians who are consulted on matters that pertain to same-sex parenting.

None of the children, by the way, were home-schooled. The study also points to the fact that lesbian parents are more attentive to the needs of the children which may account for their having less behavioral problems. 

And...

It is unclear why kids of same-sex couples would be in better psychological shape than those of heterosexual parents. While the researchers are still analyzing the internet questionnaires, Gartrell said one reason could be that lesbian mothers had planned their parenthood carefully and were prepared to help their children though any discrimination they might face.

"These were chosen children, they weren't accidents," Gartrell said.

But future children of lesbians may still have a barrage of discrimination hurled at them in the coming years. Remember the bruhaha over Heather Has Two Mommies? According to the American Library Association, the book ranked 11th as the most frequently challenged book in the United States in the 1990s.

(Pssst) An aside: Guess who's hometown library refused the donation of Heather Has Two Mommies for Banned Books Week? Hint: the town's in Alaska. You Guessed! Yeah! Mrs. Palin has already had some tense times with her local library, but we're sure she'll accept the news of this report very well. (Giggle) 

And the rabid discrimination against lesbian mothers was evident in the Right's media coverage of the Florida adoption case:

Melanie Leon and Vanessa Alenier, the South Florida lesbian couple who last month won a court case to adopt a child despite Florida's gay adoption ban, apparently weren't sufficiently ugly for the Florida Family Policy Council's propaganda purposes. So in an email blast to its members decrying the decision, the group swapped out a picture of the pair for a photo of two women wearing men's button-down shirts, mullets, and a little upper-lip hair.

We'll see more of this kind of intentional slander in the coming weeksNow that the LGBT community has some solid research on its side concerning lesbian moms, the next step is obvious: one involving gay dads. 

Well, just in time for Father's Day! Hmmm...

The Senility Defense: Pat Robertson Goes To Trial In The Court Of Public Opinion.

When Christofascists start to bash their own, it's a truly wonderful sight: they turn away from hating everyone else and jockey for a slug at the worst of them just so they can look good in comparison. It's so deliciously rare that many of us ordinary people forget our struggles and stare in amazement ... and amusement. And when the MSM delves into past unpleasantness involving the said Christofascist, a pattern of vile un-compassionateChristofascists then turn on the person with lightning speed. While they do not devour him (although they want to), they make it known to everyone that such behavior is beneath them.

Now here's the official backpeddling from Robertson's PR team:

His comments were based on the widely-discussed 1791 slave rebellion led by Boukman Dutty at Bois Caiman, where the slaves allegedly made a pact with the devil in exchange for victory over the French. This famous history, combined with the horrible state of the country, has led countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed.

Some of the highlighted words are buzz-words added to the context to make it seem as if Pat Robertson didn't just pick his vast knowledge on the subject out of a hat. Of course, when you view the entire footage of The 700 Club segment you realize that Robertson knows nothing about Haiti's history:

From wikipedia (under Boukman Dutty)

On 22 August 1791, Boukman presided in the role of houngan (priest) together with an African-born priestess and conducted a ceremony at the Bois Caïman and prophesied that the slaves Jean François, Biassou spiritual power of the forest and the ancestors, was sacrificed, an oath was taken, and , and Jeannot would be leaders of a slave revolt that would free the slaves of Saint-Domingue. A pig, which symbolized the wild, free, and untamableBoukman and the priestess exhorted the listeners to fight bravely against their oppressors. Days later the Haitian Revolution began.

Soon after the uprising began, French authorities captured Boukman and executed him by beheading. The French then publicly displayed Boukman's head in an attempt to dispel the aura of invincibility that Boukman had cultivated. However it remained strong, and their attempt failed.

And ever up-to-date wikipedia:

In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the ceremony over which Boukman presided was called a "pact with the devil," responsible for a "curse" on the country, by Pat Robertson, host of The 700 Club on the Christian Broadcasting Network. Various prominent, mainline Christian voices have criticized Robertson's remarks on the Haiti crisis as untimely, insensitive, and not representative of Christian thought on the issue.

"It is absolute arrogance to try to interpret any of God's actions as a judgment against this person or that person. & Our duty as Christians is to try to help these people pray for these people and to help them."

- Dr. Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church of Dallas

"He must have misspoken."But we need to get on the path of helping people right now. God loves the people of Haiti. He hasn't turned his back on Haiti."

- Franklin Graham

These were, of course, shining examples of pots calling the kettle black. Suffice it to say, however, that Robertson's little anecdote was received by other professionals as being in poor taste. Some even think that he's possessed by Satan:

It appears that televangelist Pat Robertson is in the thrall of Satan, according to spiritual warriors, Drs. Valerie Tarico and Marlene Winell. “It’s the only possible explanation,” said Tarico. “How else can we make sense of his repeated attempts to humiliate both God and Christianity in the wake of recent natural disasters.”

[Dr. Winell] “Demons need a host, and they can jump from one person to another,” she explained. “We know this because Jesus cast demons out of a possessed man and into a herd of pigs. The pigs drowned themselves, the same kind of self-destructive behavior we are seeing in Mr. Robertson. It is possible that he was infected at or around the funeral of Dr. Jerry Falwell. In hindsight we can see that Dr. Falwell was possessed by a similar—possibly the same-- demon.”

- Huffington Post

And to give Rev./Dr./Broadcaster Robertson his due, there were some supporters:

"What the Robertson bashers left out is that finally, and with great compassion and concern in his voice, Pat said, "They need to have, and we need to pray for them, a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I am optimistic that some good thing may come, but right now we are helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable."

- Gary Cass, Christian Anti-Defamation Commission

Does God hate Haiti? God hates sin, and will punish both individual sinners and nations ... The earthquake in Haiti, like every other earthly disaster, reminds us that creation groans under the weight of sin and the judgment of God ... In other words, the earthquake reminds us that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only real message of hope.

- Albert Mohler, the Southern Baptist Convention

Now several questions come into play: will Robertson himself issue some defense for his righteous intolerance and the denegration of an entire country? Probably not: his "apologies" for condemnation have, in the past, been choreographed rather sloppily giving the impression that he doesn't really care what people think.

Another question lies in the context of which his "philanthropy" is placed: is he really just a benevolent but senile old man? This is getting to be his milieu-du jour. He may not like it, but the public is becoming increasingly annoyed at his utterings and mutterings. When you mention his name, eyes roll and people get that What-the-hell-is-that-old-coot-up-to-now? look. "Did he leg press an elephant this time?" "Which town is going to get a fearsome meteor shower because someone hung a gay rainbow flag in front of their home?" "What did God tell him this time? Any good bets on the fifth at the racetrack?" And at the end of each instance, Robertson seems oblivious to the contempt at which he is held. Senility can create an alternate reality for some people.

In the past, Robertson has hidden behind God and His Bible to cover embarrassments. Will he hide behind Scripture ... or a diminished mental capacity? If he does either, he's a coward of the first order. The man is not senile. He is not frail. He is not a "religious fanatic." He shouldn't be hiding behind a dogma so righteous and rigid it would deflect the slings and arrows of the strongest detractors merely by being Holy Scripture. The man is guilty of arrogance, maliciousness and, most of all, stupidity. But not senility.

Pat Robertson listens to no one. The voices of Haiti's dead should be ringing in his ears right now because he has slandered them in a cavalier fashion and he will react to a catastrophe thinking himself to be The Good Samaritan. But his contempt for humanity shines through his veneer.

It always has.

It's amazing that people are just realizing it.

Below is a segment of The 700 Club in which Pat Robertson tells viewers that 40,000 college professors are "communists" some of them are "murderers". He thinks they "beat up" students while brainwashing them.