And Happy Easter To ...

THE KIND OF PEOPLE JESUS CHRIST HUNG OUT WITH!

Here's to all of us outcasts, heathens, pagans, pigs, hookers and general demon spawn. If it weren't for us, the world would be boooooring!

The two videos below are irreverent, but fun. Who knows, maybe Christ would have liked it that way!

The first was professionally produced and has been around for several years, but hey, it's Easter! The second was one I produced myself: not quite as sacrilegious (the end might be construed as such), but it was fun putting together. I apologize for its production values (very grainy), but just kick back and enjoy the human condition! And the cat condition. And the dog condition. And the drag condition. And any other condition you can think of!

HAPPY EASTER!!

But Not To Christofascists!

By now, everyone knows my take on organized religion: it's responsible for some of the world's greatest pain and suffering. So I'm wishing everyone a Happy Easter in the name of an unknown and unknowable creator, celebrating the life that was given us and the rebirth we see upon the earth and within ourselves.

Please read the post below if you haven't already done so. Yes, it's rambling and fairly blasphemous in it own way, but I can't stress how much hypocrisy is practiced during holidays, especially by Christofascists.

I'll try to be back on Monday (probably with updated notes on Rick Warren). Until then, have a safe and wonderful Easter. And enjoy the post and the images I've been able to cobble together for this Easter season!

Now THAT'S (Christian) Entertainment! Pt 1: Bunnies and Blasphemers

We've made a religion of entertainment
and an entertainment of religion.

What is THE most overtly blasphemous day of the year? Halloween, where kids dress up as witches and ghouls instead of honoring the souls of the dead? Maybe Christmas, which is so commercialized our entire retail industry depends upon it? No, neither. For my money it's Easter. You can place a gift or even a Christmas tree beside a Nativity scene, but it doesn't seem as incongruous as pairing an egg-laying rabbit beside a holy man hanging bloodstained on a cross.

Our hunger for entertainment doesn't even care how the rabbit entered the picture, just so long as it IS there along with marshmallow peeps, colored eggs, elaborate baskets covered in an abundance of cellophane, Easter egg hunts and rollings. Easter is also characterized by new clothes and elaborate hats. The hats are especially blasphemous: early Christian services required women to cover their heads simply because beautiful hair and/or elaborate hair styles were symbols of vanity. Enterprising milliners got back at this attack on women by designing coverings more elaborate than any hairdo.

exchange at Saddleback Church blog:

Posted by Devan 4/9/2009 7:03:00 AM

Hi how are you I liked how you said I might need to go buy a new dress! I just wanted to ask what days have a easter egg hunt for the children and will they need to bring a basket I also wanted to know if Rick was going to teach on thur,fri. and if all the tents will be like the gosphal, Thank you enjoy your spring break.

Posted by Bonnie 4/9/2009 9:19:00 AM

Hi Devan, The easter egg hunt will be at the 10:00 AM service that we are holding at Trabuco High School. Doug Fields will be speaking at that service. Rick's plans are to speak at as many services on the main Lake Forest campus as his voice will hold out. The Tents and other venues on our campus will offer a variety of worship styles. You can check out the all the services times at www.easteratsaddleback.com.

And at all costs, we MUST be entertained.

REMEMBER THE THEME OF THIS SERIES:

We've made a religion of entertainment and an entertainment of religion.

Alright, who's to blame? Department stores? Television? All the media? Advertising? Secularism? Is it all part of America's "crass commercialism"?

How about religion itself? WTF? "Christianity in America is the VICTIM!" Sorry, but I don't think so.

Of course, that attitude makes me look obtuse and anti-Christian. If people want to see me in the same light as a dreaded "pagan" or "heathen" or "atheist"...so be it.

I prefer looking at a larger picture through the lens of history. Mankind has always had a love of ritual during worship. And that love of ritual has given birth to ... more ritual...and ritual robes...and ritual temples...and cathedrals with frescoed ceilings...and passion plays...and more ritual.

Think of it this way: while Christ told us that the best place to pray was alone in a darkened corner of our house, we don't consider prayer to be worth much unless someone else is with us. And we LOVE to pray in front of others! And we LOVE to be in a place where preachers can "inspire" or even bore us simply because we are showing others that we are religious.

We don't ever admit that all of our religious experiences are entertaining, but they are. The preacher can be "uplifting" or "stalwart", the interior of the church can be "inspiring" or "focusing" (sleek and without distraction), the hymns can be "melodious" or "transcending." And if the preacher isn't "thought-provoking", the church interior isn't "breathtaking," the hymns aren't "spiritual" then we blame them for our boredom and think of reasons why we weren't entertained.

Entertainment is comfort in the midst of pain and it's certainly distracting enough from whatever troubles we have. When we enter a "house of worship" we EXPECT to feel transported to a different world where we can commune with God. And the way to make a person feel that transportation is... entertainment.

Some say "inspiration" while I say "entertainment." BFD.

Just a thought.

Another Bully, Another Death

He suffered taunts and threats from other students who made fun of him, insulted the way he dressed and called him gay since he began attending in September, she said.

Bullies. You can't live with them, but you can certainly live without them. Yet they keep on...and on...and on. If we were bullied, we were told by our parents "Well, that's life." Sometimes our parents intervened, but that was only in extreme cases. After all, shiners were part of growing up. When I cried to my mother that I was being bullied by a kid on our block all she said was, "Well, for crissakes, stand up for yourself!"

Yeah, we survived.

But some kids didn't. We never heard about them, of course. Stories of child suicide were hushed up very, very quickly. But now, parents of casualties and suicides are speaking out against the bullies of neighborhoods and school grounds.

SPRINGFIELD [Mass.]- Two days after the worst day of her life, when she found her 11-year-old son had committed suicide by hanging himself, Sirdeaner L. Walker said on Wednesday she wants the bullying to stop.

She found Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover hanging by an extension cord on the second floor of their 124 Northampton Ave. home Monday night after he had endured another day of taunting at New Leadership Charter School, where he was a sixth-grader, she said.

"I just want to help some other child. I know there are other kids being picked on, and it's day in and day out," said Walker, 43.

Bullying is boys against boys, but girls participate too. Anyone who is "different" and vulnerable is fair game.

So happens to victims and bullies? Victims as adults suffer from depression and poor self-esteem, while 60 percent of bullies in grades 6-9 had at least one criminal conviction by age 24.

And what about the bully pulpit?

Just a thought.

Extra! This Just In (1:10AM PT): The Extension of Warren's Lie

"What I was trying to say..."

Interview with sarah Pullium, Christianity Today, April 8, 2009:

What I was trying to say is, those who obviously opposed my viewpoint on the biblical definition or the historical definition of marriage were trying to turn me into an anti-gay activist. The truth is, Proposition 8 was a two-year campaign in the state, and during those two years, I never said a word about it until the eight days before the election, and then I did make a video for my own people when they asked, "How should we vote on this?" It was a pastor talking to his own people. I've never said anything about it since. I don't know how you take one video newsletter to your own church and turn that into, all of a sudden I'm the poster boy for anti-gay marriage.

Rick, don't you know how it was done? With your knowledge and endorsement:

Associated Baptist Press:

The Yes on Proposition 8 campaign put out a press release announcing Warren's support of the gay marriage ban. Conservative news sites, including the Southern Baptist Convention's Baptist Press, reported the story at a time when the main organization supporting Proposition 8 was trying to raise money to purchase additional television ads to fight off a final push by opponents.

Bryan Fischer, executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance, accused Warren of apologizing for his earlier support of one-man, one-woman marriage.

"The minimum the Christian church should expect from its spiritual leaders is clear and unapologetic adherence to this biblical standard, especially from pastors who tell us that the Bible is the 'rule of faith and practice,'" Fischer said

Warren:

The only response that I made was, I wrote an e-mail to all of the gay leaders that I know. I have many friends who are gay leaders whom we've worked with on AIDS campaign on health, poverty, and disease. The guys that I knew, I apologized to them.

So, Rick, who were those people? If they are gay "leaders" they're certainly out and wouldn't be afraid of backing up your story. Where are they?

Rick Warren's Persona Is In Our Hands. One Word: CLAP!

And Clap LOUD!

Pat Robertson does it all the time: lying and addressing topics he knows absolutely nothing about. I've seen him answer one question on tattoos and then the next on the wisdom of investing in baseball cards. So why do preachers pontificate when they rarely know what they're preaching? Is it purely ego? Are they so imbued with self-righteousness that they don't challenge (or at least edit) their own sermons and public ruminations? Or is it plain hubris?

The whole world is buzzing about Rick Warren. People are clamoring for news and commentary. And some people (like me) are fuming. People are disdaining "gotcha" journalism, but it has grown in size many times since we've gotten it out of the box and we can't stuff it back in! Warren's primary sin (right now) is in thinking the American people will unequivocally accept anything he says. This is hubris of the most disastrous kind. Ted Haggard suffered for his hubris as well as others. Televangelists and megachurch pastors will eventually suffer as their supply of old-time-religion congregants dry up.

Even journals like Associated Baptist Press have become skeptical about Warren's use of words:

Pam's House Blend, an influential left-leaning blog that often reports on gay-rights issues, dug up a YouTube video message Warren recorded as an Oct. 23 posting on the Saddleback Church website. In it, Warren urges passage of Proposition 8....The Yes on Proposition 8 campaign put out a press release announcing Warren's support of the gay marriage ban. Conservative news sites, including the Southern Baptist Convention's Baptist Press, reported the story at a time when the main organization supporting Proposition 8 was trying to raise money to purchase additional television ads to fight off a final push by opponents.

So EVERYONE knew that Warren was endorsing (he uses the term "campaigning" in his denial) Proposition 8. And Warren MUST have known that people knew. He could have had Baptist Press print a clarification of his words, but he didn't. He trusted that an appearance on a national show would help much more than a restatement in a limited subscription religious magazine (online or not).

Now what? Do we forgive and forget? I wish we could. Maybe later. But right now we have the career of a person whose persona is much larger than our own in our cupped hands. We can either set it down gently as would a small, non-poisonous spider which has just bitten us or we can clap our hands together and promise ourselves never to get bitten again.

Just a thought.

Notes On The Culture War: Watch Out! THIS Is What You're Dealing With!

Yeah, I know that this will be considered "Christian Bashing," but only by the people who do the most bashing (physically as well as spiritually) from the other side. I wish I had the time to turn "Notes" into a full-fledged blog, by I'm already involved in too many things - people included.

Harry Knox, a gay man recently appointed by President Obama to an advisory council which metes out grants to faith-based and community organizations, is, of course, under attack. Because he once called the pope a "discredited leader" on the subject of contraception and that certain passages of the Bible were "not true" concerning homosexuality.

Below is the spin put on the appointment and Knox by ultra-right CNS News* (slogan: "The Right News. Right Now")

(CNSNews.com) – President Obama has named to his faith-based advisory council a self-professed Christian who holds that the New Testament's teaching that homosexual behavior is unnatural and wrong--which is found in St. Paul's letter to the Romans--“is not true."

The appointee, Harry Knox, has also said that Obama's decision to invite the Rev. Rick Warren to say a prayer at the Inauguration "tainted" the ceremony and that Pope Benedict XVI is a "discredited leader."

Harry Knox, a professed gay Christian who is director of the religion and faith program at the Human Rights Campaign, a homosexual rights group, was named to President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships on Monday. The advisory council gives federal grants to faith-based organizations.

NOW THE COMMENTS (note that they are directed at Knox or Obama and not necessarily about the article itself):

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! FANANTIC REGRESSIVES AHEAD!

You'd better look within and recognize your sin because for every person you mislead, you WILL answer for! Wake up for goodness sake!

***

Homosexuality is "natural"? How does this twisted moron explain procreation? Were (are) his natural parents both of the same sex? This jerk is almost certainly a huge advocate of the gigantic hoax global warming as well.

***

That kind of twisted thinking will bring us to ruin and, in fact, has already begun to do so.

***

Woman and man are commanded to live chaste (virgin) lives until marriage. Then they may enjoy natural sex together for the remainder of their natural lives. God said it; I believe it!

***

You shouldn't pretend to be any kind of Christian. It would be truthful to declare your true vocation - you are a Sodomite. That would make satan your lord and master. I pray for your conversion, and your boss' too.

***

God punished Sodom and Gomorrah because of homosexuality! - so - that was not about Paul's interpretation or feelings was it? America needs to wake up before it's too late - God CANNOT reward sins - He CANNOT reward laws that have been voted that are against His Word. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

***

Yeah, the so-called President has other things to do than even think about what is right and what is wrong. Consider this: this man thinks that a baby born alive, though an abortion was performed to try to terminate that life, should, and I repeat, should have been left on a shelf in the closet of an abortuary until it died.

*study after study by the Media Research Center, the parent organization of CNSNews.com, clearly demonstrate a liberal bias in many news outlets – bias by commission and bias by omission – that results in a frequent double-standard in editorial decisions on what constitutes 'news.'"

So, are you still ready and willing to deal with these people?

Just a thought.