May his days be few; may another seize his position. (NRSV)

Of course God works in mysterious ways and often needs his followers to do his dirty work. So if this movement gets enough momentum, it’s only a matter of time before some lunatic tries to act on this “biblical advice.”

The ironic thing, of course, is that these Christians seem forget one of Jesus’ main teachings: “Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.” (Luke 6:24)

(via)

You folks may remember a previous post on Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina and the book burning they were planning to have. The Church, run by Pastor Marc Grizzard, was planning to burn the usual targets: heavy metal music and smutty movies. But they also planned to torch all translations of the bible other than the KJV:

“We are burning Satan’s bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, ESV, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT [...] These are perversions of God’s Word the King James Bible.”

And then there would be fried chicken with all the sides.

Well, the best laid schemes of mice and morons often go awry. The blog “Right Wing Watch,” declares it the Worst. Book Burning. Ever:

“But when the big day came around, a combination of rain, protesters, and a state law against burning paper all conspired against them. Here’s what happened:”

Bless their hearts.

They tries to make the best of it. According to their website:

Our goal was to destroy garbage as noted below, and we did just that. We didn’t care how it was destroyed; only that it was destroyed. These same people must have never heard about “Paper, Rock, & Scissors.” Scissors cut paper, and paper tears real easy. We destroyed everything as planned. Praise God!

No word on the fried chicken.

What do the Jews and the Gays have in common?  The horrid Westboro Baptist Church is protesting against both!  Sorry, that probably wasn’t as funny a punchline as you expected.  It does, however, have the advantage of being true. From a USA Today article:

The change in focus has caught Jewish leaders by surprise. While the group has always had anti-Semitic tendencies, it had largely stayed away from Jewish sites until this year.

In Washington, Margie Phelps balanced several signs targeting Jews, Israel and the Obama administration. One read “Rabbis Rape Kids,” another said “God Hates Jews.” Margie Phelps’ T-shirt read “Jews Killed Jesus.” She argued with men and women passing by, warning them that God will soon send the Jews to hell.

“I don’t care what you claim, chosen wise,” she said. “Obedience is the standard.”

What a disgusting and desperate attempt to get attention.  How long before someone breaks Godwin’s Law?  Three… two… one…

“This is more about generating ink and outrage than it is about attacking Jews per say [sic],” said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. “But their language is absolutely Hitler-esque. They talk of filthy Jews and Jews murdering Christ.”

Since April, Westboro members have protested more than 200 Jewish institutions and sent thousands of anti-Semitic faxes to American Jewish officials. “I guess they felt it was a successful tactic,” said Deborah Lauter, the national civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League.

It’s always a difficult question: do you counter-protest and give them more attention, or do you let them spew their hate unchecked?

I’m usually in favor of staging a counter-protest, but not for the purpose of addressing the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC).  A counter-protest can bring people together as a shared rejection of hatred and a symbolic gesture of solidarity. It serves as an excuse for people to come together and reaffirm their peaceful views, rather than as an attempt to out-shout the opponents – that would be pointless.

The audience is not the rabid fundamentalists, it’s the others in the community.  It’s a nice way to let the gays/Jews know that they are not alone.  If nobody bothers to counter-protest, some might get the wrong impression.

The article says that religious leaders on the far-left and far-right have come together to condemn the WBC’s tactics.  I hope it was just lazy journalism and that there are non-religious individuals and leaders also opposing bigotry and hatred.

Glad I didn’t grow up in that home.

No Joke

Skewering Pat Robertson, The Most Dangerous Man in America, in 700 words or less is no easy task. Where does one begin? Books, like the above by Robert Boston, have already been written, and there may not be enough trees to cover all the facts.

On top of that, Pat hides his sins easily in broad daylight, bumbling his way through fundie TV so we assume no one takes him seriously. Hasn’t everyone been rolling their eyes at the mere mention of the 700 Club for decades now?

I’ve been recently called out for my mean-spirited attacks on these poor, innocent, easy targets who are so woefully misled and far out that they threaten no one. Who listens to some jerk blaming immigrants and other heathens and homos for hurricanes, who calls them “termites” and calls for a “Godly fumigation”? Clearly, anyone who famously states that women seeking equality are actually socialists looking to “leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians” is a joke and nothing more. Pat’s prophecies have come and gone with the wind, and his conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and Masons were nowhere near as riveting as Dan Brown’s.

Blood Diamonds

But it’s no joke. Marion “Pat” Robertson is an extremely influential man in matters that extend beyond spirituality and blundering racist faux pas. He has a political agenda, twisted morals, huge media power, insatiable thirst for money at all costs, tremendous business acumen, and influential henchman saturating every aspect of American life, from dieting to banking to war. And then there’s the little matter of blood diamonds.

I encourage all of you to look up Pat’s proclamations on the evil Hindus, Satanic atheists, homosexual Scots, the “rightful” dominion of Christians (but only some kinds of Christians), the evils of yoga,  the voice of God as special immunity for people blowing up abortion clinics, his calls for various assassinations of leaders he doesn’t like, and how his own half-million dollar racehorse had nothing to do with gambling, which he speaks against. And how “Women should listen and learn quietly and submissively.” Or how the special energy shake God used to nourish him made him capable of 2,000-lb leg presses, nearly 1.5 times the power of the world record champion.

The Elephant in the Room

But these sheer idiocies with which we cull hilarious lists really detract from the sinister reality behind the scenes. The media mogul formed the first Christian Broadcast Network and today pumps his belligerent 700 Club mumblings to a million people a day. Other programming goes around the world in some 50 languages. Founder of the Christian Coalition for America, The American Center for Law and Justice, and big wig at the Moral Majority and umpteen other rhetoric-spewing think tanks, Pat’s putting your grandma’s money toward making sure justice exists only for his approved brand of Christians and no one else. (And for his private jets.) Pat’s ties to, funding for, support of, and influence on political players is huge. He has been involved in politics himself, and is extremely influential in pushing his creationist, dominionist, racist, anti-women, anti-progress agenda from behind the scenes.

What a Relief

Pat has close business ties to shady political figures linked to genocidal warfare. Indeed, he’s a good friend of Zaire’s (now Congo) Mobutu Sésé Seko. Mobutu was the totalitarian dictator of Zaire from ’65 to ’97, a man especially fond of public executions for anyone whom he didn’t like.  Pat sunk some 8 million into blood diamond mining, given permission to mine by his friend Charles Taylor, Liberian warlord. (Pat has said that the investment was for “evangelism.” Riiiiight.) Taylor has recently been arrested after living in hiding, and faces 11 charges for war crimes, including arming, funding, and instructing rebels to pillage, rape, steal, and hack off people’s arms and legs over diamonds. Even Bush was against Taylor, and Pat lambasted him for not supporting Taylor, a “Baptist, Christian president.”

Considering that Pat’s “Operation Blessing” supposedly helps genocide and war victims in Rwanda, Congo and west Africa, isn’t it a little bit, um, wrong, to invest money in a major cause of said holocausts? Pat came under fire when it was observed that his planes, supposedly carrying refugees toward relief, were actually transporting his mining gear and profits! It was ruled that Pat had indeed diverted donations, but he saved his arse because the planes had a few relief supplies on them.

I don’t know about you, but I prefer my atheist and homo friends over greedy torture-mongers and genocidal maniacs, or preachers who cover their bloody tracks.

Lorette C. Luzajic writes about all kinds of interesting people at Fascinating People.

A picture of a real live witch, not Kimberly Daniels.

Oh all you guys think Halloween is just fun for the kids. Not true! We’re actually worshiping Satan and playing with demons!

At least according to Kimberly Daniels, who has an article published on CBN and Charisma, two popular Christian websites. She says:

If this holiday is hallowed, whose service is it set apart for? The answer to that question is very easy—Lucifer’s!

Lucifer is a part of the demonic godhead. Remember, everything God has, the devil has a counterfeit. Halloween is a counterfeit holy day that is dedicated to celebrating the demonic trinity of: the Luciferian Spirit (the false father); the Antichrist Spirit (the false holy spirit); and the Spirit of Belial (the false son)….

Really? A counterfeit Satanic trinity? You just can’t make this stuff up.

Well, that’s not true. They do make this stuff up.

Mrs. Satanic Expert continues:

During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.

Citation needed. And that could be said after most of her sentences.

I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference….

The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon….

Decorating buildings with Halloween scenes, dressing up for parties, going door-to-door for candy, standing around bonfires and highlighting pumpkin patches are all acts rooted in entertaining familiar spirits. All these activities are demonic and have occult roots.

Well there you have it, folks. An expert on all the activities of the demonic Satan worshipers — which I guess is us, since we celebrate Halloween — has thus declared it so.

While this woman is afraid of demons and witches, I’ll be honest… I’m a little afraid of her. She makes statement after statement about things she can’t possibly know. She doesn’t know there’s a demonic trinity. She doesn’t know that most of the candy sold has been “prayed over by witches.” She doesn’t know that curses become active during this season. Those are assertions that are impossible to prove.

I don’t think this woman is stupid. Her article is fairly well-written and she’s obviously given the topic a great deal of thought. So if she’s not stupid, what is she?

There’s two options: she’s either a fraud or very self-deluded.

Update: Daniels’ article has been deleted by CBN with no explanation — I’d guess from all the negative attention. As someone on reddit said, this is an article so crazy CBN deleted it.

Wahabis have repeatedly threatened to burn down the house of Shamil and Madina Yakubovs from the Dagestan village of Krasnooktyabrskoye, after phrases from the Koran began appearing on the body of their nine-month-old son.

“They found it only unnatural that Allah showed his signs through a boy born in a family of a police officer! Wahabis consider us kafirun (the unbelievers – IF),” Magomed-Kadyr, the boy’s grandfather said as quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda daily on Monday.

According to him, their house was approached by a Gazel car in broad daylight, which brought a group of armed Wahabis. They demanded to show them the baby. Then they left threatening to come back. After that, Said Murtazaliyev, head of the district, provided them with a group of six security guards.

“Stand firm, Catholics, and rush to the battle lines! We know who wins the war!”

[F]eeding the paranoid delusions of people on the fringe of the fringe contributes to a dangerous climate that may provoke violence in a few individuals. And convincing folks that Armageddon is on the way, and all we can do is wait, pray, and protect our families from the chaos that will be the “prelude” to the “Return of Christ,” is perhaps not the best recipe for political, economic, or personal stability, let alone social cohesion. It may also not be the best philosophy on which to build American foreign policy! The momentum toward what amounts to a whole subculture seceding from the union (in order to await “The End”) is irrevocably prying loose a chunk of the American population from both sanity and their fellow citizens….

The words left behind are ironically what the books are about, but not in the way their authors intended. The evangelical/fundamentalists, from their crudest egocentric celebrities to their “intellectuals” touring college campuses trying to make evangelicalism respectable, have been left behind by modernity. They won’t change their literalistic anti-science, anti-education, anti-everything superstitions, so now they nurse a deep grievance against “the world.” This has led to a profound fear of the “other.”

Jenkins and LaHaye provide the ultimate revenge fantasy for the culturally left behind against the “elite.” The Left Behind franchise holds out hope for the self-disenfranchised that at last soon everyone will know “we” were right and “they” were wrong. They’ll know because Spaceship Jesus will come back and whisk us away, leaving everyone else to ponder just how very lost they are because they refused to say the words, “I accept Jesus as my personal savior” and join our side while there was still time! Even better: Jesus will kill all those smart-ass Democrat-voting, overeducated fags who have been mocking us!

I have a feeling that evangelical Christianity will indeed be left behind. Hopefully within a century or so it will be reduced to a minor cult.

The letter he wrote back is excellent, and I highly recommend you read it. You can also read some of his grandmother’s original letter. He posted both on reddit which has received almost 500 comments.

My only criticism is the footnotes. Many years ago I went through a phase where I fell in love with footnotes to the point where I would put them even in letters. It’s a turn off for most people though — it makes it feel really formal and people think you’re flaunting your erudition (which I was). That’s probably not the case for Josh, but regardless, my opinion is that footnotes are fantastic for scholarly articles, but not for letters. Endnotes would have been better if they were really necessary.

That’s only a minor quibble, though. Maybe I should have put it in a footnote…

Anyway, kudos to Josh for making his letter public!

What is Fruit of the Spirit? Glad you asked:

Fruit of the Spirit is a whole fruit puree rich in Anti-Oxidants and Alkalizing Minerals. 1-2 ounces a day supplies your body with the energizing and healing nutrients required for human health and vitality. This highly concentrated liquid is a unique blend of 16 super-fruits native to the Galilean (Mediterranean) region, herbs with a profound Anti-Inflammatory effect. Ironically these herbs are the Biblical herbs Frankincense and Myrrh.

Fruit of the Spirit also has cleansing minerals from the Dead Sea. To make this product even more powerful, a concentrated amount of Resveratrol was added. Resveratrol has been shown to have tremendous benefits of restoring our bodies and helping to prevent disease.

Of course, you only need to drink this delicious Jesus juice if you don’t have enough faith for Jesus to heal you himself. But for those faithless folks, it might be worth $40 a bottle.

But I doubt it.

In that spirit, a Baptist church in North Carolina is hosting a good ol’ fashioned book burning — but this time, it’s the Bible. That is, any Bible that isn’t the OneTrueTranslation™, the 1611 KJV:

The Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C. will celebrate Halloween by burning Bibles that aren’t the King James Version, as well as music and books and anything else Pastor Marc Grizzard says is a satanic influence.

Among the authors whose books Grizzard plans to burn are well known ministers Rick Warren and Billy Graham because he says they have occasionally used Bibles other than the King James Version, which is the sole biblical source he considers infallible.

According to the church’s Web site, members will also burn “Satan’s music such as country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel, contemporary Christian, jazz, soul (and) oldies.

Their website even has “kjv” in the url (amazinggracebaptistchurchkjv.com), and on the homepage it’s one of the first things they mention. These people worship this Bible version:

I can assure you we are an Independent Fundamental King James Version Baptist Church and Website….

[W]e believe that God has preserved His word for the English speaking people through the King James Version 1611. We make NO apology about it either. Were not ashamed of it, that’s why we dedicate a whole section to nothing but the KJV. We use ONLY this Bible and none else. All other Bibles for the English speaking people are perversions of God’s Word.

These people are just as deluded as Fred Phelps and his cult. I find it very sad people can get sucked into something so obviously crazy.

I don’t question God. The Lord is my Shepherd and I shall put none above Him. Which is why I know that if it were part of God’s plan for me to stop viciously condemning others based solely on their sexual preference, He would have seen fit—in His infinite wisdom and all—to have given me the tiniest bit of human empathy necessary to do so.

It’s a simple matter of logic, really. God made me who I am, and who I am is a cold, anti-gay zealot. Thus, I abhor gay people because God made me that way. Why is that so hard to understand?

Here, let’s start with the basic facts: I hate and fear gay people. The way they feel is different from how I feel, and that causes me a lot of confusion and anger. Everyone knows God is all-powerful. He could easily have given me the capacity to investigate what’s behind those feelings rather than tell strangers in the park they’re going to hell for holding hands. But God clearly has another path for me. And who am I to question His divine will?

Compassion, tolerance, understanding, basic decency, the ability to put myself in another person’s position: God could have endowed me with any of those traits and yet—here is the crucial part—He didn’t. Why? Because the Creator of the Universe wants me to demonize homosexuals in an effort to strip them of their fundamental human rights.

Though I’m not overly fond of his recent music style, I appreciate what he’s trying to do. Webb recorded a song on his latest album Stockholm Syndrome called “What Matters More,” aimed at Christians who obsess over hating homosexuality. His label refused to put it on the album, though, because of its subject & language. Here’s the video for it:

It’s causing a little controversy among fundamentalists. For instance, Phillip Johnson, a popular Christian blogger, said on twitter that “the artist formerly known as Derek Webb is an angry, crude-mouthed bobble-head.” He only had 140 characters, otherwise he would have added “and a big fat stupid head, so there!”

Here are the lyrics:

You say you always treat people like you like to be
I guess you love being hated for your sexuality
You love when people put words in your mouth
‘Bout what you believe, make you sound like a freak

‘Cause if you really believe what you say you believe
You wouldn’t be so damn reckless with the words you speak
Wouldn’t silently conceal when the liars speak
Denyin’ all the dyin’ of the remedy

Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?

If I can tell what’s in your heart by what comes out of your mouth
Then it sure looks to me like being straight is all it’s about
It looks like being hated for all the wrong things
Like chasin’ the wind while the pendulum swings

‘Cause we can talk and debate until we’re blue in the face
About the language and tradition that he’s comin’ to save
Meanwhile we sit just like we don’t give a shit
About 50,000 people who are dyin’ today

Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?

You say you always treat people like you like to be
I guess you love being hated for your sexuality
You love when people put words in your mouth
‘Bout what you believe, make you sound like a freak

‘Cause if you really believe what you say you believe
You wouldn’t be so damn reckless with the words you speak
Wouldn’t silently conceal when the liars speak
Denyin’ all the dyin’ of the remedy

Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?

If I can tell what’s in your heart by what comes out of your mouth
Then it sure looks to me like being straight is all it’s about
It looks like being hated for all the wrong things
Like chasin’ the wind while the pendulum swings

‘Cause we can talk and debate until we’re blue in the face
About the language and tradition that he’s comin’ to save
Meanwhile we sit just like we don’t give a shit
About 50,000 people who are dyin’ today

Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?

The song can be downloaded free from DerekWebb.com.