Trijicon, a Wixom-based supplier that has a $660 million multi-year contract with the Marine Corps and additional contracts with the U.S. Army, inscribes coded references to New Testament Bible verses on its ACOG high-powered rifle sights sold to the military.
I published yet another short story on the Fictionaut website, something I wrote several years ago. It's titled "Instrument."
For a long time I've had a morbid fascination with right-wing Christianity and its various flavors. I'm a regular listener to Christian radio stations, and I follow a few websites; the most recent person I follow is a Pentecostal preacher, web site designer and home products pyramid scheme maven named John Burton. (I've linked occasionally to his blog posts, like this one where he begs you to send him money so he can "minister" and work on his book.) The main reason I monitor these wack jobs is to understand how they think and how they work to influence the country's culture, essentially to understand the enemy.
After several years of following a particularly strange outbreak of Pentecostal fervor in, of all places, Florida, I wrote a short story based on what I'd learned about the event. I tried to make the story much more respectful of the sect and its practices than I really feel about them, so it's not just pure parody. I tired to use the writing to the story to understand the appeal of being "caught up in the Holy Spirit."
Focus on the Fundies: FOTF sheds famous anti-gay program
Focus on the Family is still having money problems and has decided to end support for its anti-gay "Love Won Out" program -- one of those "ministries" which attempt to provide "encouragement" for gay people to stop being gay and pretend to be straight. The infamous Exodus International group will be taking it over, and that's got to be a natural fit. Exodus is the "ex-gay" organization whose co-founders finally gave up and stopped the pretense and went back to being as gay as the day they were born.
Focus on the Fundies: They'll pay you to save money?
Another update on the strange Pentecostal minister who, in my last mention, begged for money so he could work on his book without having to actually work. This guy has a few obsessions, and money is definitely one of them -- I guess having several kids and no job has something to do with it.
One of his so-called income streams is from an Amway-like business with the unfortunate name of Melaleuca. In a recent post he and his wife agonize over why someone "declined to participate" in the pyramid scheme-like business:
I wonder if we communicated what we were really trying to say well enough. Did this person really understand that they will not be paying any more money than they already do now and that they will be getting much better products? It's really strange. And, we offered to write them a check to pay for a bunch of their groceries this month. What did we miss here? I can't think how it makes sense to NOT enroll. They actually lost money by declining. Plus, it would have been great way to support our ministry. Hmmmm...
OK, here's a clue: Some people don't want to "participate" or "enroll" -- you have to fill out a form just to shop with the company, much less become a marketer -- just to shop for household items. They just want to buy the stuff. It's too much trouble.
Even if (and I'll take your word for it) it saves them money? Well, maybe they don't want other people to be privy to their household purchases. Maybe they'd like their grocery shopping to be separate from "supporting your ministry;" assuming they want to do so, they'll get a tax deduction for just writing you a check instead. And offering what seems like a bribe to get them to "participate" makes it even creepier, even as it provides another example of how this guy's "ministry" is practically inextricable from his focus on lucre.
As for whether or not the Melaleuca business itself is on the up-and-up, I can only point out that the phrase "Melaleuca scam" gets over 75,000 results on Google, including several videos. I think if someone has taken the time to actually make a video about what a scam something is, that might be a bit of a red flag.
A Chicago area blogger who kept readers spellbound with reports on her "pregnancy with a terminally ill baby" was faking the whole thing, local media reported yesterday. Faced with the problem of finally coming up with a baby, the 26-year-old woman, Beccah Beushausen of Oak Park, furnished a picture of herself cradling a swaddled doll. Readers quickly noticed the deception:
"I have that exact doll in my house," said Elizabeth Russell, a dollmaker from Buffalo who had been following the blog. "As soon as I saw that picture, I knew it was a scam."
By Monday, outraged followers on dozens of Christian parenting Web sites unmasked "April's Mom" as a hoaxer, and hundreds more vented their anger.
Notice who got upset. The only problem with this was that it was not intentionally designed to punk the anti-abortionists, but was merely a symptom of a sick mind.
"I've always liked writing. It was addictive to find out I had a voice that people wanted to hear," Beushausen said.
"Soon I was getting 100,000 hits a week, and it just got out of hand," she said. "I didn't know how to stop. ... One lie led to another."
Though he dropped off the radar for a few months after the excruciating HBO broadcast of the documentary film about him, former evangelical leader Ted Haggard is back in the news pages of the Colorado Springs Gazette, which continues to cover him the way the FBI tails former KGBers in the U.S. Included in the latest visit with the disgraced megachurch ringmaster is a scolding and eventual forgiveness by a former church member, as well as the news that Haggard and his wife are appearing on an upcoming episode of the TV show Divorce Court. Yes! And it's a two part episode, starting appropriately enough on April Fools Day. Behold!
I'll pause while you pick your jaw up off the floor.
Oh, and he's going to begin guest-preaching at Colorado Springs megachurches, billed as "a Christian businessman," a nod to his current supposed career as insurance salesman. And thus begins his real rehabilitation -- not the one he supposedly underwent soon after his outing that supposedly turned him back into a heterosexual, but the one that will inevitably return him to the only job he can do: evangelical preacher.
Focus on the Fundies: Obscure minister predicts calamity
Courtesy John Burton, that manic Christian "prophecy" guy I link to from time to time for laughs, here's another "minister" with an "urgent message" about "AN EARTH-SHATTERING CALAMITY ... SO FRIGHTENING, WE ARE ALL GOING TO TREMBLE."
For ten years I have been warning about a thousand fires coming to New York City. It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires -- such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago. There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting -- including Times Square, New York City. What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God's wrath. ... If possible lay in store a thirty-day supply of non-perishable food, toiletries and other essentials.
Yes, when the righteous tremble, at least they will have a thirty-day supply of toilet paper. I'd love to see their shopping lists, actually. Imagine what's on them.
James Dobson, founder and head of the Focus on the Family religious education and lobbying organization, is stepping down, the Associated Press reported.
The 72-year-old Dobson, who is a psychologist by training, has been one of the most powerful religious conservatives in the U.S. for decades. His Focus on the Family organization, despite a financial downturn in recent years, is one of the most influential right-wing Christian organizations. It was a major donor to California's anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8, and its daily radio program is heard on hundreds of religious radio stations around the country.
The new head of the organization is a retired Air Force general -- Colorado Springs is also home to the Air Force Academy, which has been the site of alleged proselytizing by evangelical Christians -- who is also a former executive with defense contractor Northrup Grumman.
Focus on the Fundies: Colo. legislator says homosexuality akin to murder
After an openly gay Colorado legislator introduced a bill to extend health care benefits to domestic partners of gay people, a Republican colleague alleged it was an attempt to whittle away at the anti-gay marriage law passed by voters and equated homosexuality with murder, saying "I'm not saying this (homosexuality) is the only sin that's out there. We have murder. We have all sorts of sin. We have adultery. And we don't make laws making those legal, and we would never think to make murder legal." There's much more disgusting bigotry quoted in the article.
Pastor Danny Nalliah says he had a dream that God's "conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb." Of course, this is exactly what American fundies said after Sept. 11 and after Katrina: that the disasters were holy retribution for New York or New Orleans allowing whatever it is they don't like. Of course, when floods hammer the Mississippi valley, or tornadoes decimate a Southern town, they don't have much to say.
It's always been like this: preachers said the same thing when San Francisco was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake. After a distiller paid firefighters to save his warehouse, a local wag wrote:
If, as they say, God spanked the town For being over-frisky, Why did He burn His churches down And spare Hotaling's whiskey?
Focus on the Fundies: Skeleton springs out of Haggard's closet
The other shoe has dropped in the latest Ted Haggard scandal, as the young former congregation member of New Life Church publicly discusses how Haggard masturbated in front of him, offered him pills of some sort, and confided that "You can be a man of God and have a little bit of fun on the side."
To top it all off, Haggard's wife Gayle told Oprah that he'd told her years ago that he struggled with same-sex attractions, or, as she put it, "some thoughts."
Focus on the Fundies: Congressman, two others 'anoint' Capitol doorway
As workers readied the inauguration stage in front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 7, a right-wing Georgia congressman and two evangelical ministers prayed over and anointed with oil the Capitol doorway that President-elect Barack Obama and other dignitaries will pass through on Inauguration Day.
An aside: clearly, the thing to do if you're a right-wing Christianist "activist" and all-around media whore is not to have your own church, but to have your own non-profit foundation in Washington DC, so you can do things like anoint the Capitol and appear on Pat Robertson's CBN.
Don't invite Mahoney to any inaugration parties, as he is fasting until Inauguration Day in solidarity with poor people "as well as the 50 million innocent victims of abortion."
Focus on the Fundies: Ted Haggard promotes HBO doc
Ted Haggard appeared yesterday before the press to promote the HBO documentary about him, "The Trials of Ted Haggard." (An ironic title, by the way, since Haggard has never been charged with any crime despite admitting to buying and possessing methamphetamine.)
Haggard has softened his views on gay marriage, saying that government should fully recognize the union between any two people and that churches are wrongly fighting a "war" over the word "marriage."
The "spiritual solution" to his fall "was not enough;" he also needed "secular therapy methods."
In a separate story from the dozens covering Haggard's HBO press conference, the Colorado Springs Gazette said the current pastor of Haggard's former church has discharged him from the severance agreement, one of the terms of which was that Haggard would not discuss the scandal publicly. The generous severance package hasn't kept Haggard from saying that his firing from and subsequent treatment by New Life was the equivalent of being told "Go to hell," and complaints like that have some former supporters angry. "The fact that he's attacking the church or New Life Church, when they did so much to help him and his family, is below the belt," said H.B. London, one of the Focus on the Family pastors assigned to "rehabilitate Haggard after his firing.
I was loath to join in the howling condemnation of Obama's choice of celebrity pastor Rick Warren to say a prayer at the Inauguration, but it has been good for something: it's given more visibility to Warren, whose renown across America has been limited to other evangelical Christians. Take a look at this hit piece by Christopher Hitchens on Slate (courtesy 3 Quarks Daily). Hitchens himself is hard to stomach, so I like the spectacle of some snaggle-toothed leftist hawk tearing into the soft belly of the Midwestern megachurch ringmaster. Before Hitchens chokes on his own indignation, maybe he can tackle a few more people on my list. Could you take a look at this guy, Chris?
Haggard, pronounced "one hundred percent heterosexual" after his three-week rehabilitation experience following his 2006 implosion, says "he never claimed to be heterosexual, as was once reported, and he continues to struggle with same-sex attraction. But he's committed to living a heterosexual life because he believes it's better for children to be raised by a mother and a father."
Haggard's wife says she stayed with him to restore honor to the family, in some mixed-up way.
Haggard now works selling insurance -- not so far from being a salvation-selling preacher -- but has not yet been successful at it and says, "Right now, I am a loser."
He sure comes off that way. Welcome to the real world, Ted! Maybe that other foamer will have to get a job, too.
Focus on the Fundies: Give money so he can 'minister without hindrance'
For a few months I've been monitoring the ravings of a Pentacostal preacher who is madly trying to establish a nationwide "ministry" dedicated to ridding American cities of Satanic influence. I first noticed him when he made some passing comment about how the Colorado mountain tourist town of Manitou Springs is well-known as a Satanic base camp.* Since then, I've seen him move spastically around the country, from Kansas City to Detroit, attempting to gather followers.
Recently he's been begging openly for money, and a blog posting yesterday really takes the cake for shameless solicitation. Emphasis mine.
Biblically it's clear that believers live in a different economic system, and I'm convinced that the church is called to be financial forerunners -- we are called to lead the way by giving our way out of this recession.
We pray you would consider this to be fertile and good soil for your seed in 2009. In fact, we have many challenges right this very moment, and we'd like to invite you to give before the end of 2008. Your gifts are tax-deductible... Would you invest in this ministry of teaching, planting and revival? Your donation will help us as we... (m)inister in the cities of the earth without any financial hindrance. God has moved powerfully in Detroit and other places through the ministry in 2008. Due to a timely rumbling in this city, we will be ministering in Detroit 6 times (at least) in the first half of 2009 alone.
So he goes to economically devastated Detroit and invites followers to "Give our way out of this recession." And how will he use that money? To help the poor of Detroit? To retrain auto workers being thrown out of their jobs?
Your donation will help us as we... (d)evote ourselves to the time consuming yet deeply important ministries of prayer and study. It's common for full-time prayer missionaries to devote 6 hours or more to prayer each day. (And to) Focus on our call to author prophetic materials. I've had a book burning in my spirit for over two years, yet have not had the time to start it.
Nice! He wants to spend hours of day in prayer, and the rest of the time writing a book. Me too, dude!
To top it all off, he illustrates his plea with a picture of his family. Is it a nice soft-toned picture of them wearing sweaters around a Christmas tree? No, they're all looking glumly into the camera with tape over their mouths with the word "LIFE" written on the tape. (A one-year-old baby is spared this discomfort; they stuck the LIFE label on its chest.) I guess the point is, If you don't send him money, it's the same thing as gagging him and his whole family.
WEYRICH: Here is the real problem. It has been known for many years that Congressman Foley was a homosexual. Homosexuals tend to be preoccupied with sex. The idea that he should be continued -- or should have been continued as chairman of the Committee on Missing and Exploited Children is, you know, given their knowledge of that, is just outrageous.
NPR host Nichelle NORRIS: Now before we go on, I think I can say, Mr. Weyrich, that there are quite a few people who would take exception to the statement that homosexuals are preoccupied with sex.
WEYRICH: Well, I don't care whether they take exception to it. It happens to be true. I mean --
NORRIS: That is your opinion.
WEYRICH: Well, it's not my opinion. It's the opinion of many psychologists and psychiatrists who have to deal with them.
Focus on the Fundies: Haggard pushes himself back in the spotlight
Ted Haggard, the disgraced megachurch leader whose outing as a meth-snorting Big Gay embarrassed the Christian Right just prior to the 2006 midterm elections, has agreed to promote an HBO documentary about his rise and fall.
The documentary, "The Trials of Ted Haggard," was shot by Alexandra Pelosi, who earlier made an HBO documentary "Friends of God," which also featured Haggard. The film is scheduled to air on HBO next month.
Haggard startled observers earlier this fall by appearing in the pulpit of a rural Illinois megachurch as a "Christian businessman" talking of his rise an fall as a star of the conservative Christian Evangelical movement, and now he's pushing himself into the spotlight on television. It's not enough for him to appear in a documentary; he's so starved for attention that he also signs on to promote the film, which I suspect will show him as a complete lying douchebag. What a media whore!
Reinforcing the impression that these people are really stupid was a quotation from a church leader that "We have never seen as midnight an hour as we face this coming week," a sentence I had to read five times before I understood it. (In fairness, it was intended to be heard, not read. But I'm not sure the speaker knows, or cares, that "midnight" is not an adjective.)
A Catholic priest in Modesto, Calif. has told parishioners that voting for Obama was a sin that must be confessed and forgiven before they receive church sacraments (courtesy Huffington Post). It's not the first time, according to the Modesto Bee story; a priest in South Carolina told his parishioners the same.
At least The Catholics require an actual act before condemning people. You may recall the Alabama city administrator who told the NYT that people who aren't disappointed by Obama's victory "need to be at the altar" to ask forgiveness.
The Central Valley where Modesto is located is one of the most socially conservative areas of California. Churches in the region's Episcopal diocese left the national Episcopal church last year over the national body's endorsement of an openly gay bishop -- not in their diocese but in New Hampshire -- and voters in Stanislaus County, where Modesto is located, voted 68 to 32 percent in favor of anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 earlier this month.
Focus on the Fundies: Ted Haggard is preaching again
For some reason, disgraced, defrocked religious leaders always seem to be able to attract new or old followers by allowing the suckers to "forgive" them and thus feel virtuous. And in America, there has never been a shortage of either. Disgraced Colorado Springs megachurch leader Ted Haggard, whose outing as a meth-snorting, gay prostitute-paying hypocrite played a role in 2006's Republican election debacle, and in the disillusionment of right-wing Christians with the Republican party, is preaching again, appearing at a rural Illinois church.
Then the 50-year-old president of the National Association of Evangelicals and a symbol of the relationship between the Christian Right and the Republican Party, Haggard was outed by the male prostitute whom he had patronized and bought drugs from over several years in Colorado. His very public fall, coming just days before the 2006 election, was preceded a month earlier by the fall of Mark Foley, and marked the beginning of the end of Republican domination of electoral politics in the U.S. for several years.
Be sure to read to the end of today's story where an elder of Haggard's former church compares him to a "mouse" in his present state.
Update: Courtesy Jeff Sharlett, here's an ABC News story -- with audio excerpts from Haggard's sermon if you play the video.
GINGRICH: Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank -- for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite, of what you're taught in Sunday school.
... I think when the left -- when the radicals lost the vote in California, they are determined to impose their will on this country no matter what the popular opinion, no matter what the law of the land. You've watched them, for example, in Massachusetts, basically drive the Catholic Church out of running adoption services, drive Catholic hospitals out of offering any services, because they impose secular rules that are fundamentally sinful from the standpoint, you know.
What the fuck planet is he talking about?
First of all he uses the classic right-wing tactic of accusing the other side of what you're already doing; in this case it's "fascism," and to that all I can say is, it takes one to know one.
Secondly, what the fuck is he doing, talking about what "traditional religion" is, what is or is not taught in Sunday School, what is sinful? He's a freaking politician. He hasn't had a day of religious training in his life, not since he left the Sunday School he must be referring to. (Unlike O'Reilly, who at least went to a Jesuit secondary school.) He is talking completely out of his ass.
Gingrich is determined to use the next three and a half years to position himself for a presidential run. He thinks enough time has passed since his infamous ethical problems lost him his House seat and he became a laughingstock for shutting down the government in 1995. And he's putting himself out front and center now, while Republicans are flailing, to see whether any of their wounded, run-over dogs will wag their tails.
One look at his scary-clown face should be enough to dissuade anybody from ever voting for him again, but if not, his record should be enough to convince people how toxic he is.
Focus on the Fundies: Still stuck in early stages of grief
The NYT did an article about hillbillies who are shocked at Obama's victory. Finding a remote county seat, they walked into City Hall and started chatter with "the" (sic) administrative assistant who, asked for his reaction to Obama's election, said:
This is a community that's supposed to be filled with a bunch of Christian folks. If they're not disappointed, they need to be at the altar.
That's one Don Dollar, in Vernon, Alabama, seat of Lamar County, where 76% of residents voted for John McCain -- a 5% increase over the number who voted for George Bush in 2004.
By "to be at the altar" he is not suggesting marriage, but contrition. Fundamentalist churches have "altar calls" in which people are invited to dedicate, or rededicate, themselves to Christ.
I think he's saying, "I thought everybody here was just like me. I can't believe almost a quarter of people aren't. And since I do everything I'm told, anybody not like me must be a sinner.
"Of course, they aren't so far like me that they don't share my religio-cultural context, so surely they belong to a church just like mine, with identical values. I fully expect them to feel they have sinned in not mourning the victory of the Democrat, and to repent of it."
The word "Deliverance" comes to mind -- the film, not the doctrine.
Focus on the Fundies: Dobson 'jubilant' over anti-gay election wins
Focus on the Family head James Dobson was "jubilant" over passage of gay marriage bans in Florida, California and Arizona, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported. While Dobson praised the election of Barack Obama as "historic," he also said he was concerned that Obama is "in favor of much of the homosexual agency" (sic -- don't know whether this is a typo in the news story or just a brain fart by the sexegenarian Dobson; he undoubtedly meant to refer to the well-known, if non-existent, homosexual agenda).
Dobson's group contributed half a million dollars to help pass California's Proposition 8, which intends to amend the state's constitution to disallow gay marriage. Pro-marriage groups sued Thursday to keep the vote from being enforced.
Focus on the Fundies: Anti-abortion prop, vague fears stoke New Lifers
Salon visited New Life Church, Ted Haggard's old stomping grounds, now somewhat diminished by changing demographics and Bush fatigue. In addition to the kind of sentiments you'd expect -- one woman had "heard Obama wanted to change the flag and the symbols of the country somehow. 'He wants it to be this one big -- I don't know -- it's not America. It's going to be something else, and I don't know what it's going to be'" -- the writer found a former Bush supporter ready to vote for Obama. It's people like the last guy who are going to give Colorado to Obama this time.
By today, disgusted contributors from across the country had donated nearly $500,000 to her opponent, one El Tinklenberg, a former Methodist minister, mayor of Blaine, Minn., and state transportation commissioner.
Strangest thing in the story is her description of "a half-used tray of communion wine, its thimbles of juice with frayed pull-tops." They have little bitty juice containers with pull-tops for communion? Now that's déclassé.
Focus on the Family, the influential fundamentalist media empire headed by Dr. James Dobson, will lay off 46 employees after sales of videos, books and other products failed to meet expectations, an article in the Colorado Springs Gazette reported.
The Colorado Springs company -- which has radio, television, publishing, marketing, distribution and internet divisions -- has been highly influential over the last 25 years in creating the politicized Christian Right. In addition to initiatives like the antigay Love Won Out, which claims that gay people can be converted to heterosexuality, and Pure Intimacy, which addresses porn addiction and other sexual problems among evangelicals, the group has an influential political policy and lobbying arm.
But with disillusionment with the Republican Party spreading among evangelicals, FOTF's influence has also lessened, with donations and newsletter subscriptions way down, according to a January 2008 Time article.
It wasn't that the magazine was saying the five female ministers were, or should be, pastors at Southern Baptist churches, or that the SBC should change its rules. The denomination simply didn't want customers at its bookstores to be exposed to the fact that other denominations -- just as conservative, no doubt, in most matters -- allowed women to become pastors. Such is the paranoid attitude that typifies fundamentalists and totalitarians everywhere as they try frantically to keep control of people.
Whatever the likelihood that McCain might die in office, it's 100% probable that if he does die in office, the president will then be Sarah Palin... This darling of religious conservatives who is forcing her own 17-year-old daughter to bear an unplanned-for child and to marry her deer-in-the-headlights boyfriend would be appointing Supreme Court justices until 2012, and maybe for four years after that.
Focus on the Fundies: Non-denial denial of the year
When a pastor of an African megachurch was arrested today at the Oakland airport, accused of fondling a 13-year-old girl seated next to him on a flight from Denver, a Bay Area minister who has known the man for many years issued this stupendous, and stupifying, non-denial denial:
I'm deeply grieved, but I have no reason whatsoever to believe that there was any purposeful action on his part that would be in any way inappropriate.
Americans not the only ones freaked out by images of children
Jesse Helms may be dead, but his spirit lives on in Australia, of all places. There politicians are freaking out over a nude image of a child -- her mother is the artist -- on the cover of Art Monthly Australia. Foamers are threatening to cut support grants from the publication. Ironically, the issue contains an article exploring a previous controversy over images of children that were yanked, then restored, to a Sydney gallery after being declared "'G' or 'very mild.'"
It's no surprise that Australia is the only English-speaking country aside from the U.S. where right-wing evangelical Christianity has a foothold. Among the influential foamers down under is the Anglican bishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, and other organizations like Family First and Catch the Fire Ministries, which attempt to duplicate the influence of U.S. groups like Focus on the Family.
It looks as though it will take two years for us to have adequate earning power again, so we are looking for people who will help us monthly for two years.... Between now and the end of the year, we have to find the people who want to help us transition into our future. So I am starting today to let friends like you know that we are raising money ...
The story goes on to say that Haggard is living in the same Colorado Springs mansion he lived in when running a magachurch there. And there are still five big cars in the driveway.
Focus on the Family and another group are behind this disgusting crap. They are based, of course, in the same city that's home to the Purity Ball I recently wrote about.
I posted the link to the Colorado Springs Gazette's story yesterday, and this morning the New York Times also published a substantial piece, including a photo of the men with the swords.
Here's a local mother on what the event means to her family:
In a word....the Father-Daughter Purity Ball is about Daddy being his daughter's knight in shining armor until her earthly prince comes for her. Our daughters are beautiful and I suspect we may have occasion to meet many would-be princes who would sweep them off their feet. If their Daddy doesn't teach them to stay pure in mind, body, heart and soul....how will they know which one the Lord has chosen for them?
Egad. And Colin Morton pointed out the poor choice of words in the NYT's tagline for their article:
At the Purity Ball, fathers and daughters unite to make public pledges of sexual abstinence until marriage.
Some fundies in Colorado Springs (where else?) stage a bizarre "Father-Daughter Purity Ball" annually -- this was the tenth annual such rite -- which judging from the photo seems to involve using a cross like a maypole. And is that a crown of thorns they're doing ring-toss with?
A twirling mass of white lace surrounded a rough wooden cross as a troupe of young women danced in a circle looking like porcelain dolls come to life.
Then Randy Wilson and Kevin Moore hoisted swords in the air and a ballroom full of 149 fathers and daughters walked beneath them toward the cross and laid white roses at its base. The swords symbolized the fathers' commitment to battle for their daughters and the roses symbolized the daughters' commitment to God to remain pure.
Then Wilson announced, "Let the ball begin."
Good Christ, what are these people on? Of course, they has a website, which contains this strange passage:
The Father Daughter Purity Ball is a memorable ceremony for fathers to sign commitments to be responsible men of integrity in all areas of purity. The commitment also includes their vow to protect their daughters in their choices for purity. The daughters silently commit to live pure lives before God through the symbol of laying down a white rose at the cross.
Yes... They live in a fantasy world where women are still chattel and cannot legally sign anything, so the men sign the documents and the girls "silently commit" to the deal.
There is something else mentioned in the story, an organization called the Abstinence Clearinghouse. I'll let you Google that for yourself, but the mind boggles. "What do they clear??" Cris asked. "A clearinghouse is a place where accounting takes place... Do they have a database of all the virgins or something?"
But the best quote from the news story is:
(The family who started the event) say most in the mainstream media see their family as a fundamentalist freak show.
The church's 11 a.m. service had recently ended, and hundreds of people were milling about when the gunman opened fire. Nearby were parents picking up their children from the nursery. The gunman was killed by a member of the church's armed security staff, the source said. Four people were shot...
One of the only times I've ever read that an armed security guard actually came in handy. Recent updates from local paper, including this wisdom (emphasis mine) from a teenager:
"Why would somebody walk into a church and do something like that?" asked New Life member Kim Ho-Fing-Loy, 16. "Especially with what just happened with Pastor Ted, this church just doesn't need this any more."
Of course, "what happened with Pastor Ted" happened over a year ago, but with precious little happening in that dead parcel of flyover land, it probably seems like yesterday.
In my bio page I've long had a section on "the Mark Pritchards I'm not," highlighting some of the other colorful people around the globe with my same name -- a Welsh footballer, an Australian cult leader, a British trance/ambient musician (he's probably the most famous), and so on.
There's also a fellow who was elected to the British Parliament a few years ago. This last worthy has never done anything significant, but today he's in the news because he's decided to carry water for far-right conservatives and yap about the "war on Christmas."
Faced with charges that he misused school funds for personal use, the president of Oral Roberts University, Richard Roberts, resigned from office last week. Today he told students that God had told him to resign, and in return would bless the school.
God told him on Thanksgiving that he should resign the next day, Roberts told students in the university's chapel. "Every ounce of my flesh said 'no'" to the idea, Roberts said, but he prayed over the decision with his wife and his father, Oral Roberts, and decided to step down.
Roberts said he wanted to "strike out" against the people who were persecuting him, and considered countersuing, but "the Lord said, 'don't do that,'" he said. ...
Roberts said God told him he would "do something supernatural for the university" if he stepped down from the job he held at the 5,700-student school since 1993.
This infantile view of God is so pathetic and ignorant that you have to wonder how these people ever heard of such a thing as a "university," much less how they were able to start and maintain one. The school -- if one can truly use that word -- is a branch of the Roberts "ministry," which is a word they use because they are afraid to call it a "church."
If this sort of "God told me" religion sounds familiar, that's because it's the same faith practiced by Pat Robertson, who has become a laughingstock for his "prophecies" that God will blast this or that city with a hurricane or earthquake if they vote the wrong way. (For example: "Mass killing" to strike U.S.; declares fatwa on Hugo Chavez; wants to drop nuke on State Department.)
Man, if the Democrats manage to fuck this up, there's just no hope.
Evangelicals find little to love in presidential field ... Republican strategist Arnold Steinberg said that he has found "enormous confusion" among evangelical voters as they consider the GOP presidential field. Social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage remain fundamental for such voters -- but in an era of war and terrorism, "their concerns about national security have trumped their values concerns," Steinberg said.
"They'll say, 'I disagree with Rudy -- but I'm terribly concerned about national security and Islamo-fascism,'" Steinberg said. "Some people will say they will never vote for a pro-choice Republican, (yet) they're voting for him."
This is one reason why Newt Gingrich decided not to run -- in the eyes of the fundies, with his divorces and all, he's no better than Giuliani.
Focus on the Fundies: Swinging pendulum hits foamers
This NYT magazine article on the changing political winds among evangelical (formerly hard-right-wing) Christian churches is fascinating. Finally disenchanted with the Karl Roves and Dick Cheneys and perhaps becoming more sensitive to what their religion actually says about caring for poor people and the earth, the denizens of meagachurches can no longer be counted on to vote straight Republican. The more politicized see no presidential candidate to vote for; the less politicized realize they've sold their silk purse for a sow's ear.
Important milestones in the disillusionment include the fall of Ted Haggard and David Kuo's book about Rove's manipulation of Christians for political gain.
I was amused by this story from the Sydney Morning Herald about "an American chastity evangelist" whose show includes plenty of stories of bad behavior that his tearful listeners soak up before pledging not to imitate them. This is a classic American approach, letting its audience revel in that which it purports to warn against, as seen in hundreds of Hollywood "anti-war" movies. The preacher, one Denny Pattyn, says he thinks Australia is ripe for his message. It would be depressing if it weren't so stupid and obviously doomed to fail.
In Japan, a filmmaker has made a Japanese version of a spaghetti western, called Sukiyaki Western Django. The actors speak in "ornately colloquial dialogue that rolls out of monolingual mouths like someone reciting the Gettysburg Address while gargling water."
The leader of a San Antonio "Faith Outreach Center" and a 20-year-old staffer at a "Christian Boot Camp" called Love Demonstrated Ministries are free on $100,000 bond (via Christianity Today) after being charged with aggravated assault for dragging a 15-year-old girl behind a van at the "boot camp." The "Faith Outreach Center" leader, a former Air Force "instructor" (it doesn't say drill instructor or what), had this to say: "I want to thank God I'm no longer in jail." Could be a temporary state.
There's this blogger Fred Clark, who writes the blog Slactivist where, among other interests, he has been going through the book Left Behind scene by scene. It's a long book and he has been at it literally for years -- and this is just the first volume. He goes through it to show just how completely stupid it is from a genuine Christian perspective. (Nonbelievers probably assume the book's prattle is standard Christian belief, which is just what the authors would like everyone to think. But most Christian denominations do not support belief in "the Rapture" or the system of millenialist beliefs espoused in the book and others like it, such as "The Late Great Planet Earth," the late 1960s-era book that pushed millenialist theology into the mainstream. Even the arch-conservative Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, which supports a literal reading of scripture, has officially taken a position against Left Behind.) Clark's writing is crisp and entertaining and the whole project is IMO an amazing act of literary and social criticism.
I mention him today because his latest post manages to link the events in the 1995 book with Burning Man. Worth reading through the whole long post just for the joke.
The Colorado Springs Gazette finally caught up to the story on Haggard's fundraising letter, interviewing Paul Huberty -- the registered sex offender whose organization Families with a Mission Haggard said would collect donations to him "if you want a tax deduction" for supporting the disgraced minister. According to Huberty, he had no agreement with Haggard to collect funds for him.
It gets better. The head of the "Dream Center" halfway house in downtown Phoenix said Haggard will not be working there, contrary to his letter. The Associated Press quotes a minister associated with the church that runs the halfway house: "That was premature. That is not part of his restoration plan. I think he visited the Dream Center saw it was a good place for people to rehab and got excited."
Now that's a disturbing image.
Makes you wonder what Haggard was on when he sent that fundraising appeal, which you can read in its entirety here. And Dan Savage, who has been covering the latest news with relish, posts updates.
More on Haggard: His new buddy is a registered sex offender
Courtesy Colorado Confidential, a posting from Stranger columnist Dan Savage that follows up on the story I posted about yesterday. It seems the person heading the organization Haggard is asking followers to send money to is actually a registered sex offender. Read the details.
Some of my favorite blog entries on the story:
A 32-year-old MySpace user "Religious Heather," whose page is named "sinnersmustdie," says "Do not support this sinner!!! Why doesn't he try to get a REAL job like the rest of us and not be bitter about being a religious hypocrite? I mean, if you're going to be holy, then don't fudge-pack male prostitutes. Atleast go to a gay bar like a lot of closet married men and get it for free. Nevermind -- I've seen what he looks like. No wonder he has to pay for it!"
A blog named "Revolution" says "I have three words for this jerk-off who is responsible for giving pastors everywhere a bad name and setting us back, yet again, to the Swaggart-Baker era: GET A JOB!"
Haggard, after raking in six figures, begs followers for money
Showing that a televangelist's greatest asset is his email database, disgraced fundie pastor Ted Haggard has sent followers a letter begging for money despite having made more than $300,000 since the beginning of 2006. Haggard's religious "overseers" sound pissed that he did something like this without asking them, but the really great thing in the story is how he's moving his whole family, including his two boys who are aged something like 9 and 12, into a halfway house in downtown Phoenix with former convicts, drug dealers, prostitutes and "street kids."
I'm sure that's the kind of terrific judgment he's going to show once he gets his degree in "counseling" from the University of Phoenix. How'd you like to have him as your shrink?
And perhaps not so coincidentally, the Colorado Springs Gazette interviews the interim leaders of Haggard's former church. Though most of the interview is behind a subscription wall, they do have the answer to the fascinating question: "Did Mike Jones do New Life (Church) a favor" by exposing Haggard?
Ding dong, Falwell dead. But wait, what's that smell?
Just when you thought it was safe to carry a red handbag again: A senior Polish official has ordered psychologists to investigate whether the popular BBC TV show Teletubbies promotes a homosexual lifestyle.
If a "homosexual lifestyle" means dressing up in a big furry suit and talking in ear-splitting baby voices, why yes, yes it does.
Note the nice link to the 1999 BBC story about Falwell's fatwa on the children's show.
Jerry Falwell has died after collapsing in his office at the far-right Christian college he founded, Liberty University. Falwell, 73, was vastly overweight.
I didn't want to miss pointing to this AP story headlined Christian Right at crossroads, about how the movement's founders (Robertson, Falwell, Dobson) are etting up there and how there are few figures standing up to take their place -- especially now that Ted Haggard has been neutralized. Also see my post from March 7 on the same topic.
Otherwise, Bush and his rapidly shrinking administration are officially beleaguered, even if the President himself can't spell that. But there are other things to worry about -- I found the interview on "Fresh Air" Monday with the author of a book on Blackwater USA completely chilling. The author's thesis is that Blackwater and the other "security contractors" hired to protect civilian and government interests in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots represent the outsourcing of the American military, with the object being to avoid Congressional oversight.
Never mind what the CIA and other security agencies are doing -- the Addingtons of the world are way ahead of you. Blackwater and its ilk can operate in complete privacy, ignore requests for information, ride roughshod over any notion of civil rights and the rule of law, with impunity. And author Jeremy Scahill's description of the secretive, powerful and far-right evangelical leaders of Blackwater is positively frightening. You really should listen to that "Fresh Air" segment -- if you're already depressed today, that is.
Focus on the Fundies: Baptist suggests no right to life for 'gay' fetuses
An influential pastor of the arch-conservative Southern Baptist persuasion has wondered aloud whether if homosexuality is indeed found to be biological in origin, should his followers eliminate "gay" fetuses, perhaps by wearing some sort of patch that prevented their birth?
Here is where the line blurs between someone has the ability to be a real visionary, and someone whose shriveled, scorched-earth version of religion has instead caused him to be a raving paranoid. In fact, it's quite a leap in the first place for one of these foamers to even admit to the possibility that homosexuality could have a biological component, because that would imply -- to someone with a somewhat more expansive soul -- that God created some people gay and thus it might not be as bad as they've always thought it is. No, instead this thought leads him to wonder what "you could do about it" (emphasis mine) in order to keep the putative queer from sin.
In an interview on Friday, Mohler said that Christian couples "should be open" to the prospect of changing the course of nature -- if a biological marker for homosexuality were to be found. He would not support gene therapy but might back other treatments, such as a hormonal patch.
"I think any Christian couple would want their child to be whole and healthy," he said. "Knowing that that child is going to be a sinner, we would not want to make their personal challenges more difficult if they could be less difficult."
Actually, there is some foundation in Christian teaching for what I think this fellow is proposing. Jesus himself is quoted as saying "if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire." (Matt. 18:9). I think this is what Mohler is getting at: what's the difference between a roving eye and a putatively sinful fetus? Why not keep the fetus from existing in the first place?
So the amazing thing about this cluck is not merely that he is suggesting the possibility of a biological basis for homosexuality, but that he is envisioning something that could actually justify abortion. You know, I always wondered who the foamers hated worse, women or gays. Now we know. They'd rather see women have a right to abortion if it meant the elimination of homosexuality.
Then, low down in the article is the real reason the guy's upset:
Homosexuality is a "huge challenge" to Christianity, said Mohler, referring, in part, to the Rev. Ted Haggard, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, who was forced to step down last November because of a gay sex scandal. And the Rev. Lonnie Latham, a member of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, was embroiled in a gay sex scandal but was found not guilty of having solicited sex from another man.
"In our churches and in our families there are people struggling with homosexuality and for a long time this was kind of hidden," Mohler said in the interview. "It is no longer hidden, and the fact is we've got to be coming up with genuinely Christian responses to Christians who are in this struggle."
Yes, even Brother Mohler understands that Ted Haggard is lying when he says he emerged from his rehab "one hundred percent heterosexual." And it scares the crap out of him. If fine upstanding preachers like Ted and Lonnie can be queer, how can he risk closing his eyes during the next men's prayer meeting? Some cocksucker might be sneaking up on him.
That he chose Dobson's show for this odd forgiveness ritual -- odd because Dobson, for all his power in the religious right, is not even a minister but only a psychologist -- is a transparent attempt to appeal to the far religious right.
The Tulsa newspaper did not manage to ask Latham the larger questions of whether he is gay or whether he regrets speaking out -- as he reportedly did when a pastor of a large Baptist church in Tulsa -- against gays and gay rights. Or even if he plans to resume his career as a minister.
I almost missed this, but a Google-alert link to a Daily Texan editorial tipped me off. There's a far-right christianist group, tellingly called the Council for National Policy, which meets every year to attempt to unite behind certain right-wing candidates and causes. They provided early support to G.W. Bush, for example, when Karl Rove pushed him out there in 1999 to begin his presidential run.
Well, this year they met a couple weeks ago and couldn't decide whom to support in the prexy sweeps. They know McCain and Giuliani can't stand them, and even deeply conservative Christian candidates like Sam Brownback are suspicious. Brownback isn't tough enough on immigrants, and he supports the growing pro-environmental movement among evangelicals. As for Mitt Romney, the "council" has decided he has held too many liberal positions in the past, though he's now trying to claim the mantle of Family Values Candidate and Ann Coulter loves him. So the "council" is bereft of choices.
What's really happening is a generational change. The founders of the Council for National Policy -- people like Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and Jerry LaHaye, are in their 70s. The new evangelicals are looking beyond the classic hot-button issues of gay rights and abortion to care for the environment -- even things that Jesus actually talked about, like feeding and housing the poor. They include people like Rick Warren, leader of one of the largest churches in the country and author of a book, "The Purpose Driven Life," which is hugely influential among fundies, Pentacostals and the suburbanites who pack the non-denominational megachurches, of which Warren's is one.
I have the feeling that power-hungry christianists like those in the "council" will figure out by the end of the year that they have to choose between Brownback (who could never win) and Romney (who is anonymous enough to squeak by under the radar, and besides, Ann Coulter...). Meanwhile I'm enjoying the notion that they're twisting in the wind.
Focus on the Fundies: Haggard's church in 12% staff layoff
New Life Church, the former fiefdom of Ted Haggard, has suffered such a drop in attendance and donations that it has been forced to lay off 44 staffers, about 12% of its 350-strong workforce.
Of course it's not just the drop in attendance and dough. They also paid at least $130,000 as go-away money to the formerly influental Republican fund-raiser and secret cock-sucking meth snorter. That could have paid for more than a few staffers, because I'll bet most of the minions at a place like that get paid pretty bad -- and are expected to tithe ten percent of it back to their employer, to boot.
In other news, there's a new book out called The Jesus Machine, about James Dobson and his ilk; its author was interviewed on Terry Gross today. Contrary to the book's subtitle ("How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America Are Winning the Culture War"), the interview was mainly about how the generation of Dobson and Jerry Falwell is about to pass from the scene and the Christianists have no one obvious to replace him with, especially now that Haggard is out.
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Ted Haggard 
First of all he uses the classic right-wing tactic of accusing the other side of what you're already doing; in this case it's "fascism," and to that all I can say is, it takes one to know one. 
Of course it's not just the drop in attendance and dough. They also paid 
