Category: Religion

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Dobson’s Choice

Dr. Dobson — your unelected Supreme Court Decider, has four body guards. I think this is fascinating. Capo James– the Godfather of the American Civil Religion– has bodyguards.

Who, I wonder, would want to kill Dr. Dobson? I mean, aside from all those liberals and progressives and environmentalists and any individuals who were tortured as a result of Bush Administration policies that Dobson endorses. Oh no. I mean, seriously, someone who really wants to stop him?

When a poor kid from the ghetto with special talent makes it to the big leagues, basketball, baseball, football, the first thing he does is hire a bodyguard.  Not because someone is threatening to kidnap or murder him, but to demonstrate that he is now important. Nobody is out to kill the dude. Nobody plans to assassinate a basketball player. The body guard, besides holding reservations for dinner or finding a parking spot for the Rolls, functions primarily as a status symbol.

Dobson claims he has received death threats. Oh yes, the forces of Satan are out to get him. But of course, if the forces of Satan were really out to get him, his body guards would be of absolutely no avail. In fact, this foolish trust he places in human efforts would endanger him, because we know that God would not approve. Think of all the times in the Bible that Israel put their trust in military might instead of God– they would be soundly defeated. Then they would repent, accept God’s new appointed leader, and charge on to victory.

God would be more faithful to James Dobson if he knew that Dobson trusted only in Him for his protection.

James Dobson wants you to vote Republican because he really, really, believes that that is what God wants you to do. He wants you to forget about science and physics and technology and teach your kids Creationism or Intelligent Design.

But as for his personal safety– there are those body guards.

On the contrary, I personally believe that Satan, if he is really as smart as they claim, would do everything within his power to keep James Dobson out there preaching and hectoring and advising Bush on Supreme Court appointments and so on, with his body guards, convincing millions of followers that being a chest-thumping militaristic materialistic patriotic American is as close as it comes to being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

In answer to my own question, Dobson believes you should stop spanking your children on the buttocks with a switch or a paddle by the time they are, oh, 10 or 11. Never spank teenagers. And if you secretly enjoy spanking– stop now. (Of course, the whole point of “secretly” enjoying spanking is that you know you should stop but don’t.) And never even attempt to spank the leaders of foreign countries like Iran or North Korea.

Who is the Council for National Policy? And why are they secretive?

Why does Dobson, who trusts in the Lord, have four bodyguards?

There’s some suspicion that Dobson may be quietly sucking up to McCain. If this is like a high-stakes game of chicken, Dobson just twitched.

[Confirmed later.  Once McCain won the nomination, they basically sucked up to each other.]

Number of Abortions
George Bush has prevented: 0

It’s like magic– take a pro-war militaristic Republican who wants to send your sons and daughters out to risk their lives on behalf of big oil and Walmart, look at his personal history, and, voila: no military service! James Dobson dodged the draft by signing up with the National Guard — de rigueur for these righteous dudes!

What if John McCain wins in November? Oh oh! James Dobson has stated emphatically that he would rather not vote at all than vote for John McCain. The leading Agent of Intolerance in the U.S. will certainly stick to his principles now, even if he never, ever gets invited to the White House again, or gets to brag on his website about chatting with the prez over which pro-torture appointee should get to be on the Supreme Court.

I’ll stick my neck out: if it ever begins to look like McCain has the slightest chance of winning, Dobson will frantically signal to the McCain campaign that he is willing to let bygones be bygones and help get out the vote– and if the election looks close, McCain will have to bite his tongue– or somebody else’s tongue– hard to tell lately– and accept the assistance. And if he wins, he’ll have to invite Dobson over to the White House and let him drop his name on the website and brag about his political influence again.

And those of us who used to think McCain had some independent spirit will shed a tear or two over lost illusions.

Now here’s a bet: McCain could win in November if, among other things, he announced that no self-proclaimed unaccountable religious leader is going to tell him who gets to be on the Supreme Court.

[Moments after writing the above, I googled the issue and was shocked to find that part one has already happened: Dobson has been making overtures to McCain to come meet him at his “Focus on the Fascist” headquarters in Boulder, Colorado. McCain has so far declined.]

 

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Obama’s Dobson

What’s the big deal? This story will last as long as the media can milk it, and then on to the next “scandal”. What is Jeremiah Wright if not nothing more than Barack Obama’s James Dobson?

James Dobson loves George Bush and regularly instructs him on who to nominate to the Supreme Court and who to appoint Attorney-General and whether or not God loves torture (he does– because he also likes spanking). Dobson is a crackpot neo-Victorian Puritan who has made himself extremely wealthy by easing parent’s consciences about controlling every aspect of their children’s lives until they get married and, maybe, move out of the home.

Like Wright, he says a lot of stupid things and Bush is as careful as Obama will be about associating himself too closely with the weirdo. Unlike Wright, Dobson is secretive and shrewd and hides from the public, but loves to name-drop in his radio addresses, bragging about calling up Bush and straightening him out regularly about the Lord’s will about this and that. Why is this not a scandal? Because it’s not a hot story. The Wright story won’t be hot in a few months either, because Obama has clearly distanced himself from his former pastor.

As if Dobson isn’t weird enough, we have Reverend John Hagee, who seems to believe that the U.S.’s main reason for existence is to supply Israel with military equipment, and a pulpit for his chubby son to practice on so he can inherit the family racket. John McCain hasn’t been asked to distance himself from this whacky supporter. Why is Obama being savaged for a similar relationship with Wright?

As others have noticed, there is a peculiar kind of coordination going on in the conservative pundits community on this and other stories. The story arrives through a blog or Youtube video or something, and then suddenly all of the conservative commentators, like a pack of jackals, dig into it and spin it the same way. I doubt they actually call each other first– it’s more like they just keep tabs on the spin of the day and join in as appropriate, and this gives the marvelous effect of the story being much bigger and far more significant than it really is. We saw that kind of spin during the Clinton impeachment, when, one after the other, they all suddenly seized on the idea that it was not the sex that was so impeachable, but the fact that he lied about it. Well, if they all say it, it must be true.

If you noticed that, you may also have noticed the coordinated approach to Hillary Clinton lately: she’s great. They love her. They thought she was crass and brassy and nannyish, but now they can see that she really is a very astute, refined woman who might make a great president. They are doing this because, as loyal Republicans, they want to be sure the Democrats put the best candidate forward in November. Right. Of course.

Very interesting. Who would the Republicans really rather have running against McCain this fall? I think conservatives think it’s Hillary, and I’m not sure they’re right. But when Irving Kristol stoops to praise Senator Clinton, you may want to dust off those Willie Horton posters. Is John McCain so lame that he would use his best weapon against Obama now? Why haven’t they gone after Clinton’s murky financial status, or feminist ideology, or flip-flops on Iraq? Because they didn’t think about it yet? Why are they even bothering to attack Obama when the primaries haven’t even ended?

*

Finally, Karl Rove is famous for a particular stratagem that has worked very well for failed Republican politicians: take your own greatest weakness, and accuse your opponent of having the same defect. That way, when he gets around to pointing out your biggest deficiencies, it will sound like “no, you’re a big fat liar”. The Republican responds: “I said it first!”

So you go after Kerry’s war record. You accuse the Democrats of “partisanship” during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice nominees. You claim they are trying to cheat the voters in Florida out of their votes. You accuse them of mudslinging.

And so Bush, astoundingly, attacks and blames the Democrats for the recession his administration has steered us into. Wow. That’s smart politics.

This may be the year the voters stop buying it. Maybe not. We can hope.

In the meantime, as I mourn the transmogrification of John McCain into Bush Jr. Jr., and marvel at the delusional persistence of Hillary Clinton, I observe that this is the most ridiculous and ineffective election system in the Western World. The whole thing should start in August of this year and end in November. And even that is too long.

Just How Evil is James Dobson:

(From Wikipedia)

From Wikipedia:

On June 24, 2008, Dobson publicly criticized statements made by U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama in Obama’s 2006 “Call to Renewal”[65] address. Dobson stated that Obama was “distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview.”[66] On October 23, 2008, Dobson published a “Letter from 2012 in Obama’s America” that proposed that an Obama presidency would lead to: mandated homosexual teachings across all schools; the banning of firearms in entire states; the end of the Boy Scouts, home schooling, Christian school groups, Christian adoption agencies, and talk radio; pornography on prime-time and daytime television; mandatory bonuses for gay soldiers; terrorist attacks across America; the nuclear bombing of Tel Aviv; the conquering of most of Eastern Europe by Russia; the end of health care for Americans over 80; out-of-control gasoline prices; and complete economic disaster in the United States, among other catastrophes.[67] In the days after the 2008 presidential election, Dobson stated on his radio program that he was mourning the Obama election, claiming that Obama supported infanticide, would be responsible for the deaths of millions of unborn children, and was “going to appoint the most liberal justices to the Supreme Court, perhaps, that we’ve ever had.”[68]

Dobson is an intelligent design supporter and has spoken at conferences supporting the subject, and frequently criticizes evolution,[69] contrary to the teachings of his Christian denomination, the Church of the Nazarene.[70] In 2007, Dobson was one of 25 evangelicals who called for the ouster of Rev. Richard Cizik from his position at the National Association of Evangelicals because Cizik had taken a stance urging evangelicals to take global warming seriously.[71]

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School Prayer Martyrs

Just once, could we please get the media to ask these students who insist that they are being denied their rights to exercise their religion, if they would stand up in front of their own Christian Colleges and demand that they permit an atheist to address their convocations and commencements. Just to show that it really is a principle at stake here.

When that happens, I will cease to be nauseated every time I hear another whiney Christian high school student bitterly complain that his religion is the only religion banned from public schools and it is just so unjust that he can’t express his deepest spiritual beliefs in his valedictory.

As if… as if these Christians really believe that they would be tolerant of other religions if they were in charge. This is the fundamental deceit of these bizarre confrontations: these Christians don’t want freedom of speech or pluralism. They want prayer, and the ten commandments to be obligatory at public schools. But when they complain to the press about their rights being trampled, nobody seems to want to bring that up. They pretend that they have always been tolerant of different religions and cultures, and that they have always had a very high regard for the rights of individuals to hold differing beliefs on major issues. And, by golly, if a student was selected to deliver the valedictory and he chose to say that the influence of religion on public life in the U.S. was pernicious and destructive, then, these Christian students so high on principles of free expression, would stand up for his right to deliver that speech too.

Even moderate Christian Colleges don’t invite feminists or evolutionists to lead official functions. They don’t believe there is any thing to “debate” about abortion or stem cell research. They barely invite Christians of different denominations, let alone Jews or Moslems. But we’re supposed to be outraged when a public high school decides that the rights of non-Christians in the student body or among the tax-paying parents should be respected.

The Banner (official magazine of the Christian Reformed Church) on August 5, carried another story about a poor little oppressed Christian high school student who won’t be permitted to lead his fellow graduates in prayer at his graduation. It’s about time The Banner and all the other Christian periodicals and websites that carry these stories start clarifying whether they really care about free speech— guest editorial by Noam Chomsky, anyone?– or if it just another feel-good pat yourself on the back self-serving tale of contrived repression.

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Billy Graham’s Irresistible Sexual Allure

The great American evangelist Billy Graham, who has never been caught in the slightest scandal– depending on how one defines “scandal”–, has a strict personal policy of never being alone with any woman except his wife. Since he doesn’t listen to her– she didn’t want to be buried at the new Billy Graham Theme Park, but he buried her there anyway, so that more tourists would come– Graham thinks this has kept him free of sin. (In fairness to Billy, it appears that his son, Franklin, is the driving force behind the burial decision, but Billy clearly had final call.)

And what kind of idiot decides that to visit Billy Graham’s wife’s grave is some kind of edifying experience?

It is very, very odd that Billy Graham has never been quite so public about a vow to never, ever be alone in a room with a man with a lot of money. Or a man with a lot of political power. Or a man who wants to create the impression that he is very devout and prays deeply and sincerely for a long time before bombing the shit out of a country?

Does this practice do him credit? How creditable is it to know that Billy Graham feels that no one should have confidence in his ability to resist the advances of an attractive woman in a room alone with him? And how creditable is it to the women with whom he interacts professionally, to know that they can never have a solo meeting with this very important evangelist (who has body guards and limousines) but their male colleagues can?

And of course, Billy is missing the most important flaw in his prophylactic little policy: who knows if the man he is meeting with, alone, isn’t a homosexual? What if Billy himself….

Obviously, Billy Graham should never be left alone with anyone… and that includes the President of the United States, even if he does want to pray before invading and bombing and destroying a country under false pretenses.  Or, like Bill Clinton, confess to a scandalous sin and ask for help in praying for forgiveness (probably the most absurd thing an American evangelist has ever consented to– Bill Clinton couldn’t pray without your assistance?  What kind of religion is this?)

You might object– the President of the United States? Are you mad? Do you honestly think the President of the United States would be so foolish as to…. oh my goodness! I’m right!

It has been said that Graham’s practice is “wise”, not only because it helps him resist temptation and remain “pure”, but because it also makes him less vulnerable to false accusations. Of course, the same could be said about meeting with men with money or political power: someone might believe that Graham compromised his principles so he could use someone’s private jet or limo or hotel room, or get invited to the White House or something. Or is that just in my filthy mind?

From A Christian Writer in the Christian Reformed Church’s Official Magazine: The Banner:

‘The students seemed to like it. I didn’t but then my wife, jokingly, keeps threatening to buy me one of those caps with “Old Fogie” plastered on the front, except the word emblazoned across the brim isn’t “fogie”. You know.’

Am I mistaken or did this writer just substitute the word “fogie” for “fart” because he thought “fart” would offend his reading audience? This man takes himself seriously as a writer. How can anyone else? This man is afraid of words, he can’t stand them, he can’t face them, he can’t digest the full breadth of reality because his aesthetic sensitivity is so delicate that he would collapse into a black hole of dainty-quainty tea-times and pewter plates and water-colour sea-scapes… FART. There. Now I understand.

I realized later that the “f” word in the ball cap might be something other than “fart”. Not likely. I doubt his wife would have offered to buy him such a cap, even jokingly. But maybe she has a more interesting sense of humour than I assume….

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Donald Miller: Blue Like Disappointed

“Blue Like Jazz” is another one of those books by an evangelical Christian that describes a long, exotic path through an allegedly real and intellectually credible world encountering various challenges to Christian culture that ends up– eureka!–  exactly where it began, in a traditional, evangelical Christian faith. The message is– I am like you. I have the same standards for intellectual and scientific credibility that you thinking people do. I have just as low a threshold of tolerance for bullshit, deceit, distortion, and glibness as you do. And I know that many high-profile evangelists appear to be smarmy corrupt charlatans. And by golly, that don’t mean that what they’re preaching is wrong….

Donald Miller may not be conservative politically, but his discussion of Christianity itself, what belief means, who Jesus was, and how God operates in the world, is alarmingly like Billy Graham’s. In fact, I doubt the two would really find much to disagree about, even if Miller once protested against Bush. I can see “Uncle Billy” smiling indulgently and saying, “shucks, you young folk! Why, I’m glad you’re concerned about global warming. It’s better than having promiscuous sex.”

In fact, it’s quite striking how conventional his faith life is. He goes on and on about how he re-examines some major political or psychological idea and turns it upside down and learns that he is so humble that he was very mistaken when he had previously thought he was not humble enough.

If the issue is that most evangelicals don’t really have the passion to really live out the requirements of their beliefs… he’s scaring me. That is precisely what makes some evangelicals most like Jihadists: the absolute conviction that we are right, because God told us we were right, and nobody else can prove otherwise, and therefore we must take control, for God.

But Miller doesn’t really discuss the content of his faith very much. He talks a lot about going to church or not going to church and tithing or not tithing and how he hangs around with people who cuss and watch “South Park”, leaving one to wonder why he even accepts the idea that he should tithe. It might be a perfectly good idea. It might be an irrelevant relic of a completely different time and place. But he doesn’t explain why, other than to say that God wants him to. How does he know this? Because his friend Rick tells him? How does Rick know? What authority decreed this? Well, of course, probably scripture. But here we get a blank: how does he know what scripture means? Any searching intellect would ask these questions.

Why does Donald Miller’s brain seem to suddenly lose it’s curiosity when it comes to actually discussing the content of faith?

Miller seems to regard an evangelical faith as something hermetic and isolated. You either accept it or you don’t. That appears to me to based on the assumption that the Christian faith is a mysterious but insular little thing that is not affected by your actual behavior. Or is it that your faith is not necessarily indicated by your actual behavior?

10 Real Issues Donald Miller doesn’t deal with
in “Blue Like Jazz”:

1. Is the bible “infallible”? If it is, what does that mean? Should we stone adulteresses?

2. How do you know that a “good” humanist is going to hell, while you’re going to heaven?

3. Is there a hell? How do you know? Where on earth did you find out about it? Who told you? How do you know it’s true? Do you accept everything you are told without question?  (There is no hell: go back to your bible and research the issue.  Even most serious Christian apologists acknowledge that the concept of “hell” came from the Greeks, not from the Old Testament or the gospels.)

4. I’m curious about why you find Bush’s foreign policy something you can question, but not the virgin birth? What is the difference? Both involve tantalizing, ecstatic conceptions and then the pain of passing something impossibly large through a tiny factual reality. We will all require stitches.

5. Does God work miracles today, here and now? Should you pray for specific things you want?

6. At one point, Miller describes how, after his friend Rick persuaded him to start tithing, no matter how much money he was making, he suddenly started making more money.  Oh no– seriously?  Was this God answering prayer? Earthly reward for piety? Coincidence?

 

Donald Miller sees “Romeo and Juliet” with a girl and spoils the effect of the evening by observing that Romeo and Juliet were actually dead at the end of the play.

I think he meant to suggest that he himself was above the kind of sophomoric wisdom of Shakespeare’s play– that true love is magnificent and fulfilling and wonderful. Unfortunately for Miller, that isn’t the real message of the play in the first place, though that is the way most people tend to understand it nowadays. Shakespeare meant to show us that excess, of passion, of will, of impulse, leads to tragedy.

Donald Miller makes it clear that he is disgusted by the sense that Christians are “selling” the gospel, advertising it as a cure-all, fix-all, miracle cure for what ails yah.

But on his website, here is how he describes his newest book:

Every person is constantly seeking redemption (or at least the feeling of it) in his or her life, believing countless gospels that promise to fix the brokenness. Typically their pursuits include the desire for fulfilling relationships, successful careers, satisfying religious systems, status, and escape. Miller reveals how the inability to find redemption leads to chaotic relationships, self-hatred, the accumulation of meaningless material possessions, and a lack of inner peace. Readers will learn to identify in themselves and within others the universal desire for redemption. They will discover that the gospel of Jesus is the only way to find meaning in life and true redemption. Mature believers as well as seekers and new Christians will find themselves identifying with the narrative journey unfolded in the book, which is simply the pursuit of redemption.

Credit card orders accepted.

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Billy Graham’s Limousine

It has always disturbed me that Billy Graham has body guards and travels in a limousine. Billy Graham used to defend this practice by pointing out that you don’t get to meet the President of the United States in a Volkswagen bus.

So, firstly, who said you had to meet the President of the United States? Graham would respond that he is a better evangelist because people see him with the most dishonest President of the United States in history and think, by golly, I think I might want to share that man’s faith.

Graham obviously believes that his celebrity status makes him a better missionary. It is amazing to me that it hasn’t entered his head that his celebrity status might be exactly the thing Satan most wants him to have.

Have you taken a good, close look at Billy Graham’s Limo driver?

Secondly, it’s a lie. Having a limousine really doesn’t factor into anyone’s considerations for who might meet with the President. War heroes, scientists, great writers and musicians– none of them seem to feel a need to acquire a limo so they would be more likely to meet the President.

They count on public admiration of what they actually do.

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Torturing the Pharisees and Scribes

Church Groups Getting Ready for the Election:

Evangelical Christians in the United States, by an overwhelming margin, support George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in this election which means they support their policies which include torture.  They can’t hide from this: evangelical Christians support the use of torture to deal with terrorism.

I think every conservative, evangelical, Hillary-bashing congregation should dedicate at least one Sunday this fall to an in depth discussion of how Jesus would torture the Pharisees if he really, really needed some information from them. Suppose they were holding Mary and Peter hostage somewhere.  Or or the Holy Grail.

So, how would Jesus torture?  Cattle prods? Water-boarding? Sleep-deprivation and beatings? What would Jesus do? The results could be collected into a position paper and presented to George Bush at one of those frequent prayer breakfasts or other meetings

Conservatives love emergencies. That’s when they get to take control. If you let them. They thrive on fear– because they assume that others are prepared to do to us what they are prepared to do to others.

The question Al Qaeda has to ask itself is, “where is America’s oil”.

The answer: right below your feet.

 

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Excommunication

I am listening to an mp3 of a sermon by the pastor of the New City Fellowship Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The pastor is saying that New City Fellowship Church never excommunicates anyone for sinning.

No no no– they only excommunicate people who refuse to stop sinning.

Not very aphoristic is it? Not a neat little parallel statement: my intuition is, what’s the difference? And I don’t think my intuition is altogether mistaken on the issue.

Pastor Randy Nabors talks as if sins were discrete, isolated acts that violate clear and simple rules issued by God in the bible, in English, and which are readily available in printed form, comprehensible and unchanging.

That was the mistake of the Pharisees, of course. And the first thing we deny is that we are, in fact, behaving exactly like the Pharisees. We just can’t help it.

The truth is, we love rules, because we love strutting around pointing out that other people have broken them. We deny that we are being legalistic or proscriptive or simplistic or pietistic or moralistic and we do all those things by saying that you can only be forgiven if you stop sinning, as if there was the remotest chance in hell that we could ever stop sinning or that you who demand that we stop sinning are not, at this very moment, sinning yourself.

I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that you have repented and are therefore forgiven at the moment when you have stopped sinning. I believe that you “repent” when you acknowledge that all of us are corrupt human beings who are utterly unworthy of God’s grace and unlikely to receive it on our own through our own virtuous actions.

You see– that’s the part I don’t believe Pastor Nabors and most Christian preachers really believe– that they haven’t “earned” it. Theologically, of course, they might say they haven’t, but they don’t really believe it. How can you possibly identify other people as sinners– so bad, they must be expunged from a congregation– unless you truly believe yourself to be so worthy that you can sit in righteous judgment?

They will object:

When they begin their judgments, they say, “of course we are all sinners, but” and then they should stop.

They’ve already said the important thing: they too are sinners. That’s enough.

There is no “but”, no qualification that suddenly, miraculously entitles them to sit in judgment.

“When they said, repent, repent, repent, I wondered what they meant.” Leonard Cohen, the Future.

Pastor Randy Nabors’ sermon was supposed to be about Jezebel, but it turns out it isn’t about very much at all. It is 34 minutes long, and it consists of a long sequence of utterly unremarkable observations and rules. Surprise, surprise, those rules you have heard repeated to you 30,000 times by now are true the 30,001st time and the 30,002nd time too. Maybe. Now do you know what the rules are?

I was really disappointed. New City Fellowship is a very diverse congregation and seems to be involved in some genuinely interesting urban ministries. But there was nothing in this sermon that sounded the slightest bit interesting: don’t sin, Jesus loves you, Jezebel was evil, don’t marry people who don’t respect me (non-Christians).

Why is this same message repeated every Sunday? You can’t remember it? Or could it be that the message is not meant to be teaching or preaching.  It’s a public expression of the sinlessness of the faithful listeners, isn’t it? You affirm your own purity and worthiness by receiving this sermon and looking at your neighbors and receiving their approving looks (unless you have a nose ring) smiling and nodding and saying, “amen, brother”, for I am not a sinner like those people…. Me too– I’m against Jezebel.

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Elmer Gantry 2006

Larry Ross is a PR man. He is a spin-master. He is a man who makes a very good living selling his ability to manipulate and control the mass media..

If Larry Ross had been around in 33 AD, perhaps Jesus himself might have ended up as one of King Herod’s top advisors, instead of on the cross. Larry Ross might have pointed out that the comment about tearing down and rebuilding the temple in three days would not go over well.

And Jesus doesn’t mean that the Pharisees are actually hypocrites. He means that some Pharisees hold views which could lead to misunderstandings if not received within the correct context.

And if he hadn’t been able to stop Christ from actually speaking those mistakes, he might at least have stepped in front of Jesus and declared to the crowd, “What the lord is saying is that, metaphorically, he hopes that all of us can renew our spirits after divesting ourselves of the residue of our sinful inclinations.”

Reporter: Does your client claim to be the son of God?
Larry Ross: I think that all Jews will be able to draw their own conclusion about who the messiah is once all the facts are in and the prophecies have been examined by qualified scribes and Pharisees.

Larry Ross has worked for Billy Graham and helped him straighten out the general public after tapes showed that he thought Jews were ruining the country. I say he had to straighten out the general public, which had perhaps obtained the erroneous impression that Billy Graham had said something offensive.

The idea was not to admit that it was offensive and that Graham– and Nixon– had held racist beliefs. No, no, no– the correct idea is that Billy Graham, a long time ago, used unfortunate language to make comments he could not remember having made but which, taken in the correct context, and understood within the larger framework of Billy Graham’s ministry, really shouldn’t disturb anyone. So I did nothing wrong, I don’t admit I did anything wrong, but if you think I might have done something wrong, that’s your problem.

Just as I am, without one plea. No no no! My client means that he approaches God as a humble man who may have made mistakes in the past but only wishes to devote himself now to end abusive sinfulness and it’s tragic effects on individual salvation.

Mel Gibson hired Larry Ross to help market “The Passion”. He chose wisely. Larry Ross had already had the distinguished opportunity to promote “Veggie Tales: The Movie” by getting Pastors to view it first, and then promote it within their congregations, before promoting to the general public and allowing movie reviewers to see it. Veggie Tales. Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter which.

He had one clever idea. He got Mel Gibson to record messages that could be send to Pastor’s recording machines while they were likely to be out. That way, a pastor could casually remark to a member of his congregation: “Yeah, got another message from Mel Gibson the other day. Geez, the guy won’t leave me alone. Maybe I will show his film in church next week, just to get him off my back…” That’s Christian PR.

Ross has also worked for controversial evangelist/faith-healer Benny Hinn and Promise Keepers and the makers of the film “Left Behind”. And his biggest star, Rick Warren, author of the “The Purpose-Driven Life”.

When asked by a New York Times reporter if he had ever made a mistake, he couldn’t think of any. Of course, he also denied, at first, having provided Benny Hinn Ministries with the benefits of his expertise.

I’m not sure anybody really cares that some of our so-called religious leaders make use of modern, cutting-edge public relations techniques in getting their message out. The argument would be that using the best methods to save souls for Jesus is a good thing.

But then, how difficult is it to turn around and beseech our young people not to compromise with the values of “the world” but stand firm and true and faithful to the values of the gospel? If the Christian values and Biblical principles are enough, why on earth would you need a spin doctor? If you really believed they were– you wouldn’t. You just wouldn’t. So if you tell young people not to surrender to the ways of the world while you’re consulting your spin doctor, you are a hypocrite.

How credible is the gospel message itself, if we know that it is now being test-marketed?

How credible is Graham when he responds to this documented exchange with Nixon with “I don’t remember the conversation”? Is it really possible? Even if he has forgotten this particular conversation, is it possible he could have forgotten that he hated the Jews? Or that he loved the status and the glory of visiting the White House?

Billy Graham’s conversation with Nixon about the Jews.

This stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain,” the nation’s best-known preacher declared as he agreed with a stream of bigoted Nixon comments about Jews and their perceived influence in American life.

You believe that?” Nixon says after the “stranglehold” comment.

Yes, sir,” Graham says.

Oh, boy,” replies Nixon. “So do I. I can’t ever say that but I believe it.”

“No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something,” Graham replies.

Mother Theresa had a lawyer.

Billy Graham’s remarks, followed by  rather distressing attempt to suck up to Nixon after a prayer breakfast.  Can you trust anybody nowadays?  No  Can’t trust the website above either.  If it worries you, try the BBC instead..

Marginal stuff..

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Samuel Alito’s Personal Views

I don’t give heed to my personal views. I interpret the law,” he has said. Washington Post, January 9, 2006

I’m sure conservatives must believe that liberals do the same thing, but, in the debate about Judge Alito, I have to highlight the determination of conservatives to associate their issues with motherhood and apple pie values to sell them to a majority of Americans who probably don’t really share their views.

Do most Americans want to roll back “one man, one vote”? Alito does. He voted against a ruling that prohibited states from awarding congressional delegates on the basis of radically unequally populated districts. So they would map a huge proportion of blacks into one large district and give them one delegate, and then map white neighborhoods into numerous districts, giving them many delegates. Alito did not see a problem.

His defenders could probably rightly argue that the founders of the nation did not intend “one man, one vote”. That is surely true, because the founders of the nation did not expect negro slaves to be voting at all, ever. Is that what Americans want? But that’s what conservatives are really talking about when they claim that they only want “strict constructionists” on the Supreme Court. Why is this idea so holy? Do people seriously believe that humankind hasn’t made any progress since 1776?

Think about it– conservatives want a country that is guided, in law, by the intentions and ideals of rich white men who lived in the 18th century in New England. That’s democracy?

Did the writers of the constitution intend for women to vote? Did they intend for corporations to be held liable for deaths and injuries caused by pollution or defective gas tanks? Did they ever imagine, in their wildest dreams, that any business or organization would ever not have the right to fire homosexuals?

My second gripe about the conservative defense of Alito is this “personal” business. Alito claims that he would never allow his personal views to affect his rulings. He asks us to believe that the Bush administration should really have no reason to prefer him, over, say, Laurence Tribe. Or he wants us to believe that Tribe’s personal views will affect his interpretation of the constitution, but Alito’s will not. What a glorious ego! Is he any good– ask him. Conservatives don’t have an ideology: they make perfect sense. It’s those liberals who hold extremist, radical views.

It would be a great service to all of mankind, and to the cause of truth in general, if everyone would just get over this issue and proclaim, loudly from every rooftop, “of course my personal views will affect my judicial actions– that’s what they’re there for”. Because this is pure bullshit. What planet do these conservatives come from? They ask us to believe that all of Alito’s previous positions and policies were all based solely on his amazing and transcendent affinity with the pure law, up there in the heavens, and have never once been sullied with human feelings or passions or preferences. The fact that all of his previous rulings and positions– every single one of them– supported conservative ideology is pure coincidence.

Conservatives seem to believe that it is a transcendent, eternal truth that homosexuality is a willful act of social defiance. It is a transcendent, eternal truth that women’s work is not as valuable as a man’s work. It is a transcendent, eternal truth that black children and white children should not share a classroom.

And somehow they believe that it is judicial “activism” to read, into the constitution, the right of the government to regulate the activities of a woman’s womb.

This would be a joke if this myth were not so insistently parroted by everyone on the right now as they form a magical choir, uniformly singing the praises of “Alito, Alito.” Roll back judicial activism! Rosa Parks– get back to the back of the bus!

And the reason they rejected Harriet Maier so vehemently? Not for her ideology or personal views, surely– which were suspect on abortion or women’s rights. No, no, no– we don’t judge nominees by their “personal views”, no, no, no.

It’s because she didn’t have that mystical, pure affinity with divine law. Or maybe because she was a broad– I don’t know.