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Archive for December 8th, 2006

Jerry Fallwell, Secret Druid

Posted by scott on December 8th, 2006

Our friend (and bad movie expert) Happenstance emailed us a link to this story: 

Falwell’s Flub: Jerry-Rigged Policy Opens Door For Pagan Proselytizing In Virginia Public School

A group of Pagans in Albemarle County, Va., was recently given permission to advertise their multi-cultural holiday program to public school children – and they have the Rev. Jerry Falwell to thank for it.

The dispute started last summer when Gabriel and Joshua Rakoski, twins who attend Hollymead Elementary School, sought permission to distribute fliers about their church’s Vacation Bible School to their peers via “backpack mail.” Many public schools use special folders placed in student backpacks to distribute notices about schools events and sometimes extra-curricular activities to parents.

School officials originally denied the request from the twins’ father, Ray Rakoski, citing a school policy barring “distribution of literature that is for partisan, sectarian, religious or political purposes.”

A Charlottesville weekly newspaper, The Hook, reports that Rakoski “sicced the Liberty Counsel on the county,” and the policy was soon revised to allow religious groups to use the backpack mail system. Liberty Counsel is a Religious Right legal group founded by Mathew Staver and now affiliated with Falwell.

As you may recall, earlier this week The Christmas Guys (Bob “Blot o’ Mustard” Marley, his brother Daryl, and his other brother Daryl) spammed the comments with a bunch of cut-and-pasted legal decisions — or in some cases, just court cases — in an effort to prove that Christmas was under assault by the ACLU and activist judges.  Well, to paraphrase Jesus, “Live by the tort, die by the tort.”

Some local Pagans who attend Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church, a Unitarian-Universalist congregation in Charlottesville, decided to take advantage of the new forum as well. They created a one-page flier advertising a Dec. 9 event celebrating the December holidays with a Pagan twist and used the backpack system to invite the entire school community.

“Have you ever wondered what ‘Holidays’ refers to?” reads the flier. “Everyone knows about Christmas – but what else are people celebrating in December? Why do we celebrate the way we do?”

The flier invites people to “an educational program for children of all ages (and their adults), where we’ll explore the traditions of December and their origins, followed by a Pagan ritual to celebrate Yule.”

It concludes, “Come for one or both parts and bring your curiosity.”

Many members of this congregation are strong supporters of church-state separation who don’t believe public schools should promote any religion. But they were also unwilling to cede the field to Falwell and his fundamentalist allies. Falwell opened the backpack forum, and the Pagans were determined to secure equal time.

Suddenly not everyone was pleased by the open forum. Jeff Riddle, pastor of Jefferson Park Baptist Church in Charlottesville, wrote on his personal blog, “If the school allows the Baptist or Methodist church to send home a note to its students about Vacation Bible School, it also has to allow the Unitarian Church to send home a note about its ‘Pagan ritual to celebrate Yule’….This kind of note adds weight to the argument that it is high time for Christians to leave public schools for reasonable alternatives (homeschooling and private Christian schools).”

Another conservative Christian blogger in the county complained about finding the flier in her child’s folder. Apparently unaware of Falwell’s role in bringing it about, the blogger who goes by the name Cathy, noted disclaimer language at the bottom of the flier noting that the event is not connected to the school and wrote, “They [the school officials] aren’t endorsing or sponsoring this? Then it shouldn’t have been included in the Friday folders. The Friday folders have never been used for any thing other than school work and school board and/or County sanctioned/sponsored programs.”

She then fumed that a “pagan ritual” is “an educational experience my children don’t need.”

Well, Cathy and Jeff, it’s a new day. Your pals Falwell and Staver have opened up this forum, and now everyone gets to use it. Isn’t that what you wanted all along – freedom of religion? That freedom means all religions – even ones you don’t happen to like.

As of press time, Liberty Counsel is now suing to overturn the Law of Unintended Consequences.  In the meantime, CBS has cancelled A Charlie Brown Christmas, and replaced it with this evergreen holiday classic:

They Grow Up So Fast

Posted by scott on December 8th, 2006

In The American Prospect, Big Media Brad from Sadly, No! goes the ISG Report one better, and presents a simple, foolproof plan for winning the War on Christmas:

Here are some modest proposals: 1.) A 1,000 percent sales tax on wrapping paper and mistletoe, revenues from which will fund a commune of gay Wiccan avant garde cellists. 2.) We ban the sale of all Christmas records except for Terry Bradshaw Sings Christmas Songs for the Whole Family and the non-religious holiday music composed by the gay Wiccan cellists.

Click here for the rest.

Irony May Not Be Dead, But Someone Just Gave It A Dose of Polonium-210

Posted by scott on December 8th, 2006

In a round-up of conservative reaction to the Iraq Study Group report in today’s Los Angeles Times, we find this:

[C]onservative commentator William J. Bennett vented in volcanic fashion. “In all my time in Washington I’ve never seen such smugness, arrogance, or such insufferable moral superiority,” Bennett wrote on the National Review website. “Self-congratulatory. Full of itself. Horrible.”

When reached at a local T.G.I.Friday’s, the nicotine-addicted former Drug Czar, secret compulsive gambler, and author of The Book of Virtues declined further comment, instead requesting a bucket as he returned his attention to his Baby Back Ribs and Jack Daniels-basted Sizzling Triple Meat Combo Platter.

Are you a passive-purple-four-ball?

Posted by scott on December 8th, 2006

Well?

Are you?!

If you’ve never bothered to ask yourself that question before, then the question answers itself, because an indifference to your passive-purple-four-ball status is a classic sign of passive-purple-four-ballity.

Or so I gather from this bit of spam sent to me by Calvary Press:

Manly Dominion: In a Passive-Purple-Four-Ball World – by Mark Chanski
Are you a passive-purple-four-ball? In billiards, the four-ball is passive; it’s the one that gets knocked around by the other balls. Christian man, is that you?

If so, you must learn to become a ball knocker, not he whose balls are knocked.

Are you knocked around by your environment, rather than taking your God-given assignment to lead? Are you passive when faced with difficult situations at home, church or work? Unfortunately, the world today is filled with many passive-purple-four-ball men, who are clueless as to how to deal with their work environment, relate to their wives, raise their children, spiritually guide their families, and lead with confidence in their churches.

That does sound like a lot of work, especially when you’ve got two extra balls to deal with.  It must feel like hobbling around with a fleshy sack of Clackers.

Mark Chanski’s book is a clarion call to all Christian men to face life’s challenges with Manly Dominion.

Now with patented Purple-Four-Ball-Be-Gone.

It will challenge and encourage you to lead, wherever God places you, with Spirit-filled conviction. The wisdom contained herein is from the most reliable source known: God’s Word, the Bible.

As interpreted by his inerrant prophet, Mark Chanski (a graduate of Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary).

As you read, you will discover that Chanski touches on just about every subject that a man needs to consider in his life, and he does so with unequalled clarity. No Christian man (or woman!) living in today’s world should be without it. Read carefully, and transform your life!

Yes, it’s a complicated metaphor, so read carefully, or you might not be able to disentangle Mark’s subtle symbology:

“Man is to aggressively dominate his environment, instead of allowing his environment to dominate him,” Chanski writes. “I am not to be a passive-purple four-ball! I am rather to be a stick-carrying player! In the spheres of my life, I must subdue and rule, and not permit myself to be subdued and ruled.

So cinch up your spheres, boys, and grab your stick, before your old lady gets her hands on it and declares her dominion over the Earth and makes you go with her to Target on Saturday.

“In the Lord Jesus Christ, the Christian finds his ultimate model for subduing and ruling over the opposing circumstances of our sin cursed world,” he writes.

Although Jesus was fined twice for using illegal submission holds, and one time he got a two-week suspension for using a foreign object, so, you know, don’t go all crazy.

Anyway, Mark’s wisdom arrived on the same day that the front page of the Los Angeles Times highlighted another front in the anti-passive-purple-four-balls war, Manliness is next to godliness:

Brad Stine runs onstage in ripped blue jeans, his shirt untucked, his long hair shaggy. He’s a stand-up comic by trade, but he’s here today as an evangelist, on a mission to build up a new Christian man — one profanity at a time. “It’s the wuss-ification of America that’s getting us!” screeches Stine, 46.

A moment later he adds a fervent: “Thank you, Lord, for our testosterone!”

Hold hands with strangers? Sing love songs to Jesus? No wonder pews across America hold far more women than men, Stine says. Factor in the pressure to be a “Christian nice guy” — no cussing, no confrontation, in tune with the wife’s emotions — and it’s amazing men keep the faith at all.

“We know men are uncomfortable in church,” says the Rev. Kraig Wall, 52, who pastors a small church in Franklin, Tenn. — and is at GodMen to research ways to reach the husbands of his congregation. His conclusion: “The syrup and the sticky stuff is holding us down.”

As dieties go, Jesus is just too saccharine.  You get the blood of the lamb, when you really want to see the blood gushing from the nose of the infidel you just decked for dissing your Headship.

John Eldredge, a seminal writer for the movement, goes further in “Wild At Heart,” his bestselling book. “Christianity, as it currently exists, has done some terrible things to men,” he writes. Men “believe that God put them on earth to be a good boy.”

But if you dig down deep into scripture, you’ll find that God really put you on earth to be a remoreless, unstoppable killing machine made of liquid metal.  So I advise all Christians concerned about their masculinity to visit their nearest zinc-plating establishment and avail themselves of the hot dip galvanizing process.

Stine asks the men: “Are you ready to grab your sword and say, ‘OK, family, I’m going to lead you?’”

My dad was a profoundly decent man, and would never have grabbed his sword in front of the family.  Still, I don’t want to give the false impression that, what with all the talk of cue-sticks and sword-grabbing, there’s anything remotely phallocentric about this program.

A workshop called “Training the Penis” encourages men to talk openly about temptation and bond with guys who share their struggles.

Okay.  Check that.

Fortunately, this isn’t just another avenue for sneaking Promise Keeper-style misogyny into the home:

He also distributes a list of a real man’s rules for his woman. No. 1: “Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl. If it’s up, put it down.”

Doesn’t that sound like just the sort of thing Jesus would have said to Mary Magdalene if he’d had indoor plumbing?

Stine’s wife, Desiree, says she supports manly leadership; it seems to her the natural and God-ordained order of things. As she puts it: “When the rubber hits the bat, I want to know my husband will protect me.”

Admittedly, Stine’s philosophy does seem to be working in his own home, but we should note that he may have an unfair advantage, since he clearly married an idiot.  For the rest of us, living by the New Testosterone Testament may prove a bit more challenging:

But some men at the conference run into trouble when they debut their new attitudes at home. Eric Miller, a construction worker, admits his wife is none too pleased when he takes off, alone, on a weekend camping trip a few weeks after the GodMen conference this fall.  “She was a little bit leery of it, as we have an infant,” he reports. “She said, ‘I need your help around here.’ ”

Miller, 26, refuses to yield: “I am supposed to be the leader of the family.”

And leaders get to abdicate their responsibilities whenever they want and go off camping, or cutting brush, or blasting pen-raised quail.  It says so in the Bible.  Book of Jerks, Chapter 7, Verse 18.

He’s pretty sure his wife will come around once she recognizes he’s modeling his life after Jesus’, like a good Christian should. It’ll just take a little explaining, because the Jesus he has in mind is the guy on the wanted poster: “confrontational and sarcastic when he needed to be,” Miller says, and determined to use “whatever means was necessary to achieve his goal.”

Jesus’ goal was eternal salvation for Mankind.  Miller’s goal is to avoid changing a diaper.  The parallels are a little too eerie if you ask me.

And the increased steroid content in today’s sacramental wine may explain the War on the War on Christmas:

A few weeks later, Stephenson, 43, is still not sold on profanity. But he has ditched the nice-guy reflex of always turning the other cheek. When he spots a Wal-Mart clerk writing “Happy Holidays” on a window, he boldly complains: It should say “Merry Christmas.”

The clerk erases the offending greeting. Chalk one up for Christian testosterone

Then when the self-satisfied Stephenson left the store with his gallon jug of French’s Mustard, an US magazine to read on the crapper, and a set of new floor mats, the clerk erased Merry Christmas and wrote Happy Holidays again.  Chalk one up for turning the other cheek until the assholier-than-thou customer heads back to his car.

So what does it mean for Christianity that there are so many frustrated, insecure adherents desperately searching for a way to express Jesus’ message of love and peace in a manner that is spiritually authentic, but more violent and intimidating?  Well, it’s just another indication that many of our evangelicals are simply in the wrong religion.  The crusading era of Christianity is over, guys, you missed it.  If you’re looking to convert a few heathens at sword point, you’re not likely to get a purse of gold and a papal writ from the Fifth United Methodist Church in Wheaton, Illinois.

However, there is a group in Waziristan that seems to practice the kind of muscular, confrontational, action-oriented faith you’re apparently craving, and I hear they’re always on the lookout for a new number three guy.  Just a thought.