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No. 376 May 20th, 2012 this week
God Fearer
What Really Happened
Prince Was Right
Why I'm Voting For Obama
Trouble In The Village |
Balaam’s Coronation
Eddie Long Crowned King of Fools
In the run-up to the 2011 Christmas holiday, I was made aware of a church pastor who, after browbeating his congregation to raise $100,000 by December 15th—demanding they forego family travel plans and gifts—instead used the money (less than $30k came in), claimed to have been for a down payment on a building project, to rent a local arena for a glittery Christmas show, complete with the pastor himself dressed as Santa Claus (no, I am not making this up) and tossing cheesy “gifts” to his adoring faithful. The church, struggling with debt, paid the pastor a five-figure Christmas bonus and green-lit a purposeless, over-the-top extravaganza at the arena which starred, yes, the pastor. The pageant opened with the pastor’s voice eking out of the darkness as smoke billowed up from the stage, and the pastor being lowered in from the rafters on one of those Michael Jackson cherry pickers as the band struck up the music and the choir began to sing. I remember hearing this account firsthand from persons at this debacle and wondering, how stupid are the people following this man? Thankfully, this pastor’s ridiculous reputation has now been salvaged by “Bishop” Eddie Long, who was actually crowned “King” last week to the cheers of his adoring faithful. It is a real struggle, for me, to actually believe this stuff is going on. It’s an even greater struggle for me to believe people are gullible and ignorant enough to sit there, cheering like monkeys, while it does. My ire, usually directed at black pastors (after all, I’m not hearing any prominent or even local black pastors denouncing this behavior), is now targeting Ignorant Church Folk. Write this down someplace: These People Are Not Christians. They do not worship Christ. They worship their pastor. And he allows it, making him a liar and a phony. If you’re in one of these churches, if you see this kind of idolatry going on, and you just sit and hold your peace, you’re just as big an idiot as they are, and you deserve the certain condemnation you will most certainly receive.
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No. 376 May 27, 2012
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by
the mercies of God, that ye present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be
ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,
that ye may prove what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect,
will of God. —Romans 12:1-2
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Yard Work
What Your Lawn Says About You
I can think of no more divisive a device than a political lawn sign. I’ve never actually seen one on my block, but I’ve seen them around—BUSH CHENEY for the most part, McCAIN PALIN. I have rarely seen Democratic Party yard signs around here. Putting a big, ugly placard on your lawn is an act of violence. I’m sure your neighbors probably won’t confront you about it, but whether you realize it or not you’re cause a schism in the neighborhood harmony. I don’t engage my neighbors about their politics. Some of them follow me around online out of paranoia or simple nosiness, so it’s possible they’re aware of my politics without my having to hammer in a political sign. I think political yard signs and bumped stickers are obnoxious. They provoke more negative reactions than positive. They convince absolutely no one of absolutely anything. They are, perhaps, useful for local politics—publicizing people I’ve never heard of, HAMMERSTEIN FOR SCHOOL BOARD. But for even modestly-known political candidates, all they end up doing is fomenting discord among neighbors. The best medicine for a happy subdivision is to not actually discuss anything that matters. The more important the topic is, the more potentially divisive it becomes. My personal theory is the only people earnest or eagerly supporting Mitt Romney are people who simply want Barack Obama out of the White House so badly they do not care who gets elected. This is psychotic thinking, most especially when it comes to the highest office in the nation. But this is the mindset sweeping the country and it is the best evidence of how terribly racist this nation remains. When I see a ROMNEY yard sign, my knee-jerk reaction is an assumption that the people living in that house are racists. That they have no rational reason for electing this political chameleon and disingenuous lying dilettante other than booting Obama out, and that their motives for booting Obama out are so passionate and so personal that they rise above whatever slim virtues this ideological empty suit Romney may have. A ROMNEY yard sign says, to me, these people are, at minimum, idiots. At worse, they are in extreme denial of what their beef with the president actually is. Thus I think it’s a pretty bad idea to reveal that much about yourself to your friends and neighbors, most of whom may have the better sense than to even discuss this stuff with you.
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