"Like all great satire, the book is cerebral, irreverent and hilarious, while also edifying" — Publisher's Weekly
"This book is hilarious... [Lanham] didn't skimp on his research. The book provides a telling overview of the religious right's leadership, the beliefs they espouse, and just how incredibly absurd and hypocritical they are." — The Campaign to Defend the Constitution
Editor's Pick: "From the author of The Hipster Handbook comes this irreverent navigation of all things Evangelical. Learn enough slang to fit in at a church picnic or why SpongeBob SquarePants is an agent of the Devil" — Chicago Sun-Times
"This guy has written quite a funny book." — Alan Colmes, Fox News
"A funny book with some funny cartoons on everyone from Rick Warren as the evangelical Jimmy Buffett to a guide for Christian haircuts that is hilarious... I was chuckling until I saw that I am the postscript" — Mark Driscoll, pastor of the largest megachurch in Washington State
"Every good little liberal will have this book on order as a stocking stuffer come Jesus' birthday." — Time Out
"A handbook for coping with bible thumpers.... When considering the power and influence evangelical Christians wield in this country, you have to laugh to keep from crying. Robert Lanham... understands this well and offers much needed, totally biased comic relief." — Village Voice
"Not only is this an important book, it's a funny book." — Marc Maron, Air America Radio
"Author Robert Lanham is an observer... but with his latest, The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right, Lanham's keen eye has hit perhaps his most entertaining target." — Metro Paper
"It’s hard to remember a more pointed and scathing attack… Lanham launches a focused, sustained barrage on the Pat Robertsons and James Dobsons of the world… He’s done his homework. The book is thoroughly researched and packed with quotes and analysis of the famous and not-so-famous leaders of the evangelical right… the research is truly impressive. " — The Reader
"An utterly biased, humorous one-stop guide to the major evangelical players." — Details
"Check out Robert Lanham's (author of the fabled Hipster Handbook and former Bible Belt resident) Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right. It's funny because it's true." — Elizabeth Spiers, founding Editor of Gawker
"Like the Daily Show or The Colbert Report, it's humor reveals the basic truth. Which is to say that the "sinners" of the world may be closer to Jesus and the divine than those who use God's name for personal enrichment, power building, and political gain." — Buzzflash
"The book does for religion what Jon Stewart does for politics." — CanWest News Service
"Informative, laugh-out-loud funny and horrifying at times, check out this snide, leftie-geared guide to the major evangelical players... Robert Lanham has a writing style that resembles... McSweeney's, and the irony-stacked humor of TV programs such as "The Daily Show" — Style Weekly, Richmond VA
"Hilarious... go out and buy this book now." — Sam Seder, The Majority Report
"This book should lay at the lifeless feet of your corpse as a silent, yet
powerful and all encompassing explanation as to why you took your own life."
— David Cross, Arrested Development
From the AP: Two civil liberties groups sued in federal court Wednesday to remove a picture of Jesus that has hung in a high school for more than 30 years.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the West Virginia American Civil Liberties Union say the painting, "Head of Christ," sends the message that Bridgeport High School endorses Christianity as its official religion.
"I frankly cannot understand why this school insists that it is doing nothing wrong," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "This is pretty clear constitutional law. Public schools cannot promote specific religious ideas."
A vote by the Harrison County school board on removing the painting ended in a tie this month.
"At this point, it's a matter that's pretty much going to be up to the board," Superintendent Carl Friebel Jr. said. "It's just going to be very interesting for me to see what the board wants us to do with it."
The suit was filed on behalf of Harold Sklar and Jacqueline McKenzie, whose children attended or will attend the school.
National Association of Evangelicals Leader, Ted Haggard. (From The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right)
I'm delighted to have my first book review. Hot off the press from Publisher's Weekly. I've put the important stuff in bold:
In his latest offering, the author of The Hipster Handbookbrings his brand of sardonic wit and caricature assassination to bear on all things evangelical.Like all great satire, the book is cerebral, irreverent and hilarious, while also edifying in introducing the characters, vocabulary and complex political and social network loosely referred to as the Christian right. Lanham skillfully navigates the "Evangophobe" through the treacherous waters of Colorado Springs ("the Evangelical Vatican"); goes after leaders like Jerry Falwell, whose health, Lanham writes, "has been declining ever since he got shrapnel in his leg from the war on Christmas"; and explains the megachurch phenomenon, where congregations approaching 20,000 people can contribute $6 million annually. Readers familiar with Lanham's style will immediately recognize his self-deprecating irony and indomitably hip sensibility. Despite the sometimes predictable snarkiness and easy targets, Lanham keeps the humor sharp throughout.
The book doesn't come out until September 5th, but you can order an advanced copy here. You can take our evangelical quiz here. Or read the introduction here.
John Brown, a born-again Christian who believes the Bible will guide him to oil and gas in Israel, is planning to test the faith of investors in the U.S. in the next few weeks. The Texas-based novice oilman who founded Zion Oil & Gas is aiming to raise between $2.45 million and $14 million in an initial public offering, tentatively slated for July, to fund drilling at a kibbutz northeast of Tel Aviv. God, Brown says, "has promised in the Bible to bless Israel with one of the world's largest oil and gas fields."
It may take some Divine help for him to pull the venture off. Hundreds of wells have been drilled in Israel in the past 60 years, but none has yielded significant production...
He claims that some 6,000 people—many probably U.S. evangelicals—contacted Zion about buying shares. "We can tell from the way they communicated that some are Christian evangelical ones that believe those who help Israel will be blessed," says Zion Chief Executive Officer Eugene Soltero. Read it All
2000 Rapture Ready Evangelicals Leaders Promise To Convert Lobby For Israel...
John Hagee
... Even though they believe the people they're lobbying for will all burn in hell if they don't convert. John Hagee is the man behind the lobby, known as Christians United for Israel (CUFI). He believes that Jesus will not return until the Jews control all of Israel. [From The Jewish Journal]
Some 2,000 extremely pro-Israel community and religious leaders will meet in Washington on July 19, fan out across Capitol Hill and, in effect, tell their legislators: If you want our political backing, you must support the Jewish state — no ifs or buts.
There won’t be a single Jew among the citizen lobbyists. They will all be evangelical Christians, mainly ordained and lay pastors, embarking on the first major public action of the newly formed Christians United for Israel (CUFI).
The founder and leader of the group is the Rev. John C. Hagee of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church of San Antonio, Texas, and a televangelist whose broadcasts reach millions in the United States and 120 other countries.
In 1978, in the first of his 21 trips to Israel, “I went as a tourist and returned as a Zionist,” Hagee said.
Last week, Hagee visited Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego to enlist support for his 4-month-old organization — both among fellow evangelicals and in front of generally enthusiastic, but occasionally skeptical, Jewish audiences...
• Expand the existing “rapid response network” of 12,000 pastors, who can mobilize their congregations instantly to flood the White House and Congress with e-mails on any legislation affecting Israel’s security and well-being.
• Institute an annual “Night to Honor Israel” in every major American city to assure Israel and Jews everywhere that “you do not stand alone.” The emotional event is already a fixture in large Texas cities and in other Southern states.
Hagee and his followers have given a total of $8.5 million to Israeli causes, including an orphanage and for absorption of Russian immigrants, he said, but the major impact of CUFI is likely to be on the political scene.
The pastor didn’t spell it out, but his associates made clear that they view CUFI as a kind of super American Israel Public Affairs Committee, representing some 50 million evangelical Christians. This constituency, in sharp contrast to the Jewish community, shares the conservative social outlook of the present administration and represents its hardcore political base....
“We don’t have too many friends; we cannot prevail without them,” said Erem...
The last six words may sound vague, but they are key to the evangelicals’ deeply rooted advocacy for Israel. As unquestioning believers in the inerrant truth of Scripture, Hagee and his followers are convinced that every inch of the God-given land belongs to the Jews alone and forever.
Hagee insists that he never interferes in the decisions of the Israeli government, but his opposition to the withdrawals in Gaza and the West Bank, for instance, gives concern to liberal Jewish organizations.
However, it is mainly Orthodox spokesmen, who otherwise agree with Hagee’s social and biblical views, who have publicly questioned whether the pastor’s underlying motive is the conversion of Jews in Israel and the Diaspora.
The Rabbinical Council of America, representing Orthodox rabbis and congregations, has officially protested the Israeli government’s license to Daystar, the second largest Christian network in the United States, to broadcast 24/7 over an Israeli satellite network.
Hagee, a major Daystar supporter and on-air personality, has consistently affirmed that he will not proselytize Jews, although the network’s lineup also includes “messianic” Jews with long pro-conversion records.
When Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz, head of the anti-cult Jews for Judaism, raised this issue with Hagee at the Los Angeles meeting, the pastor did not respond directly, but his genial Southern folksiness took on a harder edge.
“If rabbis would put more emphasis on putting Jewish kids into Jewish schools, young Jews would never want to become Christians,” Hagee said.
Religious Right Formed To Defy Segregation, Not Abortion
click to buy the book
That's the compelling claim in Randall Balmer's important new book, Thy Kingdom Come: An Evangelical's Lament. No liberal windsurfer, Balmer is a professor of religion at Barnard College, Columbia University and is contributing editor to Christianity Today. Here's an excerpt below [via NPR].
Leaders of the Religious Right would have us believe that their movement began in direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.... It's a compelling story, no question about it. Except for one thing: It isn't true...
[In] 1990, for reasons that I still don't entirely understand, I was invited to attend a conference in Washington sponsored by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Religious Right organization (though I didn't realize it at the time). I soon found myself in a conference room with a couple of dozen people, including Ralph Reed, then head of the Christian Coalition; Carl F. H. Henry, an evangelical theologian; Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family; Donald Wildmon, head of the American Family Association; Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention; and Edward G. Dobson, pastor of an evangelical church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and formerly one of Jerry Falwell's acolytes at Moral Majority. Paul M. Weyrich [often called the father of the Religious Right]... was also there.
In the course of one of the sessions, Weyrich tried to make a point to his Religious Right brethren (no women attended the conference, as I recall). Let's remember, he said animatedly, that the Religious Right did not come together in response to the Roe decision. No, Weyrich insisted, what got us going as a political movement was the attempt on the part of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to rescind the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University because of its racially discriminatory policies....
The IRS sought to revoke the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University in 1975 because the school's regulations forbade interracial dating; African Americans, in fact, had been denied admission altogether until 1971, and it took another four years before unmarried African Americans were allowed to enroll....
Initially, I found Weyrich's admission jarring. He declared, in effect, that the origins of the Religious Right lay in Green v. Connally rather than Roe v. Wade...
Weyrich, whose conservative activism dates at least as far back as the Barry Goldwater campaign in 1964, had been trying for years to energize evangelical voters over school prayer, abortion, or the proposed equal rights amendment to the Constitution. "I was trying to get those people interested in those issues and I utterly failed," he recalled in an interview in the early 1990s. "What changed their mind was Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation..."
[T]he IRS threat against segregated schools," [Weyrich] said, "enraged the Christian community." That, not abortion, according to Weyrich, was what galvanized politically conservative evangelicals into the Religious Right and goaded them into action...
Ed Dobson, Falwell's erstwhile associate, corroborated Weyrich's account during the ensuing discussion. "The Religious New Right did not start because of a concern about abortion," Dobson said. "I sat in the non-smoke-filled back room with the Moral Majority, and I frankly do not remember abortion ever being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something."
The abortion myth serves as a convenient fiction because it suggests noble and altruistic motives behind the formation of the Religious Right...
Falwell and others who eventually became leaders of the Religious Right, in fact, explicitly condemned the civil rights movement. "Believing the Bible as I do," Falwell proclaimed in 1965, "I would find it impossible to stop preaching the pure saving gospel of Jesus Christ, and begin doing anything else—including fighting Communism, or participating in civil-rights reforms." This makes all the more outrageous the occasional attempts by leaders of the Religious Right to portray themselves as the "new abolitionists" in an effort to link their campaign against abortion to the nineteenth century crusade against slavery.
How Africa’s one AIDS success story, Uganda, became a disaster when Christianity trumped science.
From The American Prospect:
Even in an administration famous for its contempt for science, the President’s tortured case for abstinence stands out. He committed $1 billion to abstinence-only programs abroad without a shred of scientific evidence that they prevent disease. Casting about for justification, he and the virginity advocates who surround him latched on to one of the developing world’s rare AIDS success stories: Uganda. In their fertile imaginations, the East African nation was a fairy-tale place where Christian morality had turned the epidemic around.
But their castle in the sky came crashing down in May, on the eve of a United Nations meeting on AIDS, when Uganda’s AIDS commissioner announced that after years of decline, new HIV infections had almost doubled from 70,000 in 2003 to 130,000 in 2005. Devastating news. [read it all here... reg req'd]
A bipartisan Senate report released on Thursday documented more than $5.3 million in payments to Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition and a leading Republican Party strategist, from an influence-peddling operation run by the corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff on behalf of Indian tribe casinos.
The report by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee portrayed Mr. Reed, now a candidate for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in his home state of Georgia, as a central figure in Mr. Abramoff's lobbying operation, the focus of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. [read it all here]
Everclear premiered their new video, Hater Jesus, today. The band "dedicates this brand new music video to "Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and all others who hate in the name of Jesus." You can watch it here. WARNING: it's not work safe.
"Inspired by the world's obsession and devotion to the iPod, iBelieve is a replacement lanyard for your Shuffle. Constructed using the same materials and precision ball bearing closure as the standard Shuffle cap, you can relax knowing your precious soundtrack is safe."
It's Not The Gays.... GOP Guilty of Defiling The Institution of Marriage
Not only are red staters and Christians more likely to get a divorce than blue staters and secularists, respectively, three of the top contenders for the 2008 GOP ticket have less than virtuous marital histories:
[From Washington Monthly via Huff post] Three Republicans who have topped several national, independent polls for the GOP's favorite 2008 nominee: Sen. John McCain (affair, divorce), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (affair, divorce, affair, divorce), and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (divorce, affair, nasty divorce). Together, they form the most maritally challenged crop of presidential hopefuls in American political history.
South Carolina Law Allows Credit for Off-Campus Bible Study
But what if you want to study the Koran or the Torah?
[From The SC State via Huffpost] While other students learn how to conjugate French verbs or navigate a musical scale, nearly 6,500 S.C. students a year leave campus and learn about the Bible and its Ten Commandments.
Now South Carolina has became the second state to allow schools to give students academic credit for that instruction.
The South Carolina Released Time Credit Act, signed into law June 2 by Gov. Mark Sanford, permits schools to give students an elective credit for participating in the religion class.
“The (new law) just eliminates any questions of the legality or viability of Bible curriculums.” said Grayson Hartgrove, a member of the national organization Bible Education in School Time Network and program director for the Midlands Christian Learning Center.
In the Midlands, the elective course is available at the middle school level in three Lexington County school districts and in the Newberry County school district.
Supporters around the state hope the new law will revive high school enrollment in Bible education, encouraging churches and school officials to create more programs for those students.
“Part of the problem is that if you can’t get credit for it, then you can’t afford to take the time to take the class,” said Robbie Muncatchy of Columbia.
Her grandson, Andrew Harrison, attended the Bible education program at CrossRoads Middle School.
No high schools in the Midlands offer a Released Time program.
Both Spartanburg 7 and Greenville school districts have had high school Released Time programs.
Students can take part in the Released Time programs because of a 1952 court ruling, saying it is constitutional for students to leave campus to take part in religious education courses.
But because of scheduling conflicts and graduation requirements, religious organizations have had smaller-than-expected participation from high school students.
For example, less than 10 percent of the 1,130 students in Greenville’s Christian Learning Centers are in high school, officials said.
Coordinator Troy Bridges said Spartanburg’s Bible Education in School Time program had to stop serving Spartanburg High School after the state started its phase-in of increased graduation requirements in 1997.
Now with the Credit Act signed, Released Time groups are scrambling to get more high school programs approved by superintendents and school boards.
Spartanburg’s Bridges said he’d like to have a high school course available by January 2007. However, Hartgrove said it likely will be the 2007-08 school year before a class is available for high school students in the Midlands.
That’s because it’ll take more churches, money and resources to offer a high school elective. It takes the participation of at least two churches and $7,200 to operate CrossRoads’ Bible education course.
An independent program, Kids 4 Christ, is available to Sandhills Elementary School students in Lexington 4. That program costs about $2,000 to offer. In addition, teachers buy some of their own materials.
The availability of New Released Time courses “will depend on the interest in the local churches,” Hartgrove said.
Lexington 3 officials said they haven’t been approached by church organizations to offer Released Time programs. But, beginning in August, the Old Testament and the New Testament will be taught as a history elective to high school students. The Bible will be used as a historical text.
“The need was there,” said school board member Randy Fox, adding the fall class is full. “It’s a good thing to have more of.”
Spartanburg’s Bridges said Released Time programs will fill a gap in high school course offerings.
“Our moral values are so eroded by what’s happening in our country,” Bridges said. “We need something to offset it and this is one way of doing it.”
[From the AP via HufffPost] A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position.
The document outlines retirement or other discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities, and in a section on defects lists homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders.
Critics said the reference underscores the Pentagon's failing policies on gays, and adds to a culture that has created uncertainty and insecurity around the treatment of homosexual service members, leading to anti-gay harassment.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Jeremy M. Martin said the policy document is under review.
The Pentagon has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of service members but requires discharges of those who openly acknowledge being gay.
The Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military, at the University of California at Santa Barbara, uncovered the document and pointed to it as further proof that the military deserves failing grades for its treatment of gays.
Nathaniel Frank, senior research fellow at the center, said, "The policy reflects the department's continued misunderstanding of homosexuality and makes it more difficult for gays and lesbians to access mental health services."
The document, called a Defense Department Instruction, was condemned by medical professionals, members of Congress and other experts, including the American Psychiatric Association.
"It is disappointing that certain Department of Defense instructions include homosexuality as a 'mental disorder' more than 30 years after the mental health community recognized that such a classification was a mistake," said Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass.
Congress members noted that other Pentagon regulations dealing with mental health do not include homosexuality on any lists of psychological disorders. And in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Monday, nine lawmakers asked for a full review of all documents and policies to ensure they reflect that same standard.
"Based on scientific and medical evidence the APA declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973 - a position shared by all other major health and mental health organizations based on their own review of the science," James H. Scully Jr., head of the psychiatric association, said in a letter to the Defense Department's top doctor earlier this month.
There were 726 military members discharged under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy during the budget year that ended last Sept. 30. That marked the first year since 2001 that the total had increased. The number of discharges had declined each year since it peaked at 1,227 in 2001, and had fallen to 653 in 2004.
Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. fired one of his appointees to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority yesterday after the board member asserted on a local cable talk show that homosexuals lived a life of "sexual deviancy." ...Smith's remarks came during a show taped June 9 that has aired at least three times since. The discussion included a proposed federal gay marriage ban.
"That doesn't mean that government should proffer a special place of entitlement within the laws of the United States for persons of sexual deviancy," Smith said in the conversation about the rights of gays and lesbians.
Sponsor of Ten Commandments Bill Can Only Name Three
Republican Congressman Lynn Westmoreland was on The Colbert Report last night and in a priceless moment flaundered when Colbert asked him to list the Ten Commandments. He could only come up with three:
here's the Transcript: Colbert: You have not introduced a single piece of legislation since you entered Congress. Westmoreland: That's correct. Colbert: This has been called a do nothing Congress. Is it safe to say you're the do nothingest? Westmoreland: I, I, ..Well there's one other do nothiner. I don't know who that is, but they're a Democrat. Colbert: What can we get rid of to balance the budget? Westmoreland: The Dept. of Education. Colbert: What are the Ten Commandments? Westmoreland: You mean all of them?--Um... Don't murder. Don't lie. Don't steal Um... I can't name them all.
Seeking to assess the effect of third-party prayer on patient outcomes, investigators found no evidence for divine intervention. They did, however, detect a possible proof for the power of negative thinking.
The three-year Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP), published in the April 4 American Heart Journal, was the largest-ever attempt to apply scientific methods to measure the influence of prayer on the well-being of another. It examined 1,800 patients undergoing heart-bypass surgery. On the eve of the operations, church groups began two weeks of praying for one set of patients. Each recipient had a praying contingent of about 70, none of whom knew the patient personally. The study found no differences in survival or complication rates compared with those who did not receive prayers. The only statistically significant blip appeared in a subgroup of patients who were prayed for and knew it. They experienced a higher rate of postsurgical heart arrhythmias (59 versus 52 percent of unaware subjects)
Evangelical, 'Axis of Evil' Speechwriter Due to Step Down
Michael Gerson
[From WaPo] Since first joining the presidential campaign as chief speechwriter in 1999, Gerson has evolved into one of the most central figures in Bush's inner circle, often considered among the three or four aides closest to the president. Beyond shaping the language of the Bush presidency, Gerson helped set its broader direction.
He was a formulator of the Bush doctrine making the spread of democracy the fundamental goal of U.S. foreign policy, a policy hailed as revolutionary by some and criticized as unrealistic by others. He led a personal crusade to make unprecedented multibillion-dollar investments in fighting AIDS, malaria and poverty around the globe. He became one of the few voices pressing for a more aggressive policy to stop genocide in Darfur, even as critics complained of U.S. inaction.
"He might have had more influence than any White House staffer who wasn't chief of staff or national security adviser" in modern times, said William Kristol
Gay Episcopal Bishop Says: "I Am Not An Abomination"
[from the AP] The first openly gay Episcopal bishop said at a packed church hearing Wednesday that he is "not an abomination," as he pleaded with the denomination not to bar gays from the office of bishop, even temporarily, for the sake of Anglican unity.
If Episcopalians "see Christ in the faithful lives of our gay and lesbian members," they should have the courage to say so, no matter the potential consequences, said Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
"I am not an abomination before God," he told the Episcopal General Convention. "Please, I beg you, let's say our prayers and stand up for right."
The Wall of Separation has a great story about Bush's disturbing ties to Washington Times owner Rev. Sun Myung Moon:
In a May 4 New York Times column, pundit David Brooks attacked author Kevin Phillips’ book American Theocracy as “paranoid.”
Brooks charged that “Phillips’s book is rife with bizarre assertions.” As an example, the Times columnist cited Phillips’ contention that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon “has been close to the Bush family.”
Bush addressed Moon gatherings in Japan in 1996. British newspapers reported that he was compensated for this in the six figures. He also spoke at a Moon event in Argentina.
* Moon operatives pushed hard for President George W. Bush’s “faith-based” initiative and, in return, were richly rewarded. A Moon front group called Free Teens has received millions in taxpayer money to run an “abstinence-based” sex education program for young people.
* A separate Moon group, Service for Peace, got $80,000 from the Corporation for National and Community Service in December to support service projects in conjunction with the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. The Bush administration has also given tax money to Moon groups to run marriage-improvement seminars.
click image for a must-see teaser from the new film, "Jesus Camp"
The American Prospect has a great overview of the upcoming documentary, Jesus Camp:
The new documentary, Jesus Camp, which chronicles a North Dakota summer camp where kids as young as 6 are taught to become dedicated Christian soldiers in "God's army," is an illustration of this sentiment in the extreme.
The film, by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, the duo who also directed the critically-acclaimed The Boys of Baraka, opened to an appreciative and flabbergasted audience at the 2006 TriBeca Film Festival, where it received the Special Jury Award. The directors skillfully captured the daily interactions of a world that would be foreign to most viewers: children speaking in tongues and talking of being "born again" at age 5.
The star of the film is Pastor Becky Fischer, who explains the startling mission of her "Kids on Fire" camp: "I want young people to be as committed to laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are in Pakistan." At the camp, the children are asked: "How many of you want to be those who will give up your life for Jesus?" Little hands shoot up from every direction. They are told: "We have to break the power of the enemy over the government." At one point, Becky yells: "This means war! Are you a part of it or not?" More little hands. [read it all here]
Bill Keller to Host His Own National Christian Show: “LivePrayer with Bill Keller”
Separated at birth? Keller and Keller
And we didn't even know that the New York Times editor was born-again! Did the fiasco with Judith Miller inspire his conversion? OK, OK. It's not that Bill Keller. (Even though they do look like brothers). Bill Keller the editor is a moral relativist and a secular elitist. We'd love to see him handling some snakes on late night TV, but it's probably not going to happen any time soon.
Bill Keller the televagelist, on the other hand, is a fire-and-brimstone preacher coming to a cable station near you very soon. He's also an ex-con who recently called Oprah a "New Age witch." Watch out O'Reilly, Keller may steal some of your audience.
[From WDC Media here and here ] The press has dubbed him “the Dr. Phil of Prayer” and “the next big thing in religious media.” He currently pulls in a quarter million viewers per night on major secular network affiliates throughout Florida, and his show is ranked number one and two in its time slot in each market. And on July 3rd he’ll debut his late-night television talk show, “LivePrayer with Bill Keller,” on the i television network (formerly the PAX network).
“We’ve done our homework, and this program is primed to attract a massive national audience," said Keller...
The salesman-turned-preacher has a well-publicized criminal past -- he served nearly three years in federal prison for an insider-trading scam -- and will have to overcome widespread public mistrust of religious broadcasters...
’’I don’t hold back the truth,’’ he said. ``I don’t have a problem sitting in front of a quarter of a million people every night and telling someone they’re going to Hell.’’
Among his recent targets: Oprah Winfrey, whom Keller derided as a ’’New Age witch,’’ the Mormon Church and Florida Sen. Bill Nelson. When callers challenge him, he can get testy. During a recent live show, a young man named Danny from Boca Raton criticized him for manipulating people. Keller turned on him.
’’When you die, what’s going to happen to you, Danny?’’ Keller asked, glaring intently at the camera.
’’According to you, I’m probably going to Hell in a handbasket,’’ Danny said.
’’That’s exactly correct, Danny. But you know what? You don’t have to,’’ Keller said. ’I’m on [TV] to reach people like you. ’Cause let me tell you something, the day you die and stand before God, you’re not going to be able to whine and moan and cry and go, `Oh, nobody told me.’ You’ve heard the story, you’ve heard the truth. According to God’s word, your blood’s not on my hands anymore, my friend.’’
And be sure to check out Keller's LivePrayer website where Keller envisions a new installment of the Harry Potter series where the magician gets saved:
"Come on Harry, you can do it right now," he said excitedly. Dudley told Harry to get on his knees and led him in a prayer to accept Jesus Christ into his heart.
When he finished, with tears streaming down his face, Harry Potter realized that something special had just happened to him. It was not a magic spell. It was not anything that he had ever experienced before in his life. He had such a peace about him. Deep inside, he knew that something was different. As he stood up, his hair flew to the side and his cousin gasped. "Harry, look at your scar!" Dudley cried out. Harry looked into the the mirror on Dudley's dresser and froze . The scar in the shape of a lightning bolt that he had received as a baby when Voldemort tried to kill him, had changed into a cross! Harry Potter had found the KING!
Trinity Broadcasting owner Paul Crouch with his wife
Evangelicals vs. Christian Cable
Under 'a la Carte' Plan, Viewers Could Bar Certain Channels
Evangelical Christians are on the front lines in the battle over indecency on cable television, calling for a pick-and-choose pricing plan that would allow viewers to keep certain channels out of their homes.
But on the opposite end of the battlefield is an opponent familiar to and even respected by evangelicals: Christian cable stations.
The fear among Christian broadcasters is that a proposal to allow consumers to reject MTV or Comedy Central would also allow them to drop the Trinity Broadcasting Network or Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. Cutting off that access could hurt religious broadcasters.
[From DailyKos via Talk2Action] The people behind BattleCry, veteran Christian youth organizer Ron Luce and his backers (who include Charles Colson, Ted Haggard, and Pat Robertson) don't like the America where I grew up. And it's more than just the separation of church and state.... For Ron Luce and the parents and Christian youth leaders who brought their kids to BattleCry's 2-day extravaganza of militarism, racism, and Christian music in Philadelphia last weekend, this kind of thing is deadly serious...
BattleCry Philadelphia was certainly as vulgar and manipulative as anything I've ever seen from Howard Stern or Freddy Mercury. A two day carnival of militarism, racism, and loud, boring rock music, we were treated to a "sex expert" named "Lakita Garth" who mixed her scare routine about sexually transmitted diseases and the need to remain abstinent until marriage (she's in her late 30s and recently married) with hateful impressions of stereotypical dumb teenagers designed to make us all feel superior. It didn't work. I'm not a young black male and I'm not a California valley girl, the two main targets of her "satire", but her routine left me feeling angry and depressed anyway. There were the usual ridiculous "Christian Rock" bands, a group that kind of looked like Duran Duran, one that kind of resembled Godsmack or Pearl Jam, and another reminded me nothing so much as a bad imitation of Matchbox Twenty...
But BattleCry Philadelphia was more than just a vulgar carnival designed to suck donations into the coffers of Ron Luce's corporation "Teen Mania". Indeed, it had a point, to recruit the future elite "warriors" in the coming battle against the separation of church and state. It turned dark and frightening on Saturday afternoon. After Franklin "Islam is a Wicked Religion" Graham came out to thunder against the evils of homosexuality and the Iraqi people (whom he considers to be exactly the same people as the ancient Babylonians who enslaved the tribes of Israel and deserving, one would assume, the exact same fate) we heard an explosion. Flames shot out on stage and a team of Navy Seals was shown on the big TV monitors in full camouflage creeping forward down the hallway from the locker room with their M16s. They were hunting us, the future Christian leaders of America. Two teenage girls next to me burst into tears and even I, a jaded middle-aged male, almost jumped out of my skin. I imagined for that moment what it must have felt like to have been a teacher at Columbine high school. 10 seconds later they rushed out onstage and pointed their guns in our direction firing blanks spitting flames. About 1000 shots and bang, we were all dead.
ExxonMobil has pumped more than $8 million into more than 40 think tanks; media outlets; and consumer, religious, and even civil rights groups that preach skepticism about the oncoming climate catastrophe. Herewith, a representative overview.
As the House debates a foreign-spending bill this week that would maintain the current $445 million to the Global [AIDS] Fund next year, Dobson's Focus on the Family ministry has turned up the heat.
A five-page letter addressed to members of Congress criticizes the Global Fund's board of directors, its spending habits and its "social marketing" of condoms "to the near exclusion of abstinence and faithfulness." The letter is signed by Dobson and representatives from 29 other conservative organizations, such as Shepherd Smith of the Institute for Youth Development and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer of American Values. [read it all here]
"Godless" author, Ann Coulter, is a godless heathen herself
We knew Ichabod Coulter was annoying. Turns out she's also blatantly hypocritical. [from The Raw Story via Huff Post]
Redeemer Presbyterian [the church Ann claims to attend] Communications and Media Director Cregan Cooke could not confirm that Coulter had ever attended services at the church.
"The only thing I have heard is hearsay that she is an attender" of Redeemer, Cregan told Raw Story. "Our database shows that she is not a member."
She's definitely going to hell. Read the whole story here.
Mark Carver, a top aide to mega-church pastor and best selling author Rick Warren, has resigned as a business advisor to Left Behind Games, the developers of a video game in which Christian militias wage physical and spiritual warfare using the power of prayer and modern military weaponry to convert New Yorkers and kill those who resist. Mr. Carver's abrupt resignation, announced in a statement e-mailed to Talk to Action by Mr. Warren's Purpose Driven Ministries on June 6, 2006, came in response to a two-part series on Talk to Action that criticized the game's antisocial nature (warriors shout "Praise the Lord!" as they blow infidels away, and players can switch to the side of the AntiChrist to kill Christians). The series also revealed the game developer's links to Mr. Warren's empire and their emulation of his network marketing techniques. For example, Mr. Carver, Executive Director of Purpose Driven Church, served on the Advisory Board of Left Behind Games, a corporation formed in October 2001 (weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center) to develop the violent video game and distribute 1 million sample discs through pastoral networks and mega-churches. And until June 6, the Left Behind Games web site featured Mr. Carver's name and detailed his prominent role in Purpose Driven Church. [continue reading]
Evangelicals And Some Creepy Guy Named Doctor Finger Try To Stifle Cancer Vaccine
Dr. Finger: Nutjob of the Month
Turns out, keeping the threat of cancer as a deterrent to premarital sex is more important than saving lives. This article is a must-read for all sane people: [From Counterbias]
Late last month a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel unanimously recommended approval of a vaccine for the human papilloma virus (HPV). The vaccine appears to be 100 percent effective at protecting against the most prevalent viruses that cause cervical cancer. While public health professionals view the vaccine as miraculous, many conservative organizations opposed it on the grounds that it might encourage promiscuity among adolescent girls. Now that it appears certain that the FDA will approve the vaccine, conservatives are attempting to discourage its use...
Despite the benefits of the vaccine, conservative organizations began to rally against it last year. One of the most vocal opponents was the Family Research Council. The council “promotes the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free, and stable society.” Last October the council’s president, Tony Perkins, spoke decidedly against the vaccine. Mr. Perkins proclaimed, “Our concern is that this vaccine will be marketed to a segment of the population that should be getting a message about abstinence. It sends the wrong message.” He even stated that he would not vaccinate his 13-year-old daughter.
Another organization that promotes abstinence is the Physicians Consortium. The head of the consortium, Dr. Hal Wallis, was also critical. In his opinion, “If you don’t want to suffer these diseases, you need to abstain, and when you find a partner, stick with that partner.” The founder of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse also opposed the vaccine. This organization was formed “to promote the appreciation for and practice of sexual abstinence (purity) until marriage.” Leslee Unruh, the organization’s founder, stated firmly, “I personally object to vaccinating children against a disease that is 100 percent preventable with proper sexual behavior...”
In 2003 President Bush appointed a medical doctor, Reginald Finger, to the ACIP. Until last fall, Dr. Finger was also the medical affairs analyst for Focus on the Family, the nation’s largest and most powerful evangelical Christian organization. In an effort to gain the support of this group, Merck has been forced to aggressively lobby Focus. Merck has admitted to holding numerous meetings with Dr. Finger at Focus’ headquarters. It’s troubling that a vaccine manufacturer has to be concerned with securing the backing of a conservative Christian organization. And Merck will likely have an uphill battle.
Although children are required to have various vaccinations before attending public schools, conservatives are against the ACIP recommending this for the HPV vaccine. The Christian Medical & Dental Associations is an organization that “exists to glorify God by advancing Biblical principles in bioethics and health to the Church and society.” The group’s executive director, Dr. Gene Rudd, has stated, “While accepting HPV vaccine is morally acceptable, it should not be mandatory.”
And the Family Research Council has gone even farther. While testifying before an ACIP conference the council’s spokesman informed the ACIP that, “Because parents have an inherent right to be the primary educator and decision maker regarding their children’s health, we would oppose any measures to legally require vaccination. There is no justification for any vaccination mandate as a condition of public school attendance.” And Focus on the Family issued a formal statement declaring that it “supports widespread (universal) availability of HPV vaccines but opposes mandatory HPV vaccinations for entry to public school.”
Not a big surprise. Nobody actually thought this unpopular bill would pass. Read the story here. The proposed ban was obviously political pandering to the religious right during an election year. And Dobson and company took the bait, hook line and sinker. We're yet to hear any of the Rapture Right's leaders call their bluff.
Powerful American Family Association Already Worried About Christmas...
... You know, since there are no bigger problems [uh, Iraq, homelessness, disease, poverty, health care, education, immigration, the success of Anne Coulter] facing the nation. Believe it or not, the AFA has placed the war on Christmas at the top of their list of priorities. They've even set up a petition to send to merchants who in the past have used the term "holiday" instead of "Christmas." Somebody needs to tell the AFA that, hello, IT'S JUNE. We were planning on calling a truce on the war against Christmas this year. Now we're going to have to kick Christmas' tinsel-covered ass. The AFA should send their petition to the White House who has sent out a generic "Happy Holidays" card every year since Dubya took office. From AFA:
Remember last Christmas when many national retailers banned the use of Merry Christmas and allowed only the use of Season's Greetings or Happy Holidays or even winter holidays? Remember how some stores did not allow their employees to say "Merry Christmas" to their customers? Remember how Christmas trees were called Holiday trees?
There are companies which don't want to offend a small handful of their customers by mentioning Christmas because Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ. However, they don't mind offending Christians by refusing to use the term Christmas.
We could be headed for another year when similar incidents occur, unless we let companies know right now that we will not accept the banning of Christmas in their promotions.
Now is the time to let the retailers know that if they ban the use of the term Christmas, you will not be shopping with them during the Christmas season! TAKE ACTION! Send a message to the nation's largest retailers.
Dear National Retailer,
I wanted to let you know in June that any company which bans the term Christmas from their advertising and promotion will not be getting my business this coming Christmas season.
I ask that you not ban "Christmas" in your advertising and promotions.
I look forward with the hopes you will honor my request.
After all, today is 06/06/06, the devil's favorite day! The all-time high was on September 11, 2001 when the index peaked at 182. Check the rapture index here.
More than 50 gay rights activists wearing rainbow-colored sashes were denied Holy Communion at a Pentecost service yesterday at the Roman Catholic Cathedral in St. Paul, Minn., parishioners and church officials said.
In an act that some witnesses called a "sacrilege" and others called a sign of "solidarity," a man who was not wearing a sash received a Communion wafer from a priest, broke it into pieces and handed it to some of the sash wearers, who consumed it on the spot.
Ushers threatened to call the police, and a church employee burst into tears when the unidentified man re-distributed the consecrated wafer, which Catholics consider the body of Christ. But the Mass was not interrupted, and the incident ended peacefully, said Dennis McGrath, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
"It was confrontational, but we decided not to try to arrest the guy," he said.
The dramatic episode capped several years of increasing acrimony over the Rainbow Sash Movement, an effort by gay Catholics to counter what they view as homophobia in the church.
Beginning in 1997 in England, some Catholics have worn the sashes over their left shoulder to Mass each year on Pentecost, the day on which the New Testament says the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus's disciples. Because the holiday is a celebration of God's gifts, "we think it is an appropriate time to celebrate the gift of our sexuality," said Brian McNeill, a rainbow-sash organizer in Minneapolis.
For a few years, sash-wearers were allowed to receive Communion in some U.S. cities, including Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Rochester, N.Y. But since 2004, most U.S. bishops have cracked down on the movement.
Last year, Cardinal Francis Arinze, head of the Vatican department in charge of worship, wrote a letter to Archbishop Harry J. Flynn of St. Paul, stating that the rainbow sash is a sign of protest against the church's teachings on sexuality and that the Mass is not an appropriate forum for protests.
The movement's leaders insist that wearing the sash is not an act of protest.
"When Archbishop Flynn and Cardinal Arinze say it's a protest, I say, 'But you guys aren't the ones wearing it -- we are, and we see it as a celebration,' " McNeill said. "The premise of the sash is that gay people are part of the Catholic community, part of the people of God. We are there proudly celebrating Mass."
The number of those wearing rainbow sashes has never been large, and it appears to be declining. The largest single gathering was last year in St. Paul, where about 125 people were turned away from Communion. In most cities, there have been only a few wearing sashes.
None were reported yesterday in the Archdiocese of Washington, which has a policy of denying Communion to anyone wearing a visible sign of protest.
If Jesus were alive today, he would be a surfer. He would mingle with fishermen and beach bums and lay his mat on the sand among the scantily clad. Instead of walking on water, he would ride waves on a carved piece of fiberglass, keeping an eye out for anyone who needed saving. This is what Dean Sabate and his friends believe.
They are surfers for Jesus. Today they are on Waikiki Beach doing what they believe Jesus would be doing. While others might see a frolicking crowd, Sabate and his group see sprinkled among the masses a few lost souls who need tending.
"This is our ministry, being out here, being in the ocean, making friends," says Sabate, 42. He is a former pro surfer, muscular and bronzed.
"We don't go thumping people on the head with a Bible. We come out here, enjoy the water and talk to people," he says. "We just allow God to work."
Lost souls include the lonely, the poor, the hopeless and the worn out. These are plentiful in paradise, though they're not always easy to spot. In Sabate's experience, those who seem together may be the least together people on the beach. You can hide sadness behind a pair of shades.
He knows. Just seven months ago, Sabate, once considered a surfer prodigy, was aimless and living in a park on the other side of Oahu. A pastor found him, befriended him and introduced him to a group of Christian surfers. Now Sabate leads a group of "surfer missionaries" doing their thing. There are about a dozen of them here on this postcard-perfect afternoon. The sun blazes down through blue skies. The surfers spread out like a platoon on patrol.
Waikiki is a haven for tourists but also draws its share of the homeless and wayward. Everyone is a potential convert.
One of the surfers, Dave Strigl, 38, takes me out on the water. We paddle on boards around Mamala Bay. His ultimate goal, as with most missionaries, is to bring people into a relationship with Jesus.
But the surfers don't rush it. They're willing to wait months, even years, for a conversion, a sort of incremental nudging into faith. On these outreach trips, they're mostly interested in developing friendships. The surfers' approach in one line: "Make friends first, God will do the rest."
On the water, there's no talk of Jesus, but death comes up.
"See that sea turtle?" Strigl says, gesturing toward an approaching shell.
"I didn't know sea turtles came this close to shore," I say.
"It could mean sharks," Strigl says, smiling. It is a nudge. Sharks could cause death and death leads to the afterlife. The afterlife is a natural segue into God. That talk would come later.
The surfer missionaries do beach things: sunbathe, stroll, swim, surf, staying alert to any likely encounter with a stranger. Inside the surfers' van, in case anyone shows interest, is a box of Christian tracts. On some occasions, the surfers gather at the beach and pray, then hand out the tracts to people who approach.
On a grassy spot above the beach, Sabate chats with a surfer named Scott, who has stopped by. He is a friend from Sabate's days on the pro circuit. Sabate was born and raised in Hawaii and seems to bump into friends at every beach. Scott is separated from his wife and doesn't know what to do.
"Only God can heal a broken relationship," Sabate tells him.
On-the-spot conversions generally don't happen. A good day is when a single conversation leads to a single invitation to a Bible study. The main thing, according to the group's philosophy, is to hang out with the needy like Jesus did. Jesus preferred the company of those on society's lowest rung: prostitutes, tax collectors and fishermen. In some realms today, that rung would include surfers, often viewed as loafers and deadbeats or pleasure-seeking Bohemians who forsake everything for the perfect wave.
After three hours on the beach, the surfer missionaries regroup, pile into their van and head for the hills above Honolulu. The van chugs up a winding road into the heart of Kalihi Valley, a lush ravine of low-income houses and apartments.
An upright surfboard by the side of the road marks the spot where the van turns onto a long dirt driveway. The driveway leads into a three-acre compound of ramshackle buildings with tin roofs. This is home base.
It used to be a kimchi factory. Since 1997, longtime missionaries Tom and Cindy Bauer have used the property as headquarters for their ministry called Surfing the Nations. Sabate and Strigl are leaders in the group.
The ministry is part relief agency, missionary training camp and surfers' crash pad. The group surfs in the early mornings, serves for most of the day, then surfs again in the late afternoons.
Service can include outreach, cleaning house for the disabled and holding surf workshops for young teens. In between the surfing and service, surfers study the Bible, attend missionary classes and maintain the compound. They spend two hours a day praying and meditating.
About 25 people stay on the property in separate bunkhouses for men and women.
It is a revolving population. They range in age from teenagers to mid-lifers and come from all over the world and all Christian denominations. They stay for a few days or a few years, depending on their financial arrangement. Surfers raise their own support — frequently from home churches — to pay for travel and personal expenses such as cellphones and clothing.
Living is cheap. The property is owned by Grace Bible Church, where the Bauers have attended for years. Room and board are provided, and surfboards supplied. Surfboards lean against and cover entire walls and hang from the rafters.
The room where workers once washed cabbage for the kimchi is now a community center with a ceiling made of surfboards. The walk-in freezer is a makeshift sound studio (for aspiring surfer musicians). The garage is an office, and above that is where the Bauers live — a modest, well-tended apartment furnished with donated and salvaged furniture.
Cindy Bauer manages the office and makes sure the place runs on a schedule. She is in her 50s, energetic and cheery. Tom Bauer, 56, is the head surfer dude, the spiritual leader of the community. They have four grown daughters, two still living at the compound.
The concept of a surfer's ministry came from Tom. A native Californian and surfer since childhood, Tom owns 70 surfboards.
"I didn't choose to be a surfer. I was called to be a surfer," says Tom, a silver-haired man who feels no compunction saying things like "Stoked!"
Unfortunately for him, he tried to merge his two loves — surfing and Jesus — in the early 1970s when some in the church establishment (he belonged to several churches in California) frowned on beach culture. He was told he'd have to choose one or the other, and for years he kept those two aspects of his life separate.
Some traditionalists viewed the beach — associated with flesh and drugs and beatnik rebellion — as "not a place where good Christian folk assemble," says David Morgan, a humanities professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana. He says there will always be some traditionalists who disapprove of "any subculture that freely intermingles pleasure with religious practice."
The irony is that the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus supposedly walked on water, was likely a place with a rich beach culture, Morgan says. "If you're an itinerant preacher like Jesus of Nazareth, you're going to go where the people are, and one of those places is the beach."
The idea that Jesus today would keep company with surfers, Morgan says, "has some sociological support to it."
The Bauers moved from California to Hawaii in 1979 as missionaries. They started the surfers ministry 18 years later. For them and the other surfers at the compound, surfing is a spiritual experience. Part of it is just being immersed in God's creation, Sabate says. "And there are times when the waves are really big and you think you could die, and there's no one to turn to but God."
About six times a year, the Bauers and their sun-tanned corps conduct missionary trips abroad — to places like Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea — to open surf clubs, run surfing contests and share their faith.
Niklas Ericksson, 34, has spent much of his life since 1999 at Surfing the Nations. He is from Sweden, where he works part of the year for a diaper company. The rest of the year he lives here.
Sometimes, he says, he can't believe how good life can be as a surfer missionary. Yes, you are poor but you experience a deep inner peace. You serve God, and sometimes "you're out there in the water with friends, you're in this beautiful place, you're doing what you love, and you think:
"This is awesome."
Thursday is Feeding the Hungry day at the compound. Just as the sun rises above the hills, the surfers begin setting up tents and tables just off the gravel parking lot. In the community center, others pack boxes of food donated from a food bank. The boxes are passed along a human chain until they reach the tables.
The food line is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., but a few people start arriving about 9 a.m., hobbling up the long gravel driveway. Others come in borrowed cars and trucks. About 12% of Hawaii's population suffers from food shortages, according to state agencies. Many of the needy live right here in Kalihi Valley, but people come from all over Oahu. They've heard about the food program by word of mouth at the beaches.
After they line up, sign in and collect their food boxes, the people sit around the compound and visit with the surfers.
"These people are my friends," says Jane Chu, 58, who has driven 45 minutes from Pearl City. "It's not just 'Come and get your box and go.' They want to get to know you."
Chu's husband, disabled from a construction injury — "He fell 25 feet onto concrete and broke his back" — receives $2,400 a month in worker's comp. Rent is $1,900. The boxes of canned food and fruit collected here will help feed an extended family.
In the parking lot, a young man with a black bandanna around his head and slightly menacing eyes directs the cars coming in and out. His name is Jeddy Basques, 19. He has 15 brothers and three sisters. His parents are in prison for drug-dealing. Basques is one of the many orphaned souls profoundly touched by the surfers. He comes to the compound several times a week for Bible study and prayer.
"Sometimes Tom [Bauer] takes me to the beach with my brothers," he says.
The flow of cars continues until well past 3 p.m. By the end of the day a few hundred people will have come and gone. Basques helps the surfers put everything away, working side by side with Sabate. With the day's work done, the surfers go their separate ways. Some take naps, some write letters home, some go to the mall.
Sabate makes a quick round of the premises to see if anyone wants to go to the beach. Strigl does.
A few others say they'll meet them at the regular spot on Waikiki. Sabate and Strigl throw surfboards in a van and hop in.
Strigl starts the engine.
"Wait," says Sabate.
Strigl glances at Sabate quizzically, and then remembers.
They both close their eyes and bow their heads.
"Lord, we thank you for this day," Sabate says. "We pray that you may protect us out there in the water. We pray that whatever we do, we give you the glory. We pray that you may use our gifts and talents to serve you. Please use us. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen."
They're planning a hot time in Hell on Tuesday. The day bears the date of 6-6-06, or abbreviated as 666 - a number that carries hellish significance. And there's not a snowball's chance in Hell that the day will go unnoticed in the unincorporated hamlet 60 miles west of Detroit.
Nobody is more fired up than John Colone, the town's self-styled mayor and owner of a souvenir shop.
"I've got '666' T-shirts and mugs. I'm only ordering 666 (of the items) so once they're gone, that's it," said Colone, also known as Odum Plenty. "Everyone who comes will get a letter of authenticity saying you've celebrated June 6, 2006, in Hell."
Most of Colone's wares will sell for $6.66, including deeds to one square inch of Hell.
Live entertainment and a costume contest are planned. The Gates of Hell should be installed at a children's play area in time for the festivities.
"They're 8 feet tall and 5 foot wide and each gate looks like flames, and when they're closed, it's a devil's head," Colone told The Detroit News for a Saturday story.
Mike "Smitty" Hickey, owner of the Dam Site Inn, wasn't sure what kind of clientele would show up Tuesday.
"We're all about having fun here. I don't think we're going to get the cult crowd, the devil worshippers or anything like that," said Hickey, whose bar's signature concoction is the Bloody Devil, a variant of the Bloody Mary.
Colone, meanwhile, has been in touch with radio stations as far away as San Diego and Seattle that are raffling off trips to Hell in honor of 6-6-6.
The 666 revelry is just the latest chapter in the town's storied history of publicity stunts, said Jason LeTeff, one of its 72 year-round residents - or, as the mayor calls them, Hellions or Hell-billies. But LeTeff wasn't particularly enthused.
"Now, here I am living in Hell, taking my kids to church and trying to teach them the right things and the town where we live is having a 6-6-6 party," he said.
According to the town's semiofficial Web site, there are two leading theories about how Hell got its name.
The first holds that a pair of German travelers stepped out of a stagecoach one sunny afternoon in the 1830s, and one said to the other, "So schoene hell" - roughly translated as, "So bright and beautiful." Their comments were overheard by some locals and the name stuck.
The second holds that George Reeves was asked after Michigan gained statehood what he thought the town he helped settle should be called, and reportedly replied, "I don't care, you can name it Hell if you want to." The name became official on Oct. 13, 1841.
It has long been noted that in certain parts of the United States, a fine line separates sports from religion. But at a minor league indoor football game last month in Birmingham, Ala., fans may have witnessed as transparent an attempt to merge football and church as had ever been tried.
Before kickoff, a Christian band called Audio Adrenaline entertained the crowd. Promoters gave away thousands of Bibles and bobblehead dolls depicting biblical characters like Daniel, Noah and Moses. And when the home team, the Birmingham Steeldogs, took the field, they wore specially made jerseys with the book and number of bible verses printed on the back.
Donnie Rhodes, a children's minister at Gardendale's First Baptist Church near Birmingham, took 47 sixth graders to the game by bus and said it was the perfect outing. "It was affordable, safe and spiritual," he said. "And the kids just thought it was the coolest thing."
Mr. Rhodes and his students were at the latest in ballpark promotions: Faith Nights, a spiritual twist on Frisbee Nights and Bat Days. While religious-themed sports promotions were once largely a Bible Belt phenomenon that entailed little more than ticket discounts for church and synagogue groups, Faith Nights feature bands, giveaways and revival-style testimonials from players. They have migrated from the Deep South to northern stadiums from Spokane, Wash., to Bridgewater, N.J.
A top aide to mega-church pastor Rick Warren is advising the makers of a children's video game in which characters kill New Yorkers while shouting "Praise the Lord." When children tire of converting or killing New Yorkers, they can switch sides and command the demonic armies of the AntiChrist, and kill the conservative Christians. The real-time strategy game, slated for release in October 2006, is based on the best selling series of Left Behind novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. The web site of Left Behind Games states the involvement of Mark Carver on its Advisory Board. This web-based marketing tool also highlights his role as Executive Director of Mr. Warren's Purpose Driven Church. What appears to be going on here is an old-fashioned business practice called "endorsement by association."
Colorado Rockies Turn America's Pastime Into Jesus' Pastime
From USA Today:
No copies of Playboy or Penthouse are in the clubhouse of baseball's Colorado Rockies. There's not even a Maxim. The only reading materials are daily newspapers, sports and car magazines and the Bible.
Music filled with obscenities, wildly popular with youth today and in many other clubhouses, is not played. A player will curse occasionally but usually in hushed tones. Quotes from Scripture are posted in the weight room. Chapel service is packed on Sundays. Prayer and fellowship groups each Tuesday are well-attended. It's not unusual for the front office executives to pray together.
On the field, the Rockies are trying to make the playoffs for the first time in 11 seasons and only the second time in their 14-year history. Behind the scenes, they quietly have become an organization guided by Christianity — open to other religious beliefs but embracing a Christian-based code of conduct they believe will bring them focus and success.
Roy Moore, AKA the Ten Commandments Judge, has announced that he's running for governor of Alabama. After spending the last year driving around the country with his enormous monument in the back of a flatbed truck, Roy's campaign for governor is in full swing. He recently claimed "I must continue to acknowledge God as the moral foundation for our law and liberty." Roy has even set up his own web board, where snake-handlers are free to post their support. Here's one of the more frightening posts:
Mr. Roy Moore. We have been praying for you and we know that GOD is with you.
GOD gave me that catchy campaign slogan "Moore of GOD" and you may use it.
Anyway, we live in Alabama and we are Fire-and-Brimstone ministers. I also have my certification in the state of Alabama as a private tutor; however, I can also teach in the public school and substitute. I had a conversation with the students while substitute teaching and AFTER I gave them their lesson plans.
One student sneezed and another said, "God bless You!" Another sneezed and the same "God bless You!" came forth from a student. I asked them why did they say, "God Bless You"? They told me because of Barth Simpson, their mother and to ride of demons. I told them that we were having open discussions of our opinions and then I told them that in the Bible JESUS blessed the people by turning them away from their iniquities. A teacher came to my classroom and told me that she taught Biblical studies and that I could not speak of Religion because there was a separation of church and state! I told her that there was no such thing.
I was confronted by two Assistant Principals about my religious opinions.
When I confronted them that the students were speaking of GOD ("God Bless You" after the sneeze) and the teacher was speaking of her spiritual beliefs (to paraphrase), they subsequently asked me to leave the school because because their were "laws" against me giving my Religous opinions. I later received a letter telling me that I was "prostelyzing" the students and I would never be allowed back to the school. The Baldwin County Board of Education even went as far as pulling a restraining order from an out of control tryant judge named James Reid.
Also, in this same County, we visited a PUBLIC library and visited an anti-gay website and the gay library officials became irate and banned up from the Daphne library and this same Judge James Reid granted the City of Daphne ANOTHER restraining order against us.
Morestill, our vehicle has a Bible scripture from Revelations 21:8 and my husband and I were recently falsely arrested for "Display of Obscene Writing in Public" and "Obscene Language," and the Baldwin County Human Resources (in a conspiracy) took away our three homeschool children and the judge Carmen Bosch told me that I could NOT drive my children around by myself nor be left alone with them without any abuse nor neglect. The Baldwin County Health Department is attempting to conclude that our lifestyle of street preaching is a safety issue for the children, thus they want custody.
We (including our children) have been beaten in the public park by the local police JUST for preaching Fire-and-Brimstone while praying for people.
We have a multitude of video footage showing my husband holding a sign (i.e. Repent or Burn in Hell) and being removed from the public right away with false charges such as "trespassing" in making traffic impasseble, "Failure to Obey a Lawful Order," and the infamous "Disorderly Conduct."
As Chistians, we are being persecuted ridiculously in the Baldwin and Mobile Counties which is the state of Alabama. We believe that you are GOD'S Moses for the State of Alabama.
We are Christians who are being forced to worship the heathen's GOD who is an anti-CHRIST.
Even if you do not win the Governor of Alabama, please know that GOD is calling you to fight for the right to promote GOD and the Christian Religion no matter where you go.
If you do make it into office, we will be hearing from you.
[From 
Bill McCartney
