Should have more to report later today.
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But treating the icthus like this is something like affixing an effigy of George W. Bush onto a crucifix in place of Jesus Christ. This kind of deification of a mere man would have horrified the early Christians: what if someone was selling these things back then with "NERO" on 'em? And how are they so blind as to believe that Bush is really doing "the Lord's work"? Just because they can deny the fact that he does many things in violation of scripture, doesn't make that fact any less true.
Geez, what the hell is wrong with these people??
About eight years ago I first learned about Christian Reconstructionists during a religion class in college. We laughed at their chances of taking over everything then. Now it looks like they really are hellbent on doing it: this blasphemy and the Bush-worshipping pastor in Waynesville NC are just two examples of their mindset.
And in all honesty it scares the hell out of me.
Man this is going to be the longest week of my life. Three decades of wondering about new Star Wars movies comes to an end in ten days. Whatever shall I do with my life now...? :-)
So it's out there now, the Asheville Citizen-Times just posted a story about the situation and a little while ago WorldNetDaily made it the top story. Meanwhile I'm hearing that this Chan Chandler guy is nowhere in sight but is sending statements defendings his actions as justifiable according to the Bible. Ummmmm ooh-kaaaay...
If no one minds my saying so, that part of the state is... well, strange anyway when it come to spiritual issues. I was a reporter there when the local churches had the big "We Still Pray" rally in 2000 and then a few weeks later at the same high school football stadium when area witches and warlocks held their own "We Still Work Magic" gathering. The Asheville area is one-third New Age mecca and one-third ardent Christian fundamentalist, with the last third being anyone and everyone in between. Can be a helluva fun place to spent a year or so of your life when you're young and adventurous and want to see a lot of nutty stuff happening. Makes me wish I was back there now while this is happening :-)
Heard from a contact in Asheville a little while ago: a church in Waynesville (about 20 miles or so west of Asheville) has excommunicated nine members for - get this - being members of the Democratic party! I'm scanning the websites for the Citizen-Times newspaper and WLOS to get more word on this but apparently this ain't a joke by any stretch. But from what I understand, the pastor of East Waynesville Baptist Church let the nine go because they supported John Kerry or the Democratic party somehow. One former member described on tonight's WLOS broadcast how he and others were told that "if we didn't support George Bush that we needed to resign our position and get out of the church, or go to the altar and repent and agree to vote for George Bush." His exact words, my source noted.
Geez, I don't know where to start on this one folks. This preacher sounds like a neo-pharisee or something.
No, it's worse than that. It's a church telling its members to believe that a mere earthly man is divinely anointed over them. The last time I recall churches doing that, it was shortly before the Russian tanks entered Berlin.
"Repent and agree to vote for George Bush"?! Can't get much more Nazi than that, boyz and goilz.
It used to have real meaning, back in the day when the Continental Congress and General George Washington asked their countrymen to pray for wisdom and guidance from divine Providence. Theirs were prayers of humbleness and contrition: those men and women knew where they stood before God. I think that was a far more noble era than today because for the most part, those people weren't afraid or ashamed to admit before all that their lives were meaningless without the grace of God. Nor were they too proud to confess the need for personal communion and fellowship with God to the extent that it had a higher priority than their relationships with others.
And it was considered a far nobler thing to desire that God's will be done, instead of OUR will be done. Look at many of the political and military leaderships of both sides of the Civil War: Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee were on opposite sides, yet both sought counsel from God and were content to let Him judge how the conflict should end. And in the end, General Lee harbored no bitterness toward either God or his conquerors for suffering defeat.
As for Lincoln, he was the first president to proclaim "a National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer" in 1863. You can read the proclamation yourself at the link. Including this passage from it...
...We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.That's what the National Day of Prayer used to mean: the nation humbling itself and crying to God for His will to be done.But we have forgotten God.
We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!
It was not intended to be a platform upon which the nation exalts itself and demands that God allow its own will be done.
I went to the National Day of Prayer's website to see what we're supposed to be praying for today. Starting with the President of the United States and members of Congress, the list of who/what to pray for goes on to mention members of the armed forces, "school authorities", law enforcement agencies, presumably "mainstream" journalists (where the heck are bloggers?!) and families at last.
Now, something that needs to be pointed out here: THERE IS NOT A DAMNED THING IN THIS MISSION PURPOSE THAT HAS TO DO WITH HUMILITY OR FASTING OR REAL PRAYER, AT ALL!!
The "National Day of Prayer" is not an exercise of our freedom to worship and seek out God as we understand Him.
The "National Day of Prayer", rather, is a means of controlling the American people.
I see nothing here but a reassertion of "authority" over the people of this country. As if there were common people and then an elite "priestly caste" of politicians and power-mongers that intercede on our behalf before Almighty God. As if we have no right to discourse with God regarding the state of our national affairs in our life on this Earth.
We're supposed to pray for wisdom for them. But where the Hell do you see it that we are asked to pray to God for wisdom for ourselves?
God didn't put "the government" in authority over America. He never decreed that this country is something only Democrats and Republicans can boast of controlling. Nowhere has it ever been commanded that we are supposed to follow men like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and George W. Bush as if they were anointed apostles of the Almighty without question. Who the *&$# do they think they are, anyway?!
And now we're supposed to pray that they do the right thing, when they have *&$#-ed it up so many times already in spite of our prayers for them?!
No sir. I will not partake in the National Day of Prayer. Because I have chosen to worship God. I will not worship America. Nor will I worship anyone who expects me to believe they have power over America.
Besides, the idea that prayer is a one-day out of the year thing cheapens it. We are told to "pray without ceasing". So instead of following through with what those who expect us to believe have authority over us would have us to do, I will pray in my own fashion. And include among them this petition to God: that He might give ALL of us, as Americans, the wisdom and the strength to govern ourselves in the stewardship He gave us.
Time to quit letting "them" handle things while we run away from it.
Like, REALLY good stuff.
All will be revealed soon. And then, hopefully, you'll smile a bit :-)
On a related note, call it the "Vader Virus" or "Imperial Influenza" but lots of people who attended the festivities have gotten sick since coming back from Indianapolis. I've been under the weather with some nasty crap myself ever since Monday (we got back very late Sunday night). It's probably weather-related: we went from first-day warm and sunny, to cold and rain Friday and then snow Saturday afternoon and night. Then again with THAT many people from all over the world in one area, with those kinds of conditions, there ain't no telling what hellish microbes might have been bred across four days. Hey who knows, maybe Star Wars Celebration III will forever emblazon a new illness like Legionnaire's disease did. How about "the Sidious Syndrome"?
?!?!?!?!?!?????
Okay Mister President: if you can find any teachers that do think that No Child Left Behind is a boon to their efforts, I'll eat my hat.
My, how the times have changed.
I said this then and I'll say this now: there already IS something controlling what children watch on television and the movies... and they're called parents!! And Mom and Dad together should be an adequate enough gatekeeper against what they will deem as objectionable without any help from the federal government. Or either the Democrats or Republicans.
Yes, I'm aware that this bill doesn't mandate any new technology like what Clinton did in pushing the V-chip. But the mindset is the same: that the American people are inherently incapable of taking care of themselves, so they need "authority figures" in government to be asserted over them for their own good.
Screw 'em.
For their own reasons, I'm finding both of these items to be hysterically funny.
Parse that as you will...
In the meantime, orient yer peepers at the new Batman Begins trailer at MTV.com. It's a pretty wonky setup to get it to play though: I had to use Internet Explorer instead of Mozilla because of something it does with Microsoft Media Player, and hopefully there'll be a MUCH better Quicktime version out soon. But it's still plenty to get me stoked: Batman Begins is on the VERY short list of movies that I'm looking forward to seeing this summer (the others being Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The War of the Worlds and some little art-house film that George Lucas is supposed to be releasing sometime next month). Looking at this trailer and the others before it makes me darned thankful that I wasn't one of the poor saps walking around wearing a Batman t-shirt back in 1989 when Tim Burton's movie was out. Which I like Tim Burton but his take on Batman... never quite resonated with me. This Gotham City looks and feels real, like someone really could put on a bat costume and with enough military toys would be perfectly believable. Check out the Scarecrow: LOVE it how he's got a simple burlap sack for a mask! No kitschy cartoonyism here kids. No extreme close-ups of molded-rubber crotches or nipples either: looks like someone kept Joel Schumacher a good cattle-prod's distance from this movie. Anyway, go watch it and enjoy a minute or so of madness and mayhem.
I'm not saying that American Idol is rigged. I'm praying it's not. Hoping that there are some ethical standards being adhered to and that EVERYONE is being given their fair shake at going all the way.
That said, there was something on tonight's broadcast of American Idol that I happened to catch, that has been bugging me all night.
The show's now down to six finalists, the theme this evening was songs that have come out since the year 2000. Before each contestant sang there was a brief set of video clips about that performer: where he or she comes from, comments from family and friends, their singing history, etc. The first contestant to perform tonight was Carrie Underwood, the 22-year old farmgirl from Oklahoma and one of the admitted favorites - if not the admitted favorite - to win the competition.
Now, here's what I've been wondering about...
Back in January, during Underwood's first appearance on the show, there was a brief video montage about her then also. One of the clips was of Underwood taking food to animals on her farm. Dunno why I remembered THAT particular clip, but as best as I can recollect, the show's producers had that same clip in Underwood's video segment tonight.
Why would American Idol's producers go to all the time and trouble to collect this kind of footage about Carrie Underwood, when at the time she was, at best, one of the 24 contestants that would be pared down to the final 12? Did all of the 24 contestants receive this kind of attention from the show that early on? And not just Underwood either: I noticed that Constantine Maroulis got much the same sort of "extra attention" from the show.
This isn't meant to "diss" either Underwood or Maroulis at all. Personally, I think they're both excellent singers and they should do well no matter how well American Idol ends up for them. But let's be honest here: how many times did we really see Anwar Robinson or Mikalah Gordon in the pages of People, or in the footage that Idol's producers released for public consumption? Could it be that maybe some contestants just aren't, ummm... "telegenic" enough to warrant equal consideration? Admittedly, Underwood is pretty and the ladies find Maroulis to be hot, but this is supposed to be a singing competition, not a beauty pageant.
Or maybe I'm seeing too much in this one little quirk. That might be fair to say too. But I guess I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like the deck stacked against anybody, no matter how "less appealing" they look in front of the television cameras. And hate to say it but this season of American Idol has tilted too much toward the fair-faced already.
"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?"-- 2nd Corinthians 6:14
Okay, more later. Me sleep now. It'll be good to wake up in the morning and not see a dozen Boba Fetts standing outside my hotel room door...
"Papa Ratzi".
