The Monstrous Regiment of John Knox

April 16, 2010 By 5 Comments

by Lorette C. Luzajic
Part 25 of Pillars of Faith

This Great Apostle of Murder

John Knox was a pivotal leader of the Reformation. The vastly important changes he made in liturgy and worship included abandoning the idolatrous tradition of kneeling during the Eucharist. He was also concerned with such substantial issues as what type of garments the clergy should wear. Knox was a priest who became a Protestant around 1545. He is praised for standing tall for religious freedom. But as today, “religious liberty” was a thinly veiled privilege extended only to the advocate’s religion, not to any other faiths. Knox rallied for the punishment and execution for those who wished to continue with Catholic styles of worship.

Knox endorsed death for all who differed from his personal interpretation of The Word, for which historian W.E.H. Lecky called him “this great apostle of murder.” “His law most streatly commandeth idolaters and fals prophetes to be punished with death,” Knox wrote. (Thanks to positiveatheism.org for this reference.) He openly proclaimed that any Protestant man had the right to slaughter any Catholic. He rejoiced publicly at the murder of Cardinal Beaton, who had burned one of Knox’s mentors at the stake, gleefully endorsing the brutality with which the cardinal was dragged from his bed, mutilated, and stabbed. For his role in the murder conspiracy, Knox was captured and imprisoned for two years to work in a ship galley.

Famous for two-to-three hour sermons, Knox wrote continually, including The History of the Reformation. He spoke bits of Greek, Hebrew, Latin, French and more. For his scholarship and for preaching against “the synagogue of Satan,” Knox is revered today alongside John Calvin and John Wesley.

The Monstrous Regiment

The presence of Mary may be what Knox detested most, even above inappropriate vestments. Knox burned with something much stronger than the love of the Lord — his whole life was fuelled by hatred of women. When forced to kiss an image of the Virgin Mary, Knox flung her into the ocean. “Let our Lady learn to swim!” he allegedly declared. Of course, had the male God been flung out, he would have walked to shore upon the waves.

Knox’s countless writings against the queens of his time are heralded as bravery, for said queens were adulteresses not fit to rule over men. The book The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women was written to defy the corrupt Mary Tudor, Mary of Guise, and Mary Queen of Scots. It was filled with reprehensible venom towards women shocking even in the 1500s.

The 1558 treatise made it clear that “woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man.” Speaking for God, Knox wrote that He would say, “Your free will has brought yourself and mankind into the bondage of Satan, I therefore will bring you in bondage to man…because you have deceived your man, you shall therefore be no longer mistress over your own appetites, over your own will or desires. For in you there is neither reason nor discretion… [Man] shall be lord and governor, not only over your body, but even over your appetites and will.”

The idea of women’s equality or rule is “detestable,” “repugnant to nature,” and “treason and conspiracy committed against God.” Women are “weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish; and experience has declared them to be inconstant, variable, cruel, lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment.”

And what of those learned men who disagreed with Knox and saw women as equals? Why, off with their heads, of course! “If any presume to defend that impiety… the sentence of death.”

Doomed to Repeat

There are no easy answers to the bloodbath of religious history at the end of the Medieval Age. The Mother Church was steeped in just as much hatred and superstitious nonsense as the new church. Warring faiths and interfaith tyranny had been going on since kingdom come.

Indeed, we have still not achieved a separation of church and state. While it is impossible to revise history with the fuzzy peacenik sentiments I espouse, it is reprehensible to erase history and present figures like Calvin and Knox as “godly men.” If we don’t tell it like it is, how will we learn from our mistakes?

Filed Under: Biography, Catholicism, Christianity, History 5 Comments

Jerry Falwell’s Legacy of Hate

March 30, 2010 By 42 Comments

by Lorette C. Luzajic
Part 24 of Pillars of Faith

To the Back of the Bus, Please

Great men of God like Jerry Falwell notoriously blame floods and fires on the Lord’s wrath over women who want to work. It seems God doesn’t have time to punish big sins like slavery, pollution, greed, genocide, war, racism, violence, or child brothels when homos are brainwashing our kids with cartoons like Spongebob and the Teletubbies.

Falwell, cofounder of the Moral Majority, says the call for Christian conservatism was ignited when abortion was legalized. That’s when fags and feminism took over our Christian heritage. These groups couldn’t be called minorities, like God-ordained groups of real humans like blacks and Hispanics, Falwell said, because these were fake lifestyles of sin that rejected Biblical patriarchy.

The Nation’s Max Blumenthal writes that Falwell’s recollection is revisionist, for his mission was built long before gay rights were born. Falwell’s early church, built in a “backwater bottling plant,” was built on “rabid” segregationalism.

Falwell was born in 1933 to a bootlegger, and after college, he started a church in Virginia. The big issue facing Christians in 1956 was that Christian schools were weeding out separatism. White-only schools were losing tax-exempt status, and Falwell didn’t like this one bit.

“The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line,” he said in one sermon. In another: “The true Negro does not want integration. He realizes his potential is far better among his own race.”

Falwell claimed integration would “destroy our race eventually.” He complained about a couple “of opposite race live next door…as man and wife.”

The Birth of the Immoral Majority

In 1979, the Moral Majority was born, spurring Christians into political action. “The idea that religion and politics don’t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country,” he bellowed in a ’76 sermon. (There was no mention of America’s original animist faiths.)

By 1983, the U.S. News and World Report named Falwell one of the 25 most influential Americans. Not great, since the rev was outspoken in support of apartheid. He called for Christians to reinvest in South Africa, opposing economic sanctions. He called the African National Congress a “communist front” and Bishop Desmond Tutu a “phony.” He opposed Nelson Mandela’s release from prison because he was a “communist.”

But as the ‘90s dawned, racism was becoming unpopular, so Falwell changed his focus to gays. “Gay folks would just as soon kill you as look at you,” he said. He called a new wave of Christian gays, the Metropolitan Community Church “brute beasts” and a “vile and Satanic system.” He called a lesbian talk show host “Ellen Degenerate.” He also said the preschool program for kids, The Teletubbies, was “role modeling the gay lifestyle,” which was hurting “the moral lives of children.” The stuffed alien Tinky Winky was “purple — the gay pride color.” His antenna was — gasp — a triangle, and he carried a red bag.

You didn’t have to be gay to provoke Jer Bear’s wrath. Billy Graham was “the chief servant of Satan.” The National Organization of Women was actually the “National Organization of Witches.”

And the evil American Civil Liberties Union was “to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.” Jerry wasn’t fond of Jews, though. “Jews can make more money accidentally than you can on purpose,” he grumbled, not content with his considerable fortune. The antichrist? “Of course he’ll be Jewish.”

Geography Lessons

His Bible said so, and the “Bible is the inerrant … word of the living God … infallible, without error in all matters … such as geography, science, history.” Somewhere in that Bible, there was something for labor unions, too. “Labor unions should study and read the Bible instead of asking for more money. When people get right with God, they are better workers.”

Most famously, Jerry Falwell said that hurricanes and disasters and the 9/11 attacks were divine retribution for homos.

In the Bible it also says gluttony is sin, and maybe 9/11 attacks happened because the rev was breaking the scales. In any event, a series of artery blockages and infections did him in, 2007, at 73.

Falwell was inducted last fall into the Christian Hall of Fame. In the company of Calvin, Apostle Paul, and Luther, Falwell is one of 124 inductees. “Falwell is honored for having been one of the great heroes of the faith in the last century,” said Rev. Mike Frazier at the ceremony. “…Perhaps he has done more for God than any other man in our generation.”

Filed Under: Biography, Christianity, Hypocrisy 42 Comments

Texe Marrs Hunts Jews and other Devils

February 19, 2010 By 32 Comments

by Lorette C. Luzajic
Part 23 of Pillars of Faith

texeEveryone loves a good conspiracy theory, and the Freemasons have provided fodder for countless blockbusters.

“Christian” writer Texe Marrs is sleazy showbiz. Does he believe his own hype? In his world, a demon lurks around every corner, a dangerous throwback to the kind of medieval thinking that fueled the Burning Times and Puritan society. The kind of thinking that fuels the ruthless domination of women in the fundamentalist Islamic world, where execution exists routinely for adulteresses, queers, and apostates.

Power of Prophecy is Marrs’ “end-times ministry, called by God to exalt Jesus Christ and to expose darkness in these last days.” Exalting Christ means rabid anti-Semitism. Exposing darkness warning us of demonic hand signals that prove everyone from Oprah to Kramer to Janet Jackson are devil worshippers. By their hands ye shall know them.

Beelzebub’s brethren have a special sign language. Satanic signals include making fists, interlaced fingers, hands cupped, hands flat, and the ubiquitous El Diablo, a fave in rock’n’roll. El Diablo’s gesture is the same as the deaf sign for “I love you.” And that’s all the proof Texe needs to say Hellen Keller was demon possessed.

It Came From Outer Space

Texe was an aerospace studies and psych prof before he hit the big time with Dark Secrets of the New Age. But the Jews were more of a concern than crystals: “How Jewish Avengers Took Over Hitler’s Concentration Camps and Used Them to Brutally Torture and Mass Murder Thousands of Helpless Germans.”

Texe also endorses and sells a book by A. Hitchcock: Synagogue of Satan: the Secret History of Jewish World Domination.

He’s not fond of queers either, and called one churchgoer “a big homosexual faggot.”

Who could Texe hate more than Jews or fags? Jewish fags of course! He says the Columbine shootings were part of the gay Jew agenda.

Texe says he loves Jews. “If we hated the Jews, we wouldn’t want to see them in Heaven with us, would we? We’d want to see them go to Hell,” he said in Thunder Over Zion. He also said, “No Christian can be an anti-Semite. I cry tears for the Jewish … sacrificed on the altar of Mammon.”

The Great Barbie Conspiracy

Texe warns us that Hilary Clinton has — gasp — strong feminist ties… and that the NIV translation of the Bible is a tool of New Age feminism. But brother evangels are evil, too: “Billy Graham’s sad, downward spiral into the mire and slime of biblical apostasy continues unabated,” he says. I’m no fan of John Hagee myself, but Texe thinks, “He may be possessed by Satan.”

My personal favourite is the Mattel conspiracy. Not because I just can’t get my boobs to go up so high without plastic surgery, but because Barbie is the actual whore of Babylon. “Even our children are being stealthily indoctrinated into the new faith… The Mattel Toy Co. has introduced its new ‘Goddess of the Sun’ Barbie doll. Is this the Whore of Babylon spirit, alive and with us today?”

It may be a stretch to consider Texe a pillar of faith, since his extremism is too extreme even for extremists. But I argue that it’s important to see how far radical fundamentalism can take us. There are many who believe Texe is a lone warrior standing up for the truth. And history is full of absurd fairy tales that justified war, slaughter, racism, and the complete subjugation of women. It’s human nature to want someone to blame, and blaming it on the devil is nothing new.

It was, in fact, insane zealots like Marrs who stoked the fires and wrote the Malleus Maleficarum. In Uganda today, the hysterical right has won their push for family values, and laws to execute queers are swinging into motion. Millions have been executed for working for the devil. It’s not far fetched to think it can happen again.

Filed Under: Biography, Christianity, Cults, Fundamentalism 32 Comments

No Sympathy for the Devil: Jonathan Edwards’ Fire and Brimstone

January 18, 2010 By 17 Comments

by Lorette C. Luzajic
Part 22 of Pillars of Faith

The Devil in You

jonathan-edwardsIn American Fascists, Chris Hedges refers to the Puritan roots of modern American theocracy. He points out that they came to abolish the devil, sanctioned by God to slaughter the native inhabitants.

Chris is not an atheist, so I hoped Dad would warm to his book about the dark side of Christianity. Sigh. Instead of acknowledging the superstitious mindset of Puritan life, he scrawled angrily in the margin, “NO DOCUMENTATION. JONATHAN EDWARDS WAS A MISSIONARY TO THE NATIVES.”

Yes, Dad, yes he was.

We are told the Puritans came from Europe to escape religious persecution, braving the seas to live godly lives. Few are told the Puritans had blood on their hands. Indeed, the root of the Irish hell between Catholics and Protestants is the Puritan desecration and slaughter of Catholic and Anglican churches, castles, monasteries, and their inhabitants.

Europe was saturated in witch hysteria: Catholics and Protestants were equal partners in this barbaric era. The Puritans brought the superstitions that fueled this blot in history with them to America. They were obsessed with devils. Demon possession was responsible for moles, birth defects, mental illness, stillborn children, bad crops, stormy seas. Satan was everywhere — he was seen in the flesh as a cloven-hoofed Negro, a deer, black cats, and of course, women.

His home was America, which God ordered the Puritans to purify. America, home of the savage pagan Indians, who had to be converted or killed.

Some Loathsome Insect

New England’s Jonathan Edwards, 1703–1758, is considered by many the greatest preacher and theologian in America, ever. He was a brilliant man who studied at Yale at the age of 13, graduating by 17. He questioned age-old religious ideas of women’s subservience, celebrating a romantic relationship with his wife, and writing about Eve as the mother of all that is holy, the seed of Christ.

He supported science, refusing the popular stance that it was heretical, believing it revealed God’s glory rather. And yes, Dad, he did move a few inches away from the superstitious obsessions of his preaching predecessors such as Cotton Mather, who rallied up more salacious terror than the horror movies that were sin to watch when I was a kid.

But Edwards was indeed obsessed with hell and the devil, who lived inside the natives he ministered to. And he put the fire into “fire and brimstone” preaching. Indeed, he put the brimstone in, too. King of this genre, Edwards loved elaborate descriptions of torture, detailing grimly how God would dole out punishment.

God “abhors” you; like “a spider or some loathsome insect” he holds you “over the fire.” God’s “fiery floods” and “inconceivable fury” bind you to that “world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone.” Unless you convert, “the dreadful pit of the glowing flames” and “hell’s wide gaping mouth” await you. Only the elect could convert — the rest were doomed regardless.

The Bell Curve

Clearly, the vile sins of theatre, poetry, courting, fashion, and more were more heinous in God’s eyes than slavery. Edwards was among the first to offer blacks church membership, but as an educated man, he deserved slaves, who were put into bondage by the Lord himself. (Ironically, his son of the same name was known for abolitionist work.) The reverend came under fire from his parish, according to Dr. Ken Minkema, for his family’s lavish taste in “jewelry, chocolate, Boston-made clothing, children’s toys—and slaves.”

Blacks were low, but the hottest pit of hell belonged to the natives. Edwards had an axe to grind with the Indians, who had massacred some relatives while defending their territory. Maybe that’s why he described them as the “devil’s children,” whose religion was “devil worship.” He said, “The devil sucks their blood.” Indians, he believed, were descended from Noah’s cursed son, Ham. He preached that Satan lured these vile people from the gospel, across Asia into the devil’s wilderness of North America. Now God wanted the land back, and had given it to the godly to take by any means necessary.

Lest my critics leap on me and begin hurling apologetics my way, I am fully aware that Puritan history and Edwards’ relationship with natives was more complex than a few paragraphs can express. Edwards truly believed he was sent to save Indian souls from torment. Yet today the godly sneer at pagan African tribes that believe certain other cultures, like the albinos or the pygmies, are of the devil. But we are no different.

It’s time to stop excusing historical blunders or justifying current prejudices. Our moral compass cannot come from such woefully misguided pillars of faith. Instead, we must learn from their mistakes.

Filed Under: Articles, Biography 17 Comments

Rod Parsley Promises Deliverance From the Stench of Poverty

December 30, 2009 By 31 Comments

by Lorette C. Luzajic
Part 21 of Pillars of Faith

The Demons are at it Again

Rod ParsleyOhio’s Rod Parsley is another megachurch megaphone living the lifestyle of the rich and shameless. With a private jet and millionaire’s estate, he’s clearly not starving. But Rod’s never been shy about saying, literally, “show me the money,” and he’s not shy now about asking for more. Recently Rod announced a Satanic attack on his ministry — the poor haven’t been giving as much as he wants. In addition, he already gave away $3 million of the World Harvest Church’s dollars — “our” dollars — to settle damages in a lawsuit for child abuse. Rather than apologize for a baby leaving the church’s Cuddle Care room with welts, scratches, and cuts, having been beaten with a ruler, Rod blames a “demonically inspired assault against us.”

Prior to this episode, another toddler had a fractured skull. His parents were told he had collided with another kid. Church admin were forbidden to discuss the incidents with anyone. (There were also incidents where Rod’s dad was charged with sexually harassing a church member, and a civic suit where a member charged Rod and Dad of beating him to a pulp. The charges were dropped against Rod, but his dad pleased no contest. The defendant also claimed that his $7,000 tithe was used for “the enrichment of Rodney Parsley, his parents and others so as to achieve an opulent lifestyle for themselves.”)

Orwellian Gays

Of course, like all other dominionist preachers, abortion is at the top of Rod’s anti-Satan agenda, despite that he doesn’t like the little ones enough to hire staff who don’t beat them. “Infanticide” is followed closely by the gay threat, and then by Islam. Where other evangels may use diplomacy when discussing other faiths, Rod says straight up that God wants America to “destroy” the Muslim world, and that Muhammad was possessed by demons.

As for queers, Rod opposes hate crime legislation, which would infringe on his right to gay bash. He has likened these laws to Orwell’s 1984, stating the “sole intent is to limit traditional biblical thinking and biblical speaking.” He warns: “You see, the legislation that’s before our United States senators right now extends to speech and can punish people—hear me now—not for their actions, but for their culturally incorrect thoughts.” So much for Thou Shalt Not Lie — the proposed legislation seeks only to outlaw violent actions, and specifies it does NOT extend to speech or religious expression.

Many dominionists lay low about being God’s chosen, but Rod says you’d better vote Republican or face the fiery furnace, that we are called to be “Christocrats.” America — and the world — must subscribe to the Christian Reich’s interpretation of Biblical values, and there is no room for Satanic liberal theology, biology, or civil rights. Following God “is not a democracy; that is a theocracy,” he says.

God as Gold

To be fair, the reverend’s Bridges of Hope ministry has delivered food, water, and medical care to developing nations and at home. There are strings attached, of course: the heathens — obviously afflicted because of their rejection of God, witchcraft and sodomy — must hear how their predicament is caused by God’s wrath. Rod preaches clearly that God is gold — poverty is spiritual bondage. His saviour didn’t have a pot to piss in — and preached that he himself was the poor, the stranger, the prisoner. He said that anyone who denied the poor would not enter the kingdom of heaven.

But Rod, who has said, “I am superior to the forces of darkness,” preaches that “for you to live from paycheck to paycheck is to deny the power of the gospel.” What the “good news” means for “a poor man is that he doesn’t have to be poor anymore.” Those living in “financial bondage” have refused the flow of the gospel. “You have denied the perpetual propulsion of power that could deliver you from not only sin and sickness but from the horrible stench of poverty.”

Of course, poverty isn’t caused by underemployment, colonization, overpopulation, hurricanes and other inhospitable climates, disease, mental illness, corrupt governments, or greed — it’s because we didn’t buy one of Pastor Rod’s “miracle prayer cloths.”

Just in case we weren’t completely sure what he means by all this prosperity talk, Rod spells it out for us: “I just love to talk about your money. Let me be very clear — I want your money. I deserve it. This church deserves it.”

Lorette C. Luzajic writes about all kinds of interesting people at Fascinating People. Her latest book is the anthology, Goodbye Billie Jean: the Meaning of Michael Jackson.

Filed Under: Biography, Christianity 31 Comments
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