It’s possible that, unlike me, some of you may this evening still be capable of coherent sentences and thoughts that are worth sharing. Here is a thread for you. I’m going back to pacing, nervous eating, and muttering/praying/rambling aloud in an empty room. Read more
I attended Sunday services at a white evangelical mega-church in our closely watched swing-state county. Most of the service made no mention of the election just a few hours away. But then, tacked on the end, just after the closing hymn, the pastor and his congregation rushed through an obligatory reminder of the importance of voting because if the wrong side wins they'll lose their freedom to worship, have their Bibles confiscated, and be rounded up in FEMA camps for real, true Christians. It was simultaneously extreme and insincere -- and thus strangely appropriate for 2016. Read more
"Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil." Read more
Vigilant against the rise of a coming Antichrist, LaHaye and Jenkins are not on the lookout against the deceptions of disingenuous false leaders, but rather against anyone with a message of love and peace and understanding and brotherhood. They've gotten so caught up in guarding against wolves in sheep's clothing that anything in sheep's clothing is viewed as the enemy. So all sheep must be shot on sight. Read more
Some Thursday night odds-and-ends, including: Why the Cubs' win will provoke an identity crisis for their fans; Beyonce at the CMAs; Amy Grant singing from a hymnal is insufficiently Christian, "bookstore" claims; and yet more reasons why Ken Ham had to leave Australia to promote young-Earth creationism. Read more
There hasn't been a massive national freak-out over the ambush killings of two Iowa police officers. This is because the suspect is a white guy. He's really, really white -- a Trump supporter who was angry with police after he was kicked out of a high school football game for waving a Confederate flag. Read more
Such acts of violence and intimidation are implicitly first person plural. They convey the message "WE don't want your kind." When that undefined, presumed first person plural is not challenged -- when it is not loudly refuted and shouted down -- then acts of violence like this gain momentum and power. Read more
"(We Don't Need No) Color Code," is a raucous, righteous middle finger directed at Bob Jones University from Steve Taylor's 1984 "Meltdown" album. It's a fun, foot-stompin' anti-racism song. The album's producer, a long-time CCM recording whiz, even joins in on the call-and-response chorus. That guy? Turns out he was also a member of the KKK who eventually went to prison for his role in an attack on a Nashville synagogue. Read more
Say, "Most evangelicals support Donald Trump" and they'll say it's unfair to deny the vast diversity of political and theological views that constitute the broader whole of evangelicalism. Say, "It's possible to be both evangelical and gay" and suddenly you'll find that such diversity is not allowed. They'll inform you that it's impossible to be both gay and evangelical, and impossible to be both gay "affirming" and evangelical. Read more
"Ecumenical" is another bogeyman word in these books. Generally speaking, it should be read here as connoting "relativistic, truth-denying." Keep in mind also that Tim LaHaye is a longtime John Birch Society member, and that the main offices for the ecumenical National Council of Churches are in New York, in a building donated by John D. Rockefeller, and you'll begin to get a sense of how ominous and portentous this is meant to seem. Read more
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