{"id":27966,"date":"2015-05-21T19:24:46","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T23:24:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=27966"},"modified":"2015-05-21T18:15:10","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T22:15:10","slug":"walmart-sheep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2015\/05\/21\/walmart-sheep\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart.sheep"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u2022 A Unitarian minister in Alabama was fined $250 and sentenced to six months of probation for \u201cdisorderly conduct.\u201d Her crime? She was trying to conduct a wedding for a lesbian couple who had already secured a legal marriage license<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My guess is that Todd Starnes and the rest of the Christian hegemons whinging about imaginary \u201cpersecution of Christians\u201d won\u2019t be rallying behind this minister crying \u201cReligious liberty!\u201d But then, for Starnes et. al.,<\/em> Unitarians don\u2019t count as Real, True Christians (except for the ones who also signed the Declaration of Independence and\/or served as president), and \u201creligious liberty\u201d is reserved only for RTCs.<\/p>\n

\u2022 As far as I know, the litigious billionaires who run Walmart have not yet claimed title to the domain name Walmart.sheep<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"WalmartSheep\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(I fully appreciate that others are likely to arrive at the point at which this is no longer funny before I personally arrive there. But I\u2019m not there yet.)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Rival white motorcycle gangs got in a shootout in Waco, Texas, leaving\u00a0nine of them dead. Matthew Hagee says this is a sign of the End Times<\/a>.\u00a0Because, for the Hagees, everything<\/em> is a sign of the End Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bible says that in the End Times, lawlessness would abound,\u201d Hagee said. This is what utter devotion to the Narrative of Decline does to your brain. He saw news of the shootout and concluded that the Rapture must be about to happen because lawlessness has reached an all-time high in Waco \u2014 the city that previously gave its name to the Waco Siege<\/a> and the Waco Horror<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 Anne Graham Lotz<\/a> cites far more generic signs of the End Times, but like the Hagees she\u2019s convinced that those signs are clear and the Rapture is overdue. And she\u2019s willing to offer\u00a0a fairly specific time-range for that prediction: \u201cI believe that in my lifetime, if I live out my lifetime, a natural lifetime, I believe I will live to see the return of Jesus in the Rapture when he comes back to take us to be with himself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Lotz is 67, but her dad is still hanging in there at 96, so let\u2019s estimate this \u201cnatural lifetime\u201d to be, say, the next 30 years. Put a marker on 2045. If Left Behind<\/em><\/a> doesn\u2019t turn into a documentary between now and then, then we\u2019ll all know that Anne Graham Lotz is full of it.<\/p>\n

Of course, the beauty of this prediction is that, by design, she won\u2019t be around to have to defend herself once she\u2019s been proved wrong. Like climate-denialists, she\u2019s making a death bet. And, like all death bets, it\u2019s based on the moral principle of \u201cScrew everyone else, I\u2019m getting mine<\/em> and who cares about anybody else once I\u2019m dead?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s moral principles like that that make me think of Anne Graham Lotz as Franklin\u2019s sister rather than as Billy\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Sikhs have a rule that says they cannot remove their turbans and uncover their heads publicly. But it is not their only rule and it is not the Most Important Thing<\/a>\u00a0(via<\/em><\/a>):<\/p>\n

A young Sikh man has been praised for breaking religious protocol and using his turban to cradle the head of an injured child in Auckland.<\/p>\n

Harman Singh, 22, was one of the first at the scene after a\u00a05-year-old was hit by a car while walking to school.<\/p>\n

Singh said he didn\u2019t think twice about removing his\u00a0Siropao (turban) to help the child, who was bleeding from the head.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking about the turban. I was thinking about the accident and I just thought, \u2018He needs something on his head because he\u2019s bleeding.\u2019 That\u2019s my job \u2013 to help,\u201d Singh\u00a0told\u00a0nzherald.co.nz.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2022 That story recalls the story in the Gospels of Jesus healing a woman\u2019s spine\u00a0on the Sabbath<\/a>. And also the story in the Gospels of Jesus healing a man\u2019s withered hand on the Sabbath<\/a>.\u00a0Matthew\u2019s story is slightly different from Mark\u2019s, and the story in Luke is different enough that it might be a completely separate story. Or not. So how are they all related? Which story came first? Is one more \u201caccurate\u201d than the others, or does that question miss the whole point?<\/p>\n

This brings us back to the always-fascinating synoptic problem \u2014 which Paul Davidson continues to discuss here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t think Walmart’s lawyers can argue that Walmart.sheep is anti-Walmart. But I think we can argue that Walmart’s business practices are anti-sheep. Also: “Religious liberty” cheerleaders not lining up behind Christian minister who was fined and arrested over a sacrament; End Times predictions (and death-bets) from Little Hagee and Franklin’s sister; and a Kiwi Sikh lives out a Gospel story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,238],"class_list":["post-27966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-church-state","tag-left-behind"],"yoast_head":"\nWalmart.sheep<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I don't think Walmart's lawyers can argue that Walmart.sheep is anti-Walmart. But I think we can argue that Walmart's business practices are anti-sheep. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Walmart.sheep","description":"I don't think Walmart's lawyers can argue that Walmart.sheep is anti-Walmart. But I think we can argue that Walmart's business practices are anti-sheep. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}