The Coalition of the Swilling

I've got to repeat what I said over on Nightfly's site:

"an awful lot of Protestant splinter groups are whackos that the Church would have brought into line in an earlier day."

I'd like to see an old fashioned excommunication here.

I grew up in Virginia Beach, home of the 700 Club and you'd be amazed at how many students and teachers wore lapel pins denoting their rank in the 700 club. I'm not sure how it worked, but some wore a little 100 pin, others a 200 pin. I assume there were higher levels. I'm not sure what the rank signified, but they all lived and breathed Pat Robertson, or Rock Church, or both.

Mostly they were considered by the rest of us as well meaning bible thumpers. Usually they didn't try every minute to convert you. Sometimes they had to take in a breath. Or teach chemistry or math.

I'd like to say this was before Pat Robertson was senile, but he's always been looney. I remember flipping the channels one time and Pat was showing a picture of an astronaut on a space walk. Being interested in astronauts I paused at the channel. Pat Robertson was telling us that because the tangle of hoses or lines connecting the astronaut to the ship were twisted into a heart shape, albeit only in a few frames of the video, that this means that his god was out there in space as well as on Earth. What a kook.

(Oh, you are sh*ttin' me, Mike. On the upside for us, he wasn't much of a Marine, either.)

I vaguely recall he is a Marine, but I know nothing of what he did as a Marine.

He was the liquor/club officer in Korea, since daddy was a Senator who made sure his son was out of harm's way. Lucky thing for Pat, too, 'cause I'll bet he'd've been fragged.

Hahahahaha, he supplied the booze!

I know the 700 Club used to have a real good medical staff, with a flying hospital or 2, but other than some isolated words of wisdom, Pat has been off his rocker for a while. Sad he is portrayed as the face of the American church by the media (along with Falwell), but he loves the attention.

I guess I was too young to notice that stuff back then. Wow. That was quite a read.

Wow, that link is phenomenol, Sis.

Well, it's no wonder he's in La-La Land now ~ he never left it to begin with.

"He supplied the booze" - but with stern disapproving glances, no doubt.

Mike, that ranking stuff does seem a little like the Xenunites, doesn't it... Wonder if Pat's e-meter is spiking lately.

That being said, there's one thing that I have to admire in him despite it all. The Christian Church used to pray for the conversion of infidels; now we seem to act as if we ought to change our own faiths to accommodate them, part of a larger general trend - we elide the sterner stuff to make ourselves feel better as well. I don't understand it. I mean, I get that we don't want to break out the anathemizer at the drop of the hat. But if we're going to achieve some sort of rapproachment with those who profess different faiths, we'd better be clear about our own first. If it doesn't seem to matter to us, it's sure as shooting won't matter to anyone else either.

Pat seems to get it in reverse, getting stuck exclusively on the tough parts of the faith. He's wrong to exclude the appeal of Christ and the love of Christ, but Exorcist jokes aside - he has a point about the quality of radical Islam. And if Pat's making our points for us, does that mean we're snoozing at the switch a little?

The Christian Church used to pray for the conversion of infidels; now we seem to act as if we ought to change our own faiths to accommodate them, part of a larger general trend - we elide the sterner stuff to make ourselves feel better as well.

Man, ain't that the truth. We've lost the courage of our convictions, and no where is this more evident in my own PC-USA General Assembly, whose policies and resolutions seem more like a touchy-feely psychology society than the ruling body of a church that supposedly believes iin something, and that, you know, some acts are, dare I say...wrong?

And if Pat's making our points for us...
...then we're f*cked.

I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I'm pretty solid with my own understanding of the world, and I sure as heck don't want anyone speaking for me, Christian or Jew or what have you.

The thing is that we needn't espouse any religion as a nation to properly hold those accountable for supporting a murderous religion. We don't need to say, "Your religion sucks, but our religion is better." All we need to say is, "Your religion sucks." And then kill those that refuse to denounce it.

We don't need to say, "Your religion sucks, but our religion is better."

When you get down to brass tacks, agreed, Mike - though I would amend one thing. Pat doesn't speak for a whole lot of people, obviously - I'm not a member of the 700 Club, for example. But those of us who are professing Christians (regardless of brand preference) should well be clear on why we prefer Jesus to Mohammed, and shouldn't be afraid to say so.

I shouldn't have muddied the issue by bringing up the Church of the Squishy Marshmallow, I suppose, but I saw the connection between timidity amongst ourselves and timidity with others. If we are opposed with violence, well, that's the story of human history and we are not exempt. But to be opposed from within our own ranks by people who pretend that all differences are cosmetic? We see how well that's working in the West in general, not just Christendom in specific: and if we're really the light of the world we ought to quit acting like a complicated social club with bad music.