Dead Air Church: Ex-fundies rock!

At left: A mere fraction of the copious religious propaganda that has been foisted on me here in fundamentalist Bob Jones University-land. My favorite is in the lower left of the frame, the million dollar bill with Charles Spurgeon on it. (Accept no substitutes!)





I recently discovered Stuff Fundies Like, when my blog was linked on one of their threads. Yow, thought Daisy, what kind of fundies quote ME? I was surprised, to say the least.

And now I know: These are the kind of fundies that quote me!

These are the EX-fundies. And it turns out, there are droves of them! Who knew? (Well, of course, the eager-beaver tract-distributors don't tell you about THEM, now do they?)

And... let me tell you: they are beautiful people.

Stuff Fundies Like (SFL) routinely gets hundreds of comments... and it is the comments and participation that drives the community. They are all over the lot, furious ex-fundies, funny ex-fundies (they are often quite hilarious in describing the lifestyle, creed, expectations), as well as those who desperately want to exit fundamentalism, but can't seem to figure out how to do it. Fundamentalist Christianity (and ALL fundamentalism, by extension) traps people; if they were raised in it, they don't understand the ways of the world. Everyone they know is like them. They have been told the world is evil and wicked, and they don't know which outsiders to trust. As a result, Stuff Fundies Like has become a warm and friendly surrogate family, extremely crucial and sorely needed.

Through this blog, I found a treasure trove of information... the next Bob Jonesoid that approaches me, will be sorry sorry sorry. On the other hand, I realize, I will likely be a whole lot nicer to them, too... I think I get it, now. It doesn't make the harassment any easier to take, but it does make me more compassionate. Buddha said if you want to understand your own suffering, focus on the suffering of those who make YOU suffer. (Something like that.) I often fail miserably at this, since when my enemies suffer, I usually giggle with glee, "Yeah, take that, bitch!" In so many ways, I am not the most spiritually-enlightened person, as DEAD AIR regulars have likely figured out by now.

However, I now know (for example), that the kids at Bob Jones are FORCED to meet "soul-winning quotas" (!) and the tract-foisting harassment is therefore required. They have "prayer captains" in every dorm room (does that give anybody else a flash of Grand Funk Railroad's "I'm your Captain"--conjuring up images of now-born-again Mark Farner with a Bible-shaped guitar in his hands?). The prayer captains tattle on you all the time, if you should stray from the Bob Jones path. And straying is inevitable, because the demands placed on these young people are incredible.

You are not allowed to face your accusers. The place runs on the gossip and whims of "prayer captains"--imagine your college if the goody-two-shoes were allowed to run the joint. Some of the ex-fundies were bounced out, in just this arbitrary fashion. Busted with AC/DC, there is nothing to do but plead guilty. You did the crime, you serve the time... and they first put people in lock-down, almost like prison. (To me, it sounds like a prison.) Demerits are given for all kinds of bizarre things, and the SFL commentariat like to give each other demerits in humorous fashion.

The blog and forum include everybody--the ex-fundies are best-represented, but the curious never-fundie and the fundie-victim (me) are also present and accounted for. Folks are diverse; some are still pretty strict Christians (notably, nobody cusses) and some are now atheists and agnostics. And they accept and tolerate each other, wherever they are. The tolerance is more than mere tolerance: it is 'capital t' Tolerance. Their tolerance is obviously a secular value that they have agreed upon; an explicit goal that they strive for, as part of their journey to find their own way.

As a result, they are far more tolerant than many liberals who pride themselves on "tolerance." No people truly grasp the whole meaning of tolerance more than someone who was never granted ANY, and fully understands what that means.

Learning the lingo of the blog/forum is somewhat daunting; they have more acronyms than the old Alphabet Soup of the Left. Some of these stand for the main colleges of fundamentalism--besides BJU, there is Pensacola Christian College (PCC), Hyles-Anderson College (HAC), and Ambassador Baptist College (ABC) among many others. They have their own culture, their own publications and their own entertainment, if you can call it that.

At left: BJU's Jonathan Edwards-themed coffee shop, Great Awakenings. (photo lifted from Mother Jones)






One of the most important terms necessary to understand is IFB, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist. This is the core "cell" of the movement. These are also known as "Bible Churches"--for whatever reason. (Implication: other Christian denominations don't really use the Bible, or in any case, don't truly understand it.) And "KJVO" stands for King James Version Only. (You wondered where the Catholic-hating would start, didn't you?) Sometimes they call this "King James Version Onlyism"--since it isn't just a preference, but a doctrinal point that has been stoked to a fever pitch.

I have been introduced to some amazing bloggers and some amazing Christians... some have courageously dedicated themselves to fighting for the victims of abuse. And the extensive abuse has only recently been publicly documented.

After 20/20 blew the IFB movement out of the water back in April, various websites and instructional videos (that make similar allegations look substantial) have been suddenly pulled in the dead of night.

[Warnings, triggers and so forth.]

Compassion or Cover-Up? Teen Victim Claims Rape; Forced Confession in Church

[Tina] Anderson was only 16 when she said she was forced to stand terrified before her entire church congregation to confess her "sin" -- she had become pregnant. She says she wasn't allowed to tell the group that the pregnancy was the result of being allegedly raped by a fellow congregant, a man twice her age.

She says her New Hampshire pastor, Chuck Phelps, told her she was lucky not to have been born during Old Testament times when she would have been stoned to death.

Phelps says that Anderson voluntarily stood in front of the church, but Tina says it was the first step of "church discipline" at her Independent Fundamental Baptist Church (IFB).

...

Her mother sought help from the pastor and they agreed to send her thousands of miles away to Colorado to live with another IFB family.

There, she said she was homeschooled and restricted from seeing others her age until she gave her child up for adoption.

And that was 13 years ago.

How did this come to light? Let's hear it for the INTERNET!

Thirteen years after the alleged crime, Matt Barnhart, a former member of Anderson's church, decided to write a post referencing Anderson's story on a Facebook page for ex-members of IFB churches.

The site supervisor, who runs an advocacy group for former IFB members, Freedom from Abuse, alerted Concord police.

Anderson, who at the time was teaching voice at the International Baptist College in Chandler, Ariz., got the police call out of the blue.

"Right now I feel completely overwhelmed," said Anderson. "It's been tough. In my mind, I didn't think he'd be arrested, and when I got the phone call I was completely shocked. My whole world has changed."

And that last sentence sums up the experience for all the fundies... all of whom have dealt with emotional and spiritual abuse; some have been beaten, and some have been raped. (And at least one, murdered.)

They are leaving, one by one... they take a look around, they decide to take in a movie or listen to music of their own choosing. They talk to the non-fundies around them. They take a deep breath, emerging from lies and subterfuge.

And in so doing, they decide to find out the truth... which as we know, will set us free.

Thank you for sharing your amazing journeys with me, and with all of us. You have shown us courage, justice and true Christian love.

Texan showdown

After Labor Day's extended nonsense, I wasn't too eager to watch any more Republican debates. Bah. So I skipped last night's; I figured there would be plenty more where that came from.

It turns out the big news is what happened during the commercials.

According to RonPaul.com:

During a commercial break at Wednesday’s Republican debate, Rick Perry and Ron Paul continued their spirited exchange on stage. Suddenly, Perry grabbed Ron Paul’s forearm while aggressively pointing his index finger towards the Congressman’s face. Alerted by Perry’s menacing gestures, Ron Paul’s bodyguard [front left in photo below] was standing by, ready to protect the Congressman.

But don't expect to find out what all the hoopla is about, since Ron has forgotten it already:

On Thursday, a Rick Perry spokesman stated that the two contenders were having a “cordial conversation” about border security, while Ron Paul diplomatically downplayed the incident, saying he did not even remember the exchange.

I don't believe that for a minute, but I like how he disses Perry as not memorable. AND not worth getting upset over.

And quite honestly, who looks ruffled in these photos? It isn't the good doctor.

From the Washington Times account titled Perry vs. Paul: A Texas-sized war:

At one point when the video cameras weren’t rolling — though the incident was caught by still photographers — Mr. Perry walked over Mr. Paul’s lectern, took hold of the congressman’s wrist and wagged his finger at him.

A spokesman for Mr. Perry said Thursday it was a policy conversation, not a heated exchange.

“The governor and the congressman talked about border security. It was a cordial conversation,” said Mark Miner.

The two Texans, though, lost few opportunities to focus on one another in the debate.

The first shot was invited by the debate moderators, who asked Mr. Paul to expand on his accusations, made in recent days, that Mr. Perry, who has spent more than a decade as governor of Texas, is less conservative than voters think.

“Just take the HPV,” Mr. Paul said, referring to Mr. Perry’s scrapped plan to require schoolgirls in the state to be given a vaccine against the sexually transmitted virus. “Forcing 12-year-old girls to take an inoculation to prevent this sexually transmitted disease, this is not good medicine, I do not believe. I think it’s social misfit.”

Mr. Perry acknowledged he’d gone about the plan the wrong way when he tried to bypass the legislature, but said he’d been trying to combat cervical cancer, which can result from HPV, and said his plan would have allowed parents to opt out of the inoculation program.

Later, after Mr. Perry criticized the health care law Mr. Romney signed in Massachusetts, Mr. Paul jumped in and said Mr. Perry should worry about his own record, since he had written “a really fancy letter supporting Hillarycare” — the health program former first lady Hillary Clinton tried to enact in the 1990s.

Mr. Perry fired back, pointing to a letter Mr. Paul wrote in 1987 announcing he was dropping out of the the party he now seeks to lead because he was disappointed in then-President Reagan.

“Speaking of letters, I was more interested in the one that you wrote to Ronald Reagan back and said I’m going to quit the party because of the things you believe in,” Mr. Perry said.

He didn’t any further before Mr. Paul insisted on responding.

“I support the message of Ronald Reagan. The message was great. But the consequence — we have to be honest with ourselves — it was not all that great,” Mr. Paul said.

The attacks kept up even during the commercial breaks — and not just on stage. Mr. Paul had paid to run an ad during the MSNBC broadcast attacking Mr. Perry, pointing to his support for Al Gore’s presidential bid in the 1980s, including twice calling the governor a “cheerleader.”

“Al Gore found a cheerleader in Texas named Rick Perry,” the ad announcer intones.

I'd love to read the Ron Paul letter. It will probably be guarded as closely as the Fatima Letter though, and we'll never get the chance.

It's getting interesting.

As I've said, I have already called South Carolina for Perry (barring any unforeseen scandals, and he looks like he eats scandals for breakfast, so that's a big caveat), and I haven't changed my mind since his visit here in the upstate on August 19th. But the Ron Paul people have also figured this out, and they know who to go after. They are INTENT on winning South Carolina and are very single-minded and hard-working.

Could they do it?

Well, maybe if they start talking about the fact that the reason Texas is burning up right now is that Rick Perry slashed fire departments around the state, to the tune of $23 million... from $30 million to $7 million. And now they have uncontrollable wildfires they can't stop. What about that?

Oh wait, Ron wants to cut MORE than that (including cops, according to what I heard him say in the Labor Day debate), so of course, he can't criticize Perry on THAT score. Ron would let the state burn too, wouldn't he? Or would he? Let's talk about THAT, and the 1400 people burned out of their homes by Republican greed. OR we could talk about where Rick Perry's gets his money, conservative Texas tycoon James Leininger:

Leininger also helped bankroll the transformation of the Texas GOP from a merely conservative party to one dominated by religious fundamentalists. Partly because of his influence, the Texas political culture that Rick Perry emerges from is significantly more right-wing than the one that shaped George W. Bush. And now that Perry is running for president, Leininger is working to make sure that national conservative Christian leaders coalesce behind him

Leininger is in tight with the fundies, as owner of Promised Land Dairy, which sells milk in bottles printed with Bible verses.

And now he is going to sell Rick Perry, former buddy of Al Gore, to the Religious Right.

Stay tuned, sports fans.

"Why the mainstream media are clueless about the religious right"

At left: Street preacher sign from Bele Chere. (Any questions?)











Suzan links AlterNet's interesting Why the Mainstream Media Are Clueless About the Religious Right by Adele M. Stan, which not surprisingly, offers some cluelessness of its own.



As I have said (so many times) before, as long as the language of religion is generally dissed by the mainstream media and the elite Left, you have allowed it to remain the language of the religious right, by default. And this highly-moral language is then used to talk to the masses, right over your heads.



If an exotic dialect is used only by one group, even if others understand it, it eventually becomes theirs.



And yes, religion is regarded by the media as some weird, exotic dialect from flyover country, which means the copious dog-whistles and covert winks offered by the Religious Right sail right past the well-paid hotshot media analysts and pundits, as in the famous "Obama is the antichrist" TV ad. They just MISSED it. (Antichrist? Who?)



In comments in this thread, I gave an example, and rather than type it all again, I am hereby quoting myself:

[Years ago], I watched Mother Theresa's funeral on late-night TV (India time), and several of the "official" commentators seemed totally ignorant of the derivation of the banner over her casket, which read "You did it to me"...and they all just seemed to go blank. They didn't seem to be able to look it up, either, since the KJV says something like "Ye have done it to me" if I'm not mistaken. (The quote would be from the RSV, which was favored by the Missionaries of Charity.)



They mumbled, they ummmed and they ahhhed, but you know, they just didn't seem to know. All of these hotshot commentators and none seemed to know. Finally, someone triumphantly announced it was from the New Testament (well duh) but they didn't seem to understand the reference or why it was the phrase hanging over her casket, and not some other phrase.



I listened to the entire commentary, as they didn't seem to have any idea why people STAND for the Gospel reading (really? Is it that hard to figure out?) or anything else about the Mass. That day, I realized how ignorant the media elites are of religion and religious traditions... even something as simple as standing for the Gospel reading. (I suddenly realized they didn't know the difference between that part of the Bible called "Gospel" and the rest of it.)

Then they trotted out that huge fan of Mother Theresa, Christopher Hitchens, author of a famous hit-piece on her. For her funeral. (I ask you, when was the last time the author of a hit-piece was invited to comment at their subject's funeral? A bit rude, maybe?)



This is what passes for knowledge of religion among the elites. Then they try to psychoanalyze people for whom religion is EVERYTHING. And they, um, invariably get it wrong, of course. How could they not? They don't know the dialect.



And Stan knows some of the dialect, but like an anthropologist studying the oddly-dressed natives (she compares some of the reporters to Margaret Mead, which IS funny), she isn't actually going to get down in the dirt with em either. Instead, she translates the dialect for the elites, or tries to.



For example, she attempts to analyze Ron Paul's fan base:

While mainstream media dismiss Paul as a quirky, secular libertarian, progressive reporters sometimes express a certain affection for Paul because of his anti-war stance. But Paul's anti-war position stems from his far-right isolationist views...

First of all, isolationism per se is not strictly left or right, and that explains the far-reaching appeal. In the Midwest, where I grew up, isolationism is its OWN thang, and often transcends traditional left/right definitions and categories. This is frequently my stance on this blog, likely because (as I have said many times), I was greatly influenced by my grandfather, a Christian Scientist and Taft Republican ("isolationism" barely describes it). To these folks, isolationism WAS the progressive position, since it kept the rest of the world from hating us so much. Isolationism insured peace, was the idea. Now, of course, the opposite view (which can be totally summed up in Orwell's phrase, 'War is Peace') is politically dominant.



In short, just as military-interventionism is now an equal-opportunity left/right ideology, so is isolationism.



Does Adele Stan know that Ron Paul ran for President as a Libertarian in the 70s, before he was ever in Congress? His views have changed little since Vietnam, and THIS is why progressives have respect for him: Ron Paul does not stick his finger in the air to test the political winds, and never has.



At left: Fundamentalists invade Bele Chere festival in Asheville, NC. Most people considered them just another part of the show, but a number of intrepid festival-goers engaged them in some intense debates and heated conversations.







Adele Stan's commentary in AlterNet advances the opinion that the overall media-dilemma is denial, rather than elitist ignorance, even though she mentions the elitism a few times:

The mainstream media -- and to an extent, the progressive media, as well -- are made up of elites, people who went to good schools, most of them raised on either the east or west coasts. To these elites, the thought of someone espousing the sort of frightening beliefs that Paul embodies having a serious impact on American politics is just too much to bear, so denial becomes the default position. It's not conscious -- not a deliberate attempt to cover something up, just something too weird and awful to be true, so the notion is simply dismissed. Yet if you look at Paul's positions and look at how successive GOP fields have moved closer to them (with the exception of the anti-war stance) over the last three election cycles, his impact is clear.

"With the exception of the anti-war stance"? Earth to Adele! Somebody does not keep up with the drug war, which is BANKRUPTING THE COUNTRY and decimating poor and minority communities. Maybe Adele doesn't know any teenagers whose lives have been ruined over a tiny and inconsequential puff on a joint, but poor people have plenty of examples to share with her. Ron Paul proposes to legalize and tax marijuana and end the super-expensive drug war altogether... and that is a damned radical position that no other Republican AND no other Democrat has dared take.



The unbridled destruction of poor communities and the mass-imprisonment of young minority men is a fucking SCANDAL; the drug charges that the privileged kids from good schools can safely giggle about years later ("Oh man, my dad was sure pissed!") are the very same drug charges that will get you locked up for life if you are too poor to afford a lawyer or your daddy doesn't know the right people.



Ending this VICIOUS ATTACK on the poor is a PROGRESSIVE POSITION and only Ron Paul will take it.



You know this, right Adele? That one out of four black men is in prison for some BULLSHIT? Aaaarghhh, don't even get me started.



The fact that you have ignored this point in your piece, Adele Stan, is rather clueless as well. The fact that you don't seem to know what is happening in minority communities? Marks you as one of the elite media that doesn't know what's going on out here in the fabled Heartland.



It's going to get ugly, as the traditional left/right categories topple to the ground. I made a prediction that Obama was a one-termer, but that was before I knew he had stashed away a billion dollars for his second coronation. I now believe he will win, but it will infuriate a lot of people and might lead to insurrection; the British riots light the way. Democracy has been supplanted by the wholesale purchase of political office. (This huge money-stash now marks Barack Obama as a member of the elite that he successfully challenged upon first entering politics; Ron Paul's plucky little "money bombs" are very small potatoes by comparison.)



Adele winds up:

As a nation, we've been headed down this path for more than 40 years. As the economic fortunes of the U.S. turn downward, we should expect the attraction of right-wing religion, especially its more charismatic and viscerally-felt forms, to expand. Anyone who doesn't just hasn't been paying attention.

Ya think? And how about you talk to some of US, the progressives who can speak the weird Biblical Ron Paul language? How about you even consider FUNDING SOME OF US out here, who might be able to help, since we are already wearing the clothes and speaking the dialect?



Ha, am I funny or what? As we already know, that ain't never gonna happen. After all, they know everything, don't they?

Joel Osteen: Faster Horses

I admit, I am fascinated with Joel Osteen.

Primarily, the whole gospel-of-plenty thing, really blows my mind. Catholics will do a sneaky novena asking for greenbacks here and there, but nothing like Joel counsels us to do. He says you have to think BIG, like God does. He sounds like Cecil B DeMille.

As I've said before, this whole line of thinking was stolen wholesale from the late Reverend Ike, appropriately dressed up and taken to the white suburbs. Joel constantly tells us we deserve big things, better jobs, giant houses (don't settle for smaller!) and prosperity prosperity prosperity!

Listening to him, I have more than once recalled the chorus of the old Tom T. Hall song, Faster Horses:

Faster Horses
Younger Women
Older Whiskey
And More Money

I halfway-expect Joel to belt that out, at some point.

While I am admitting my fascination with America's foremost preacher of the Prosperity Gospel (note the link does not include Reverend Ike, whom they all stole from), let me catalog my points of fascination:

1) His smile and his teeth. The literary term, "he beamed at us" hardly suffices for what Joel can do... his smile is bloody incandescent.

Ronald Reagan Jr once said no man was a match for his father, when his father decided to "turn on the high-beams"--and I daresay, I have found the match.

Could anyone argue with this smile? I certainly couldn't. If he was in sales, he would be as rich as the Sun King... oh wait, he is and he is, I forgot.

2) His wife, Victoria. As a feminist, I don't usually call women Barbie dolls, since that would be mean, she winked at her readers. And besides, that would only be describing her appearance, not her famous diva-tantrums. Joel never talks about her tantrums, but I wonder how he feels about her periodic um, moods?

I'd love to be the proverbial fly-on-the-wall during one of their squabbles.

3) His hair. Nobody would listen to a promise of prosperity from a 49-year-old who was losing his hair. It's a psychological thing: since he has an enviable, profuse, heavy head of hair, he probably has LOTS OF EVERYTHING. Samson and Delilah, etc. His prayers keep his hair from falling out, don't they? Obviously, his prayers work pretty good!

4) The way he points upward (to God and heaven, presumably) at key points during his sermons. I once attended a retail-sales workshop in which I was taught that I should touch the item I intended to sell. Pick it up and make it "intimate"; you will notice on shopping networks such as QVC and HSN, there is virtual non-stop pawing of the merchandise. You have to make it real for people, and putting something REAL in their hands, is the way. And it does increase sales.

What do you if it's God you are selling?

Some preachers pound that Bible, or pound that lectern, or emote-in-extremis whilst explaining things (Jimmy Swaggart was famously very good at this). Joel points upward. Lots. It's like he's been there already, and has come back to tell you all about it.

Well, if having millions of dollars is the way to heaven, or is the equivalent of heaven on earth, or something... I guess he HAS been there, hasn't he?

My question is: In these harsh economic times, why isn't everyone jealous of him, instead of giving him even MORE money?

I think this is due to--

5) The amazingly-wholesome vibe he puts out. This is what keeps me glued to the screen. He is so POSITIVE, so, so, so... POSITIVE. There just isn't any other word for it. OPTIMISTIC maybe. And the people I've met who like Osteen, are just this optimistic and positive also. Although they tend to believe fundamentalist ideas (or at least give lip service to them), they are reluctant to judge others, and concentrate mostly on their own lives and spreading good feelings and love (while praying for prosperity).

You might say Osteen has learned to combine the peace-and-love of the hippie era of his childhood, with the Reagan-era go-getter capitalist concepts of his adulthood... just add Jesus and stir. Works for Joel.

Joel is way better than the Mike Huckabees of the world, and yet, there are Chrsitians who are driven bonkers by his warping of the scriptures, dragging in that tired old Prayer of Jabez and ignoring the words of Christ Himself.

Christ was no fan of the rich, and that is the Gospel. And yet, it seems this unabashed embrace of capitalist values insures they won't meddle too much in social issues. After all, unbridled capitalism IS a social issue, too, and I think Joel knows that. I watched an old sermon last night, dated 2009, and it was interesting in the way he says "Don't worry that you can't afford a new house, because God will provide!"--wait, I thought, did this idea contribute to the housing market crash?

Hanna Rosin has been there already, and is way ahead of me:

On the cover of his 4 million-copy best seller from 2004, Your Best Life Now, Joel Osteen looks like a recent college grad who just got hired by Goldman Sachs and can’t believe his good luck. His hair is full, his teeth are bright, his suit is polished but not flashy; he looks like a guy who would more likely shake your hand than cast out your demons. Osteen took over his father’s church in 1999. He had little preaching experience, although he’d managed the television ministry for years. The church grew quickly, as Osteen packaged himself to appeal to the broadest audience possible. In his books and sermons, Osteen quotes very little scripture, opting instead to tell uplifting personal anecdotes. He avoids controversy, and rarely appears on Christian TV. In a popular YouTube clip, he declines to confirm Larry King’s suggestion that only those who believe in Jesus will go to heaven.

...

Osteen is often derided as Christianity Lite, but he is more like Positivity Extreme. “Cast down anything negative, any thought that brings fear, worry, doubt, or unbelief,” he urges. “Your attitude should be: ‘I refuse to go backward. I am going forward with God. I am going to be the person he wants me to be. I’m going to fulfill my destiny.’” Telling yourself you are poor, or broke, or stuck in a dead-end job is a form of sin and “invites more negativity into your life,” he writes. Instead, you have to “program your mind for success,” wake up every morning and tell yourself, “God is guiding and directing my steps.” The advice is exactly like the message of The Secret, or any number of American self-help blockbusters that edge toward magical thinking, except that the religious context adds another dimension.

...

Demographically, the growth of the prosperity gospel tracks fairly closely to the pattern of foreclosure hot spots. Both spread in two particular kinds of communities—the exurban middle class and the urban poor. Many newer prosperity churches popped up around fringe suburban developments built in the 1990s and 2000s, says Walton. These are precisely the kinds of neighborhoods that have been decimated by foreclosures, according to Eric Halperin, of the Center for Responsible Lending

...

[Most] new prosperity-gospel churches were built along the Sun Belt, particularly in California, Florida, and Arizona—all areas that were hard-hit by the mortgage crisis. Bowler, who, like Walton, was researching a book, spent a lot of time attending the “financial empowerment” seminars that are common at prosperity churches. Advisers would pay lip service to “sound financial practices,” she recalls, but overall they would send the opposite message: posters advertising the seminars featured big houses in the background, and the parking spots closest to the church were reserved for luxury cars.

Nationally, the prosperity gospel has spread exponentially among African American and Latino congregations. This is also the other distinct pattern of foreclosures. “Hyper-segregated” urban communities were the worst off, says Halperin.

...

It is not all that surprising that the prosperity gospel persists despite its obvious failure to pay off. Much of popular religion these days is characterized by a vast gap between aspirations and reality. Few of Sarah Palin’s religious compatriots were shocked by her messy family life, because they’ve grown used to the paradoxes; some of the most socially conservative evangelical churches also have extremely high rates of teenage pregnancies, out-of-wedlock births, and divorce.

In short, it's Joel Osteen's hour. He won't put you down for being divorced, etc.

He will point upward, and for some unfathomable reason, you just want to follow him up there.

Gut feelings

I recently spotted a local celebrity in the flesh, a woman who is a regular on the local fundamentalist religious TV station. She is something else, and her old-school bouffant hairdo is hard to miss. She was getting food and sitting down for a quick afternoon meal with her family.

The overhead music was playing, and I heard Lou Rawls' old 70s hit, "You'll never find another love like mine"... and just as I passed her, as we both gathered our napkins and silverware, I heard her singing along with Lou, "You're gonna miss my lovinnnnnnn"... and I was momentarily startled. She likes old disco, I thought, surprised. Did I think all the fundies were raised in caves or something? They share the same pop-culture as the rest of us, as separatist as they sometimes are.

As I heard the TV-evangelist sing along with Lou, I was filled with a sudden, unaccountable affection, possibly because I had previously only heard her sing bad gospel songs.

I also realized that being a professional fundie was her job, and it is possible she gets as tired of her job as the rest of us get tired of ours.

I turned and smiled at her, as she was singing the old Lou Rawls song, and she smiled warmly back at me. It was a nice moment.

~*~

My second recent realization is one that I need to chew on awhile... but I will share it with all of you nonetheless. You can help me nail it down, so to speak. To wit:

I live in a very conservative area, and as someone with radical politics and personal style, this means I have to possess a pretty strong personality to go against the grain of the majority.

If someone lives in a very liberal area, and has very conservative politics and personal style, they will also have to possess a strong personality to go against the grain of the majority.

My realization: I may be temperamentally more similar to the minority-conservative-in-liberal-area, than I am similar to the liberals around them. In a majority-liberal area, people can easily take liberalism for granted and don't often get very spirited about it. Thus, the liberals may be lukewarm liberals that in a conservative locale, would be lukewarm conservatives.

When conservatives emigrate to the upstate (and yes, they do, as if there weren't enough of them here already), they are excitable and revved up, like new converts. You can spot them. They take nothing for granted. They have arrived at Ground Zero of Tea Party Central--the Promised Land--and they are raring to go.

They remind me of myself, back in the day, when I got to Berserkley and thought I knew everything.

It's an unnerving realization that I first got whacked with upon reading Eric Hoffer's brilliant book, The True Believer (that all fanatics and extremists are more alike than different). But I never made the connection about geography before, and the concurrent personality types.

In a place where 'everyone' is liberal (Seattle, San Francisco), then an individual's liberalism will mean something very different that it does in a place like upstate South Carolina, where they will try to run you over for having pro-Obama/vegetarian bumper stickers on your car. Thus, the individual's response to political challenges will be very different. There is no need to be defensive when you are in the majority. It is interesting (and telling) to note how this political defensiveness is exhibited. What happens in one place, as standard and typical, would never happen in the other.

Example: During a recent group-conversation, I used the word "evolved." (Correctly, as in, "We evolved to crave fat and carbs"--this may have been, in fact, my exact phrase.) I used the word in a dietary context a number of times, and in each instance, two people in the room corrected my word choice, "created." We were not evolved to crave fat and carbs, we were created that way, by God Almighty. (Well, if we were indeed CREATED that way, why bother to fight it?)

I did not want to start a fight over Darwin at that particular juncture and in that social setting, so I allowed them to correct me, but kept right on using the word, too. And I realized, that kind of shit annoys me, and it's the type of thing that people living in liberal areas don't realize we have to put up with. And the conservatives don't realize it either. (I always wondered what William F Buckley thought of the dopey-fundie brand of right-winger, which he surely knew existed? Or did he believe all conservatives were yacht-club members in good standing?) In the same social situation, would the radical atheist from San Francisco just drop everything and jump in whole hog, and start preaching the Darwin gospel? I only know a couple of radical atheists here in the upstate, and neither behave in this fashion; I think the new arrivals might let a few things slide, the way the rest of us have learned to do.

And how does this influence us and our approach to what we do? Our politics? Our writing? The way we frame the issues?

Can you tell when a blog is written in a conservative or liberal area? How can you tell?

Just some ideas. Discuss amongst yourselves!



~*~


And of course you know I have been earwormed with the damn thing ever since, right?


You'll never find another love like mine - Lou Rawls



~*~

I heard the first two minutes of this old Devo song on the Weather Channel (!) of all places, played over and over during the weekend whilst announcing rain, and now I am earwormed to death with this, too.

And so, it magically becomes our blog post title for today.

Gut Feeling - Devo

Huckabee claims he could have won SC primary

Mike Huckabee, currently out pimping his "book" (read: presidential campaign preview) titled A Simple Government, told Greenville Online that he would have won the South Carolina Republican Primary in 2008, if not for a "deal" between candidates Fred Thompson and John McCain.

In the primary, McCain was the clear winner, with Huckabee placing second and Thompson third.

According to Greenville Online (apologies if link doesn't work, they always nab me by the end of the day!):

Huckabee, who may run for the White House again, said Thompson had planned to drop out of the presidential race following the New Hampshire primary, but McCain persuaded him to stay in — a move that split the conservative vote in South Carolina and helped deliver the election to McCain.

...

Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, said Thompson spent most of his South Carolina campaign in Greenville and Spartanburg, a stronghold for Huckabee.

Thompson “didn’t have a significant vote, but he had just enough, and our polling showed that it was coming off of me,” Huckabee said. “And it kept me just a couple of points under McCain, and you know the rest is history. But that’s life.”

Huckabee said he doesn’t have any hard feelings “for the deal they made. I know they did it because I’ve had close aides to both of them who told me.”

Campaigns are about winning, so “it’s never been something that I was upset about because I would have done the same thing if I could have,” Huckabee said.

Dean Rice, Thompson’s national campaign manager in 2008, couldn’t be reached, nor could Trey Walker, McCain’s campaign manager in South Carolina that year who now works for Gov. Nikki Haley.

Interesting, indeed! If Huckabee had won South Carolina, he would have taken the lead.

McCain won the support of more than 33 percent of South Carolina Republicans in 2008 on his way to secure the party’s nomination.

Huckabee won every county along the Interstate 85 corridor except Oconee, but it wasn’t enough to overcome McCain’s advantage in the rest of the state. Huckabee claimed just under 30 percent of the vote statewide.

Thompson garnered 15.6 percent to take third and push former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney into fourth.

Presidential aspirants tend to pay special attention to South Carolina because of its first-in-the-South primary.

Other Republicans eyeing a White House run who have visited the Upstate in recent months include Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, another potential Republican candidate, spoke in Spartanburg on Saturday.

This year, the Fox News Channel has agreed to televise two GOP presidential debates from South Carolina, the first set for the Peace Center in downtown Greenville on May 5.

And YES, friends and neighbors, I plan to be outside the Peace Center on Cinco De Mayo to welcome them in my own special way. (grins)

I have been chatting with the energetic youth at Suite 8 in Greenville, and some of them will be there also. We may actually have a REAL DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE GOP DEBATE IN GREENVILLE! ((faints)) That's a bit optimistic here in DeMint country, but I just wanted you to know: talks are underway. We may require a permit. Also, I am quite familiar with the terrain of the Peace Center, and it will be ridiculously easy for them to cordon us off into various alleyways. But I am ON THE CASE, and wanted DEAD AIR denizens to know that!

In addition, DEAD AIR will be blogging the next SC primary and the next election to a bloody fare thee well. STAY TUNED, SPORTS FANS!

Nix on Coexist

Here at Ground Zero of the Tea Party Movement, I get lots of reactions to my bumper stickers, some almost violent. On Saturday night, the day Gabrielle Giffords was shot, I found a business card stuck onto my windshield. It was stamped with the identifiable, well-known COEXIST design (at left), which is one of my bumper stickers.


The card explained, on this day of all days, why we can't co-exist:

Can all world religions coexist? Does it matter what you believe? Does your belief make it true? Imagine having to jump from an airplane that was about to crash. If you had three possible items to strap to your back, which would you choose: a tire, a briefcase full of money, or a parachute? There is only one right answer that can save your life. This is why all religions can not coexist. They each give different ideas about God, but only one is true! Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) He made an exclusive claim. Either it is true or it is not.

There was more, of course, but you get the drift.

Was the day a coincidence? Maybe.

And maybe not, too.

~*~

From Slate, more on The Tea Party and the Tucson Tragedy by Jacob Weisberg:

It is appropriate, however, to consider what was swirling outside Loughner's head. To call his crime an attempted assassination is to acknowledge that it appears to have had a political and not merely a personal context. That context wasn't Islamic radicalism, Puerto Rican independence, or anarcho-syndicalism. It was the anti-government, pro-gun, xenophobic populism that flourishes in the dry and angry climate of Arizona. Extremist shouters didn't program Loughner, in some mechanistic way, to shoot Gabrielle Giffords. But the Tea Party movement did make it appreciably more likely that a disturbed person like Loughner would react, would be able to react, and would not be prevented from reacting, in the crazy way he did.