Category Archives: Christianists

Me, In a Bad Mood


Jason Pitzl-Waters, at the Wild Hunt links to this interesting post by a Christian telling other Christians "how to talk to Pagans." It's not as creepy as the recent book on the same subject, but, well-intentioned as I am sure that its author is, it's still insulting and creepy. (The odious John Morehead in comments only makes it that much worse.) In the end, this entire post is all about "othering" Pagans under the guise of "no, really, try to treat them as if they were humans; they're so dumb, they'll really appreciate it!"

First, though, and I mean this, kudos for getting the capitalization mostly correct. It's more than most do.

As several people note in the comments to the post, the unspoken "elephant in the room" in any Christian discussion about "how to talk to Pagans" is that the advice isn't given to help you to have, say, a nice chat about the weather or your local neighborhood zoning issue, nor is it given to help you to convey to the Pagan in your workplace when you need to get their report. Oddly, most people wouldn't need a guide to help them talk to Pagans about those topics; believe it or not, we're pretty easy to talk to about zoning issues and when reports are due. (See also, e.g., your kids, my garden, the weather, today's traffic, where to go for lunch, taxes, whether to go into detail on a subtopic in our legal memo, who's going to play bad cop on the conference call, and the funny thing that happened to me this weekend. Difficult as you may find it to believe, I had conversations today on all of those topics with Christians who're unaware that I'm a Pagan and who have no need for a special guide to figure out how to talk to me. OK, they did have to e-nun-ci-ate very clearly, because, you know, it's difficult for Pagans to keep up with modern English.) No, this kind of advice is all about the need of most Christians to at least lay the groundwork (aka "begin to 'dialogue'" or "develop a 'relationship'") to convert the Pagan to the "one true religion," aka, whatever brand of Christianity said Christian practices. It gives the whole thing that skin-crawling, what-is-this-huckster-trying-to-sell-me vibe that makes most of us feel exploited and in need of a shower. Look, I've been a Pentecostal Catholic. I know you're desperate to convert me. (Points! I got points! Now Jebuz will surely let me into heaven; I've contributed to his Ponzi scheme!) Playing How to Win Friends and Influence People, by acting as if, "Oh, hell, no, who me?, No I just want to talk to you, [Insert Pagan's first name]; I'm not trying to convert you! [Smile and use Pagan's first name again]" insults my intelligence, which, in spite of what you appear to believe, is actually my one strong suit.

Second, thanks for the slide show. No, really. Maybe I can put together a bunch of random slides showing stereotypes of Christians to illustrate the post I'm not going to write called: How to Talk to Christians for Fun and Profit. I spent today in a business suit, Hermes scarf, and Ferragamo shoes, and, oddly, none of those show up in your illustrative slide show of modern Pagans. Maybe you can put together a slide show of Hispanics in low-riders? Irish Catholics drinking too much? Christians handling snakes and denying their children needed medical care?

I can't get over the notion that, in a different context, this same post could be called "How to Talk to Black People" or "How to Get a Women's Libber to Date You." So we get gems such as:
Pagans are people, just like us, and they appreciate a personable approach.
Thanks. No, really, thanks. Nice of you to let me into the Human Club. Bite me. And, it's "just as we are," not "just like us."

And:
[B]e mindful that 80% of communication is nonverbal and the average Pagan is far more sensitive and attuned to symbolic communications than the average Evangelical.

And black people all like basketball and they're a lot more sensitive to rhythm than you are, so be sure to snap your fingers and groove while you chat them up. Women are much more in tune with emotions, so be sure to use "feeling" words when you talk to them. Jews love money, so if you're talking to them, be sure to mention that you got your suit wholesale. I guess that you have to have been on the receiving end of some of these "dialogue" tactics to understand how truly insulting they are. Hispanics? More excitable. Chinese? Inscrutable. And every single old white man must want to discuss golf, right? Look, I'm as Pagan as they come and I LIVE in my left brain. I'm literally learning disabled when it comes to "right brain" skills (see e.g., nonverbal communication). What I understand is what I can read in a well-written legal brief. Sorry to fail to live up to your stereotype of me. See why I think you only want to sell me shit? See why you piss me off?

Or:
Do … focus on Jesus.

Right. Because, first, most Pagans have never heard of him and are just dying to have even more Jesus stuffed down their throats. Kali fuck, you can't live in this society for 5 minutes without having Jebuz, Jebuz, Jebuz rammed down your gullet, so for sure a great way to have a conversation with most Pagans is to focus on Jesus. (When talking to the mark, er, um, customer, keep referring to the product.) Look, while the number of "cradle Pagans" is growing, the majority of Pagans living in America today were raised in Christian families. Like many of us, I, for one, got more Jesus growing up than I got fluoride, physical education, exposure to classical music, or history of the Americas before Columbus. I've forgotten more about Jesus than most Christians ever learn. I know Jesus; I had, for years, an intimate relationship with Jesus, and I left him. "Focusing" on him is as respectful to me as it would be for you to focus every conversation with me on my ex. I don't feel a need to spend my conversations with every Christian "focusing" on Hecate or Columbia. My relationship with those Goddesses is personal and I can't think of a single reason why you'd care. Accord me the same respect. I realize that leaves you with no reason to talk to me, since apparently the only reason for you to talk to me, even though I am "people, just like you," is to convert me to Jesus. That's ok. Keep on moving.

And:
Not only should you not expect Pagans to take the bible as authoritative as you do, you should not expect them to take any scripture as authoritative as you do.

Sigh. You know, this isn't a bad point, if you accept the premise that the Christian's only real goal is to convert the Pagan. Telling me that I have to accept Jesus as my personal savior because your holy book says that I have to do that to get into your heaven is pretty silly, given that I don't accept your holy book. But, Kali Fuck: "take the bible as authoritative as you do"? Again, I live in my left brain. If you can't write English (hint: Buy an "ly" or revise the sentence), you're not going to have a very good conversation with me. And my Book of Shadows sure doesn't look anything like the Book of Common Prayer (one of the great products of the English language, BTW) or a Catholic missal. But keep on misconstruing.

Finally, there's:
Don't … be afraid to challenge, as long as you’re respectful
Through many years of experience I’ve found Pagans aren’t beyond being challenged, provided the challenge is respectful, and preferably within the context of relationship. . . . With such a history of bad blood between Pagans and Christians[,] I can’t promise you won’t have a bad experience, that you won’t ever experience rejection, even following these tips. But I can say that most the time, if you approach Pagans with the right attitude, you’ll find them quite open to conversation about things of the Spirit.

Yes, it's true. There are a few of us who won't melt if you challenge us. Weird, huh? And if you just approach those Negroes in a nice way, you can talk to them about almost anything. Well, OK, speak slowly, cuz they do, and be sure to say how articulate that Dr. King was. Be nice, and don't use the "N-Word," cuz even the ones who aren't too techy will go off on that, for some odd reason. But you can challenge some of them, for sure, if you do it nicely. And even those women's libbers can be calmed down and appeased to the point where you can often get their phone number; can't promise that some aren't so bitter that they won't reject you, but, hey, just use "feeling words," and keep trying! If you keep your sentences short and just speak loudly, even your Hispanic gardener can understand what you're saying.

I'm not even going to discuss the "Don't dump on women, gays, and the environment." Patriarchy; soaking in it; all I'm saying.

Here's an idea. Stop approaching every human being on the planet as a "customer" and see how that changes you. Spend some time talking to your Jesus about that. Meanwhile, you can ask me about the Nats' latest game without a guide book.

Picture found here.

Thou Shalt Not


I'm often baffled at Christians who insist that every single word in the Bible is a literal truth and that everyone has to follow rules developed thousands of years ago for people who lived in a nomadic society, want their 10 commandments inscribed on every square inch of government property not taken up with nativity scenes, but feel that it's ok to, for example, kill abortion providers or, in this story, steal signs from stores selling Pagan supplies. It's not as if those bits are ambiguous; "Thou Shalt Not Kill," and "Thou Shalt Not Steal" are pretty clear-cut. No exemptions for situational ethics or in service to some higher good. After all, "'Vengence is mine,' sayeth the Lord."

Speeding to get away from the police, ok, you can argue about whether that falls under "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's," but the not stealing bit seems fairly unambiguous.

And, as always, if you're going, as this story does, to capitalize "Christian," then you should, as this story fails to do, capitalize "Pagan." Both are umbrella terms for a variety of religions.

Picture found here.

It’s Odd to Object to Native Americans Praying in, You Know, America

Not surprisingly, conservatives have been criticizing the inclusion of a Native American blessing at last night's program in Arizona. Media Matters has the whole story. Here's an example:
Examiner: "Rambling 'Native American Blessing'...Provided A Stark Statement Of Pantheistic Paganism." A January 13 Washington Examiner column said that while Gonzales has the "right to practice whatever faith he chooses," his invocation was "a rambling 'Native American Blessing'" that was a "statement of pantheistic paganism." From the Washington Examiner's "Beltway Confidential" column:

...[N]o Catholic priest, Baptist minister or Jewish rabbi was included in the program. What was included was a rambling "Native American Blessing" at the outset of the program. This blessing provided a stark statement of pantheistic paganism, including forthright declarations concerning "Father Sky," "Mother Earth" and the "Creator."

Regardless of one's view of Pantheism, its prominent inclusion at the opening of a memorial service on a state-run university campus featuring a lengthy list of public officials would seem, by the familiar expressions of liberal multicultural conventional wisdom, a blatant violation of separation of church and state.

[...]

No one, of course, should question Carlos Gonzalez' [sic] right to practice whatever faith he chooses and to display it in public as he thinks best, or deny that his invocations of his love for America were entirely appropriate and inspiring. We should all be thankful for the service of his son in Afghanistan as well.

That said, it ought to be recognized that his religious beliefs and practices were used by the few to send a message of exclusion to the many, thus illustrating the utter hypocrisy of at the heart of multicultural political correctness. [Washington Examiner, 1/13/11]


The program also included Christian prayers and bible passages read by, for example, Eric Holder, but apparently that's not enough for the Dominionists.

My New Name for a Blog: What Gus Said


Pagan blogger, Gus diZerega has a post that you REALLY need to read. Gus responds to assertions that years of violent right-wing rhetoric had nothing to do with the murders and attempted murders this weekend in Arizona. As Gus points out:
For over a decade the radical right, beginning with Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh have initiated a complete reframing of political debate into only dehumanizing attacks on their opponents as evil traitors who hate America and are any combination of Communists, Nazis, Fascists, Muslims, Gays, and Haters. Against them reference is made to times of violent resistance against oppression. Always. In public debate actual policies are rarely if ever discussed, and when they are, they are discussed in misleading terms such as "death panels." This is a pattern, a syndrome, a deliberate attempt to change a culture by dehumanizing opponents and destroying the tolerance that makes democracy possible.

. . .

When violent rhetoric is continually employed dehumanizing the other, and it is shouted from the roof-tops, and blared out hourly on a major media station, and on radios country wide, that shifts the moral center of gravity around which most people gravitate, and weakens cultural barriers on violent behavior. Those weakest in self-control and mentally least capable of acting responsibly, in other words the people most dependent on external signals for deciding what to do, those people will be the first to be affected. Jared Loughner fits that observation perfectly.

. . .

It's not as if this has not happened before. Rwanda once had Tutsis and Hutus living together amicably and intermarrying. Tensions existed, but Hutus did not suddenly puck up machetes and start hacking away at their fellow Rwandans, including moderate Hutus. But in time they did. Politicians and media figures figured prominently in undermining traditional toleration and gradually pushing culture towards civil violence, just as the radical right is today. Here is a brief account of Rwandan hate media that might be a description of Fox today, except that it has followed the logic of Fox's lies more literally. Two short discussions are on Wikipedia and in this paper by Kristen Landreville. There is also a BBC report.

The former Yugoslavia did not suddenly see Serbs and Croats and Bosnians wake up one day and begin slaughtering one another. That was the outcome of a longer period of cultural destruction pursued by politicians and media allies, principally Serbian ones, but not entirely. Chris Hedges War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning is a eye opening and beautifully written account where while it is not the main issue discussed, the alert reader easily sees the role media played in what happened. Did I say it was beautifully written? Indeed it is.

Political assassination was a feature of the dying Weimar Republic. Assassinations were rarely the work of Nazis. They were often the work of the 1930s German equivalent of Loughlin, weakly autonomous people who reacted easily to the cultural atmosphere of growing violent rhetoric. The ideologues, right or left, were rarely the assassins. Often they were lone operators. Ultimately over 350 politicians were murdered in the Republic, so we have a way to go. But one depressing aspect of the linked discussion is how the good guys lose in these killings, even when everyone denounces the killers.

After the Nazi take over the Germans were not ready for the Nazis' true bestiality, and so German culture was continually softened up before and after through right wing use of the media in a way disturbingly similar to Fox News. If you think I am exaggerating, read Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience. Then come back and discuss it. In this very important book for us today she documents a number of methods chillingly similar to those employed by the American right wing. The book is a real eye opener.

I have linked to another article depicting the striking similarities between the hate media in Germany, Rwanda, and Serbia.

(Gus's post has the mentioned links; head on over to check them out and to read the entire post.) I'll defend Gus against all cries of "Godwin!" Sometimes, the comparison is actually quite apt and, as Gus' post demonstrates, this is one of them. It's time to start being honest about what's been going on in America. I'll also note that the ever-brilliant Athenae is also correct: those who fund this sort of evil, mostly in order to keep the rubes distracted while they steal everything that's not pinned down, are every bit as much to blame as are the graspy little mouthpieces like Beck and Limbaugh and Coulter.

As Gus concludes, this issue is particularly important for Pagans, who not only get blamed for everything from 9/11 to Katrina, but who are also very likely targets of intolerant, Dominionist, right-wing violence. If you blog or twitter or post on Facebook, I urge you to link to Gus' post; I think it's that important.

Picture found here.

Update: Thanks to UNE in comments at Eschaton, here's a list of recent "incidents of insurrectionist violence (or the promotion of such violence) that have occurred since" June of 2008. In the last one-third of 2010, alone, we had the following:
September 16, 2010—Patricia Stoneking, the President of the Kansas State Rifle Association, tells Fox News, "People need to arm themselves, We have the right to put limits on our government, and that's what [the Second Amendment] does." Explaining why America's Founding Fathers drafted the amendment, she says, "They knew government could become tyrannical. We have the right to defend ourselves from a rogue government."

September 30, 2010—Kevin Terrell, a self-described "colonel" who founded a group of "freedom fighters" in Kentucky, predicts war with "the jackbooted thugs" of Washington within a year. Referring to the arrest of Hutaree militia members earlier in the year, Terrell says, "There was a lot of citizens out there in the bushes, locked and loaded. It's only due to miracles I do not understand that civil war did not break out right there."

September 30, 2010—Steve Kendley, a deputy sheriff running for sheriff in Lake County, Montana, threatens "a violent conflict" with federal agents if "they are doing something I believe is unconstitutional."

October 15, 2010—Conservative radio show host Glenn Beck lays out a hypothetical scenario on the air where the government is considering taking his children because he refused to have them receive a mandatory flu vaccine. Beck tells his audience that his response to the government would be "Meet Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson."

October 21, 2010—Pastor Stephen Broden, the Republican candidate for U.S. Representative in Texas' 30th Congressional District, tells WFAA-TV in Dallas that the violent overthrow of the government is an "option" that remains "on the table." "Our nation was founded on violence," states Broden. "I don't think that we should ever remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms."

October 22, 2010—Texas Department of Corrections officers searching for a missing person, Gill Clements, 69, are confronted by a neighbor while on Clements' property in Henderson County. Howard Tod Granger, 46, points an AK-47 semiautomatic assault rifle at one of the officers, who recalls, "He told us to get off the property or he would kill us all." Later that afternoon, officers return to Granger's home with a search warrant and an armored vehicle filled with 13 SWAT members. Granger opens fire on the vehicle, discharging at least 30 rounds before authorities shoot and kill him. Police find guns and "many rounds of ammunition" in Granger's house. They also find the body of Clements, buried in a shallow grave on Granger's property.

November 3, 2010—James Patock, 66, of Pima County, Arizona, is arrested on the National Mall in the District of Columbia after law enforcement authorities find a .223 caliber rifle, a .243 caliber rifle barrel, a .22 caliber rifle, a .357 caliber pistol, several boxes of ammunition, and propane tanks wired to four car batteries in his truck and trailer. Patock former neighbor in Arizona reported that, "He hated the president. He hated everything. He said if he got a chance he would shoot the president." Patock tells authorities he is a member of the National Rifle Association.

November 4, 2010—On his radio show, conservative host Glenn Beck fantasizes about President Obama being decapitated during a trip to India, saying, "If anybody thinks he was a Muslim over here, well God forbid, they think he was a Muslim over there because he left his religion for Christianity, death sentence, behead him.” Beck then tells his listeners that "God forbid" this should happen, as there would be a "New World Order" overnight in the United States.

November 4, 2010—Fox News host Bill O'Reilly fantasizes about killing a Washington Post reporter while on the air, saying, "Does sharia law say we can behead Dana Milbank?" O'Reilly also tells co-host Megyn Kelly, "I think you and I should go and beat him up."

November 9, 2010—U.S. Representative-Elect Allen West of Florida's 22nd Congressional District hires conservative radio talk show host Joyce Kaufman as his Chief of Staff. On July 3, Kaufman told a crowd of Tea Party supporters, “I am convinced that the most important thing the Founding Fathers did to ensure me my First Amendments rights was they gave me a Second Amendment. And if ballots don’t work, bullets will."

November 9, 2010—Concealed handgun permit holder George Thomas Lee, 69, of Walhalla, South Carolina, is arrested on the town's main street for disseminating and promoting obscenity by bearing signs "laden with expletives and taking aim at U.S. foreign policy, President Barack Obama, blacks in general, Jews and the nation of Israel." Officers also seize literature from Lee that details "the most expedient means of killing law enforcement officers." The November 9 arrest follows an October 19 arrest for assault after Lee kicked and swung his signs at a group of girls between the ages of 12 and 14.

November 10, 2010—Public schools in Broward County, Florida, go into lockdown after an email threat is received by WFTL 850 AM. The email is sent to conservative radio host Joyce Kaufman in response to remarks she made at a Tea Party event in July ("If ballots don't work, bullets will"). The email expresses support for her view of the Second Amendment and says that to further "their cause...something big will happen at a government building in Broward County, maybe a post office maybe even a school." A phone call is then received at the station, allegedly from the emailer's wife, warning that he is preparing to go to a Pembroke Pines school and open fire.

November 23, 2010—Larry Pratt, the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, writes an editorial in The Register Citizen in which he calls for state and county sheriffs to organize large, armed "posses" as "a check on the unconstitutional exercise of federal power."

November 29, 2010—U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, circulates a PowerPoint presentation to his colleagues in which he compares the Obama administration to the Nazi regime in Germany and likens himself to Gen. George Patton, bragging, "Put anything in my scope and I will shoot it."

December 3, 2010—At "Roe & Roeper's Miracle on Indianapolis Blvd. Holiday Extravaganza" promoting "Toys 4 Tots" in Chicago, Illinois, actor R. Lee Emery (famous for his depiction of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in "Full Metal Jacket") tells those in attendance, "The economy really sucks. Now I hate to point fingers at anybody, but the present administration probably has a lot to do with that. And the way I see it, they're not gonna quit doing it until they bring this country to its knees. So I think we should all rise up and we should stop this administration from what they're doing because they're destroying this country. They're driving us into bankruptcy so that they can impose socialism on us."

January 6, 2011—John Troy Davis, 44, is arrested after threatening to set fire to the office of Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and shoot members of his staff. The threat comes when Davis calls Bennet's office to complain about his Social Security benefits, telling a staffer that he is schizophrenic and "may go to terrorism." "I'm just going to come down there and shoot you all," he declares. Davis is charged with assault on a federal employee.

January 8, 2011—Jared Lee Loughner, 22, shoots U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 19 others at a "Congress in Your Corner" event at a Safeway supermarket in Tucson, Arizona. He kills six, including federal judge John Roll, and wounds 14, including Giffords, who is shot in the head. Loughner has an extensive history of mental illness and substance abuse, yet is able to purchase two handguns and a high-capacity ammunition magazine legally at Sportsman's Warehouse on November 30, 2010. In a YouTube video posted in December 2010, Loughner states, "You don’t have to accept the federalist laws ... Nonetheless, read the United States of America’s Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws."

Kali on a Candied Coconut Croissant


Well, this is disturbing. Ed Brayton notes that:
While I was on vacation, Chris Rodda reported here on a very disturbing new development in the ongoing battle between the military and the constitutional rights of non-Christians. The Army sends out a mandatory survey to soldiers to gauge their "spiritual fitness" and if you do not give answers that reflect religious belief you are deemed to be spiritually unfit.

The survey is called the "Soldier Fitness Tracker" (SFT) and it is part of a larger Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program designed to help support the well-being of Army personnel. And it turns out that there is also "Spiritual Remedial Training" that goes along with it if you aren't deemed sufficiently "spiritual."

Some of the yes/no questions on the survey include:

I am a spiritual person.

My life has lasting meaning.

I believe that in some way my life is closely connected to all humanity and all the world.

I believe there is purpose in my life.

When Sgt. Justin Griffith, the man who is organizing the Rock Beyond Belief event at Ft. Bragg this spring, answered those questions honestly he was deemed to be spiritually unfit and was "red barred." Al Stefanelli explains what that means, according to the text of the survey itself:

A red bar means that you face some significant challenges in this area. This means that you should focus most of your attention on this area, though you should also note that placing too much emphasis here could result in other dimensions dropping. The key is to properly balance where you need the most development with the areas you are already doing well in.

The survey then informed Griffith of his alleged problem:

Spiritual fitness is an area of possible difficulty for you.
. . .

If you "fail" this test, as Griffith did, you may be subject to Spiritual Remediation Training. The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers has more details on that training and its pervasively religious content.

It gets worse:
[T]his remedial training program is overseen by a chaplain named CH Lamb, who is endorsed by the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (CFGC) and Jim Ammerman. CFGC is the endorser of a platoon full of truly insane fundamentalist chaplains like Gordon Klingenschmitt. I've reported on Ammerman's utter lunacy before. Imagine having someone like Klingenschmitt in charge of deciding who is spiritually fit to be in the military and it becomes obvious what a serious problem this is.

While I suspect that many Pagans could truthfully answer these "spiritual" questions in ways that would allow them to "pass," one wonders exactly why our military is even asking such questions. And how such fundie whackjobs came to control our armed forces in the first place.

/hat tip to JR in comments at Eschaton.

Picture found here.

Now That’s Not Something You See Every Day


Once every several hundred years, we have a full Moon lunar eclipse on the Winter Solstice. And that's approximately how often I will ever agree with anything that Ross Douthat has to say. So it's especially amazing that both events would occur within the same 24-hour period.

But I agree 100% with Douthat that:
Thanks in part to [a] bunker mentality, American Christianity has become . . . a “weak culture” — one that mobilizes but doesn’t convert, alienates rather than seduces, and looks backward toward a lost past instead of forward to a vibrant future. In spite of their numerical strength and reserves of social capital, . . . the Christian churches are mainly influential only in the “peripheral areas” of our common life. In the commanding heights of culture, Christianity punches way below its weight. [Cute phrase, huh?]

[T]his month’s ubiquitous carols and crèches notwithstanding, believing Christians are no longer what they once were — an overwhelming majority in a self-consciously Christian nation. The question is whether they can become a creative and attractive minority in a different sort of culture, where they’re competing not only with rival faiths but with a host of pseudo-Christian spiritualities, and where the idea of a single religious truth seems increasingly passé.

Or to put it another way, Christians need to find a way to thrive in a society that looks less and less like any sort of Christendom — and more and more like the diverse and complicated Roman Empire where their religion had its beginning, 2,000 years ago this week.


Exactly. I agree completely. Perhaps you guys would like to get started on that, well, now. Now would be good.

(Douthat says, as per usual, a lot of whiny, silly stuff with which not even an easily-confused four-year old would agree. For example, he snivels that Christmas is the season "when American Christians can feel most embattled. Their piety is overshadowed by materialist ticky-tack. Their great feast is compromised by Christmukkwanzaa multiculturalism." Really? Your piety can't stand up to sales of stuff? The same sales of stuff that, if they aren't accompanied by the sales clerk wishing you a "Merry Christmas" send you into a temper tantrum? So stop watching tv and stay out of the malls; go to church instead. Stay home and pray the rosary. And your "great feast" (by which I imagine you mean Christmas Mass) is "compromised" because other people are celebrating other holidays at approximately the same time? Really? If so, your "great feast" must celebrate a rather anemic god. Maybe you shouldn't have gone around appropriating other people's holidays if you've got such delicate feefees. Then you could have had one all your own. But, hey, as noted, it's not every century that I find something Douthat says not only correct, but quotable, so let's not quibble.)

Hat tip to Chas Clifton for the info on the lunar eclipse.

Picture found here.

What, There Weren’t Any Hungry to Feed or Sick to Cure?


Good grief, Charley Brown.

SOLDOTNA - An Alaska store owner says a wooden cross wrapped to the store sign in Soldotna was an unwelcome act of vandalism that goes against her pagan and spiritual beliefs.
The Peninsula Clarion reported 45-year-old Rondell Gonzalez arrived Thursday at her store, the Pye' Wackets on the Kenai Spur Highway, and found a makeshift cross about 7 feet tall attached to her business sign with plastic food wrap.
Gonzalez says she believes in spiritualism rather than organized religion. She also said her father fought and died in Vietnam for religious and personal freedoms.
Her store specializes in wellness and self-help books, candles, oils and crystals.
Soldotna police say it may be the first vandalism of a religious nature in Soldotna.


So loving and full of light, these xians.

I'll just point out that I can't think of any story in even recent memory involving, for example, pentagrams painted on the outside of a Christian bookstore.

But it's the Christians who are persecuted.

Picture found here.

The War Over Xmas


As I've said before, it's my own humble opinion that the world would go round a good deal faster if we'd all act like adults and acknowledge that, at this time of year, there are BOTH a number of different religious holidays and a secular holiday related to giving gifts, getting together w/ friends and family, making snowmen, exchanging cookies, etc. For historical reasons, there's some overlap, both between the holidays of some of the newer (cough*Christian*cough) religions and some of the older (Pagan) ones. And there's some overlap between the practices of some religious groups and some of the practices of the secular holiday. But most thinking adults can figure those things out and go on about their business.

For an odd group of xian Dominionists, however, no December can be allowed to pass without an attempt to blur the lines and create a sense of persecution among their faithful. The problem is, sadly, not limited to America.
Will you be wearing a crucifix to work this morning? Have you pinned your "Not Ashamed" badge to your lapel to show the world you're proud to be a Christian? Have you noticed the concerted campaign of anti-Christian bias all over the nation? No, I hadn't either – but that may be more evidence of the attack on religion that's secretly under way, like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Or so some leading churchmen would have you believe.

The "Not Ashamed" campaign is the work of Christian Concern, a pressure group whose most vocal spokesman is the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey. He has been sketching out an alarming, totalitarian scenario in which Christmas cards are "censored" because some don't feature mangers and oxen, school Nativity plays are "watered down" because they dramatise festive mice and squabbling baubles as well as baby Jesus, and Christmas lights have become rubbishy "winter lights" with no angels anywhere.

"Christmas has become something of which some are ashamed," Carey thunders. "A new climate hostile to our country's tradition and history is developing." Gosh, how nostalgic the ex-Archbish makes me feel. I'm pitched back years to when, as a tiny child, I listened to our local priest, Fr Smith, smiting the pulpit and declaring to his Battersea flock that the "real meaning" of Christmas had been lost in a haze of Morecambe & Wise TV specials and the American way of calling Yuletide "the holidays".

. . .

Not even Lord Carey's own people believe in his awful warnings about anti-Christian discrimination, the censorship, the undermining. The heads of the Christian think-tank Ekklesia say they can find no evidence to back up the "Not Ashamed" campaign, although "we have found consistent evidence, however, of Christians misleading people and exaggerating what is really going on, as well as treating other Christians, those of other faith and those of no faith in discriminatory ways".


John Walsh proposes a possible reason that the xian Dominionists are so worried:
The sad truth, Lord Carey, is that people aren't hostile to religion or passionately devout about it; just increasingly indifferent. They may send religious cards, sing carols, attend Mass, inspect the crib, as they've always done – but more as a style choice than an expression of devotion. They haven't been nobbled by Christianophobes. They just don't feel any atavistic twitch of veneration any more.

When the philosopher AC Grayling was introduced on a recent radio show as "a devout atheist", he corrected his host: "That's like calling me a devout non-stamp collector." What bothers Christian Concern, and the like, is that many people just aren't disposed to collect the stamps any more.


And I can't say that I believe that acting like a petulant child who can't understand the concept of overlapping holidays is one likely to make many people likely to WANT to start collecting your stamps, but, you know, whatever works. Me, I like the quoted bit of Dickens, describing the way I like to think of the secular holiday:
"a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely..."

Picture found here.