The Bible, taken as the unfailing word of God, is a deadly thing.
Michael and Debi Pearl, who consider themselves devout Christians, have been promoting what they say is biblical discipline of children in their “No Greater Joy” ministries.
“If you spare the rod, you hate your child,” claims Michael Pearl, citing the bible. Spanking must cause pain, they say. Belts, switches, plumbing supply lines and spatulas are amongst the approved “corrective rods.”
Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz of Paradise, California, are in jail for beating their two adoptive daughters, causing injuries so severe that one of the two died. The 7-year-old child who died, Lydia, was reported to have died of severe conditions usually associated with earthquakes and bombings. She was “disciplined” for seven consecutive hours, interrupted by short prayer breaks, on the day that she died. The district attorney believes that the Schatzes were strongly influenced by the Pearls’ To Train Up a Child book that has been gaining popularity worldwide.
CNN’s 360 program with Anderson Cooper is investigating the fundamentalist Christian view on discipline and the Pearls’ role in abusive punishments.
These are busy times for those who fight the teaching of creationism in public schools. It’s like playing a giant game of
Whack-a-Mole: In January alone, anti-evolution forces first raised their heads in North Carolina. Whack. Then Kentucky. Whack. Then Ohio. Whack. Then Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas. Whackwhackwhack.
The fight continues. And I encourage everyone to support those who want our kids to grow up in the real world, which is so beautiful and surprising and rich.
Anyway, there’s a nice little piece of snark that has popped up from the more atheistic side of the pro-science forces. This group of folks has noticed that, since the creationist and intelligent design crowd (they’re the same crowd) want creationism taught in the public schools, it’s only fair that the supporters of real science should ask: Well, can we teach evolution in your churches?
I think that’s a mighty fine idea.
Why Go to Church?
By way of explanation, consider the question: Why do people go to church? I mean, besides the fact that churches often make dandy country clubs, besides the fact that going to church is a highly effective method for keeping us Christians from facing the facts about ourselves (“I’m at church, see? I’m one of the good ones! See?”), and besides the fact that no human being can resist doing something for the simple reason that it’s always been done?
What I mean is, are there genuine social or intellectual or spiritual reasons for going to church?
Yes. Underneath all the nonsense and pomposity, there are some good reasons: community, meaning, connection with the past. But I would like to suggest that, ultimately, people go to church because of mystery. This is not mystery in the sense of Whodunit?, or “What makes a rainbow so pretty?”; instead, this is the very mystery of existence itself; it is the bare fact of us showing up, without even having been asked, on this loneliest of planets in this strangest of universes. All people who attend church—conservative, liberal, whatever—do so, at least in part, because of mystery. They may never use that word, but there it is nonetheless.
This is not to say that all are motivated by mystery in exactly the same way. Some people attend church in order to receive answers to the hard questions life throws at them, to shield them from the dark realities of modern life, to seek reliable absolutes by which to measure the world. That is, those in this group attend church in order to escape mystery. Because mystery means not knowing, and people must know.
This is broad generalization, to be sure, but many, many people are powerfully motivated by the fear of the utter mystery of life. It is, after all, the great unknown. And to not know is to give up control, to be shut out in the dark, to drift, to face the abyss with no armor. Flight is an utterly human response to mystery.
But sometimes the need for control, absolutes, and knowledge careens out of control. To wit: Those who desire to have creationism taught in our nation’s public schools. They know, because the Bible says so; and what’s more, they know so well that they’re going to take control of the educations not only of their own children, but of everyone else’s, too. After all, isn’t it good to know the truth, and isn’t it good to share it, even if that means stacking school boards and inciting legal battles? It’s the truth, and nothing justifies like the truth.
As reported today on MSNBC, a Wiccan TSA employee accused of witchcraft has been fired. As described below, listed apostles of a global evangelical movement that claims to fight witchcraft will, on April 1-2, be holding a conference at Harvard University.
While Salem has garnered all the attention, the real peak of the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s witch craze was in what is now North Andover, where two dogs were tried and executed for witchcraft. It’s been a few years now since witch hunting was in vogue in Massachusetts, but the upcoming Social Transformation Conference to be held at Harvard this April 1-2 could help rekindle the practice. Footage from a November 2009 evangelical conference held at the Hilton Hawaiian Village near Honolulu shows scheduled Social Transformation Conference speaker Dr. Pat Francis up onstage, her voice cracking with intensity, shouting out “In the name of Jesus we break the power, of witchcraft power, every witchcraft power, we drive you out!”
As documented in my new 14 and 1/2 minute video, four of the speakers slated for the “Social Transformation” conference, to be held at the Harvard Northwest Science building, promote the idea that witchcraft is a pressing contemporary societal concern. Three of those also claim that entire family lines can be collectively cursed because of ancestral involvement in idolatry and witchcraft.
The video demonstrates that these four conference speakers are “apostles” in a global evangelical network whose leaders appear bent on restoring a Pre-Enlightenment worldview in which believers and society are beset by demons including succubi and incubi, menaced by the conjoined threats of apostasy and idolatry, and plagued by “generational curses”–these apostles represent a Christian supremacist movement whose leaders encourage believers to cleanse the Earth of infidels and competing belief systems.
Controversy over the conference started with two pieces by Michael Jones of Change.org and Wayne Besen of Truth Wins Out. Both organizations are committed to fighting for gay rights, and many of the speakers scheduled for the upcoming conference are tied to antigay organizing and rhetoric. As Jones’ story documented, some of the featured speakers slated for the conference, such as Bill Hamon, seem to advocate imposing the death penalty for homosexuality.
If you thought you had less than three perfectly healthy months to live, what would you do? Would you travel? Spend time with loved ones? Appreciate the joy life has given you?
Or would you ditch your kids and grandkids, join strangers in a caravan of RVs and travel the country warning people about the end of the world?
If you’re Sheila Jonas, that’s exactly what you’d do.
“This is so serious, I can’t believe I’m here,” says Jonas, who’s been on the road since fall. Like her cohorts, she’s “in it ’til the end,” which she believes is coming in May.
She won’t talk about her past because, “There is no other story. … We are to warn the people. Nothing else matters.”
Such faith and concern drove her and nine others, all loyal listeners of the Christian broadcasting ministry Family Radio, to join the radio station’s first “Project Caravan” team.
They walked away from work, families and communities in places as far-flung as California, Kansas, Utah and New Jersey. Among them are an electrician, a TV satellite dish installer, a former chef, an international IT consultant and a man who had worked with the developmentally disabled.
Rev. Grant Storms, a renowned anti-gay Christian pastor from Louisiana, was arrested last week for masturbating at a public park, in the vicinity of a carousel and playground where children were present.
According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, one woman saw Storms parked in his van “looking at the playground area that contained children playing, with his zipper down…,” the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office report read. After judging that Storms was masturbating, the woman and another mother who witnessed the event both alerted deputies.
After being apprehended by authorities, Storms claimed that he had been urinating into a bottle. He was then booked for obscenity — charges that hedenied — and then released due to overcrowding in the jail.
The pastor appeared less willing to discuss the matter at a press conference on Tuesday, during which he blamed “pornography” for the incident.
“Pornography is destructive and it can ruin a person’s life, and it ruined my life,” he said at the conference, admitting that he had his hands in his pants, but maintaining that he wasn’t masturbating. “Do I have problems? Yes. Did I do something wrong? Yes.”
Despite his apology, which he also extended to the gay community, to which he has been a prominent opponent, Grants also denied claims that he had been “looking at the children” in the area.
WWLreports on Grants’ past behavior against the LGBT community of New Orleans:
Storms has been a very vocal critic of the gay community and tried to get the gay pride festival, Southern Decadence, shut down after he videotaped man participating in sex acts and masturbating in the street.
A group of hacktivists acting under the banner, “Anonymous,” has warned a church with a controversial history that unspoken retribution will follow it continues its practice of inflammatory protests.
In an open letter to the Westboro Baptist Church, Anonymous has put the anti-gay, fundamentalist church on notice that “the damage incurred will be irreversible,” and that “neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover.”
The Westboro Baptist Church is led by Rev. Fred Phelps. It has drawn particular attention for carrying out anti-gay protests at funerals of military servicemen with signs celebrating the deaths of the soldiers with signs like “God Hates the USA” or “Thank God for 9/11.” The group operates a website with the URL godhatesfags.com.
In its letter, Anonymous wrote the following:
We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS – the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People – have long heard you issue your venomous statements of hatred, and we have witnessed your flagrant and absurd displays of inimitable bigotry and intolerant fanaticism. We have always regarded you and your ilk as an assembly of graceless sociopaths and maniacal chauvinists & religious zealots, however benign, who act out for the sake of attention & in the name of religion.
Being such aggressive proponents for the Freedom of Speech & Freedom of Information as we are, we have hitherto allowed you to continue preaching your benighted gospel of hatred and your theatrical exhibitions of, not only your fascist views, but your utter lack of Christ-like attributes. You have condemned the men and women who serve, fight, and perish in the armed forces of your nation; you have prayed for and celebrated the deaths of young children, who are without fault; you have stood outside the United States National Holocaust Museum, condemning the men, women, and children who, despite their innocence, were annihilated by a tyrannical embodiment of fascism and unsubstantiated repugnance. Rather than allowing the deceased some degree of peace and respect, you instead choose to torment, harass, and assault those who grieve.
Your demonstrations and your unrelenting cascade of disparaging slurs, unfounded judgments, and prejudicial innuendos, which apparently apply to every individual numbered amongst the race of Man – except for yourselves – has frequently crossed the line which separates Freedom of Speech from deliberately utilizing the same tactics and methods of intimidation and mental & emotional abuse that have been previously exploited and employed by tyrants and dictators, fascists and terrorist organizations throughout history.
ANONYMOUS cannot abide this behavior any longer. The time for us to be idle spectators in your inhumane treatment of fellow Man has reached its apex, and we shall now be moved to action. Thus, we give you a warning: Cease & desist your protest campaign in the year 2011, return to your homes in Kansas, & close your public Web sites. Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS: We will target your public Websites, and the propaganda & detestable doctrine that you promote will be eradicated; the damage incurred will be irreversible, and neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover. It is in your best interest to comply now, while the option to do so is still being offered, because we will not relent until you cease the conduction & promotion of all your bigoted operations & doctrines. The warning has been given. What happens from here shall be determined by you.
Anonymous recently made headlines when it got into the computer system of a security firm and posted thousands of documents describing plans to attack WikiLeaks, the Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Plenty of potential Super Bowl ads are seemingly made to be rejected. Why? 30-second spots during the broadcast are going for $3 million, and once an ad is nixed it gets plenty of free publicity. But usually, as Politics Daily’s David Gibson observes, the majority of ads being waved away are done so for inappropriate or racy content. The latest spot to be rejected by Fox broadcasting was done so for “advancing particular beliefs or practices,” which is against company policy.
The ad, which was produced by the Fixed Point Foundation, showcases a group of guys who wouldn’t be out of place in a beer commercial gathered around a big screen yelling at the TV during a football game. After a close-up of John 3:16 is flashed onscreen, they wonder what the verse means and use a smart phone to look it up. That’s it. Gibson explains that Fox likely blocked the ad to avoid “the wrong kind of controversy,” but hedges by noting “it’s hard to see how a commercial whose only religious reference is a brief shot of a player’s eye black and ‘John 3:16′ could offend an audience of sports fans.”
A 26-year-old double-amputee war veteran charged with the armed stalking of a controversial Kansas-based church group was released on his own recognizance Tuesday, but he must remain under the care of the Department of Veterans Affairs, his attorney said.
Retired Sgt. Ryan Newell of Marion, Kansas, has been charged with felony conspiracy to commit aggravated battery against leaders and members of Westboro Baptist Church, led by Pastor Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas. Phelps’ family members and church members were in Wichita, Kansas, when Newell allegedly stalked them, with weapons in his vehicle.
The Phelps family and their church have drawn controversy for their picketing at soldiers’ funerals and asserting that the soldiers’ deaths are God’s punishment for America’s “sin of homosexuality.”
Newell’s attorney, Boyd McPherson of Wichita, declined to disclose the treatment that Newell must receive as a condition of his release from jail. Newell was a turret gunner who lost both legs to an improvised bomb in Afghanistan in 2008.
“There’s not much I can say about treatment at this point,” said McPherson, who added that the district attorney’s office agreed with Newell’s release to the Veterans Affairs department. “Being out of custody has made Ryan — it put a smile on his face that I haven’t seen in a week. That’s probably the most important part of my day.”
Newell, his wife Carrie and their four children were the subject of media attention earlier this year when the national nonprofit Homes for Our Troops constructed a new house for the family. Local businesses donated construction materials.
Newell had been held for eight days in a Sedgwick County, Kansas, jail in lieu of $500,000 bail, which was dropped Tuesday, said McPherson.
Newell has also been charged with five misdemeanors: three counts of criminal use of weapons, stalking and false impersonation of a law officer.
Since Newell’s arrest November 30, McPherson’s office has been inundated with phone calls and emails from supporters of Newell or opponents of the Westboro Baptist Church.
When authorities arrested Newell last week, they found his car contained an M4 assault rifle, a .45-caliber Glock and a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol, said Georgia Cole, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s Office in Sedgwick County. Also, 90 rounds of ammunition were found in the car, McPherson said.
Newell was arrested outside Wichita City Hall, where members of the Phelps family and their church were meeting inside with police officials about security issues, McPherson said.
The charges accuse Newell of making Phelps family and church members fear for their safety.
“I usually don’t have that high priority of a case,” said McPherson, a family law and criminal lawyer in Wichita, earlier this week. “This one is going to push the hot button of military personnel, and it’s going to hit the hot button of wounded soldiers. He lost his mother when he was 19 and was in Afghanistan, and he had to come back to bury her. So there’s a group of mothers who like him. And there are people who don’t like the Phelps group. There are so many different layers of society.”
On Monday, Shirley Phelps-Roper, the church pastor’s daughter, said a judge has ordered Newell not to go anywhere near members of her family and church.
“Isn’t this an amazing turn of events?” Phelps-Roper said. “These young people have gone to war with broken moral compasses and now they think they are in charge and that the mob is ruling the country.
“He comes with his cache of weapons and 90 rounds of ammunition, and he’s going to kill us because we’re simply saying that if you stop sinning, God will stop this pain in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Phelps-Roper said.
“He thinks (if he is released on bail), he is going to go back and try it again. He’s already had a God-smack, and he’s going to try to get another one again. This time he’s not going to lose his limbs. He’s going to lose his life. God is going to kill him. He warned, ‘Don’t touch my people,’” Phelps-Roper said.
She said she noticed that a stranger’s car was following her and other church members after they picketed the high school in Mulvane, Kansas, “where they are teaching rebellion against God,” she said. Phelps-Roper said she later learned that Newell was the driver of that car.
At the high school, there was a heated face-off with members of the Patriot Guard, which she described as a group of bikers who have opposed Westboro’s pickets, she said.
After the high school picket, she and other church members drove to nearby Wichita where they met downtown with a police deputy chief and a captain in a scheduled appointment about safety concerns.
“We wanted to talk about what we should do to try to eliminate some of the danger that they posed — those bikers, those vets,” said Phelps-Roper, who’s also an attorney for the church. Police then told the church members that they were arresting someone in the parking lot whose car contained weapons, she said.
McPherson said a soldier at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has raised $3,500 since Thursday for Newell’s defense fund, and McPherson is receiving about 100 e-mails a day from supporters, as well as phone calls from Europe and Canada, he said. A local American Legion group in Wichita is also raising money for Newell, the attorney said.
They plan to become doctors, researchers and professors, but these students from Liberty University, an evangelical school, also believe God created the Earth in a week, some 6,000 years ago.
Each year, a group of biology students at the Christian university based in Lynchburg, Virginia, travels to the Natural History Museum in Washington to learn about a theory they dismiss as incorrect — Darwin’s theory of evolution.
The young “creationists” examined a model of the Morganucodon rat, believed to be the first and common ancestor of mammals that appeared some 210 million years ago.
Lauren Dunn, 19, a second-year biology student, was unimpressed.
“210 million years, that’s arbitrary. They put that time to make up for what they don’t know,” she said.
Nathan Hubbard, a 20-year-old from Michigan and a first-year biology major who plans to become a doctor, regarded the model with suspicion.
“There is no scientific, biological genetic way that this, this rat, could become you,” he said, seemingly scandalized by the proposition.
Liberty University is the most prominent evangelical university in the United States, with some 12,000 students who adhere to strict rules and regulations regarding moral conduct.
Its biology curriculum includes a course on “Young Earth Creationism”, which juxtaposes Charles Darwin’s “Origin of the Species” with the Book of Genesis.
“In order to be the best creationist, you have to be the best evolutionist you can be,” said Marcus Ross, who teaches paleontology and says of Adam and Eve: “I feel they were real people, they were the first people.”
David DeWitt, a Liberty University biology professor, opens his classes with a prayer, asking God to help him teach his students.
“I pray that you help me to teach effectively and help the students to learn and defend their faith,” he says.
Strongly-expressed faith is not unusual in the United States, a country where 80 percent of the population claim to believe in God and ascribe to established religions.
Polls taken in the last two years found that between 44 and 46 percent of Americans believe that the Earth was created in a week, somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Creationism, an increasingly popular theory in the United States and elsewhere in the world, rejects Darwin’s theory that all living species evolved over the course of billions of years via the process of natural selection.
The school of thought has adherents among Jehovah’s Witnesses and some fundamentalist Muslims, but in the United States it has won most converts in the evangelical Christian community.
Former president George W. Bush, a born-again Christian, is among those who say evolutionary theory does not fully explain the Earth’s creation, though the ex-president also noted he is not a “literalist” when it comes to the Bible.
Creationist belief has implications for the way people understand a variety of fields, including biology, paleontology and astronomy, but also impacts questions about climate change and educational debates.
At the Smithsonian Institute, among crowds of weekend visitors, the Liberty University students visited the evolution exhibition,.
But Darwin’s explanation for why giraffes have long necks — that they evolved over time so they could reach higher foliage — and displays of fossil evidence failed to sway them.
“Creationism and evolutionism have different ways of explaining the evidence. The creationist way recognizes the importance of Biblical records,” said Ross.
He teaches his students that dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the Earth some 4,000 to 5,000 years ago during the Biblical flood that Noah survived by building an ark.
He says carbon-dating techniques that have been used to suggest the Earth is in fact billions of years old are simply not reliable.
He doesn’t reject one prominent theory that dinosaurs were wiped out by a massive asteroid that collided into Earth, but suggests the collision coincided with the Biblical flood.
Though Ross acknowledges that the United States is among the most welcoming environments in the world for creationists, he said it can be difficult to convince people to take him and his beliefs seriously.
“The attitude is when you are a creationist you are ignorant of the facts,” he said.
