Showing posts with label jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jesus. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 09, 2015

BIBLE BEATOFFS.



The saga of Kim Davis, bigot-martyr, and her pig-eyed enablers has ascended into legend:
Of the two presidential contenders who attended the rally, it was Mr. Huckabee, making his second White House run, who grabbed the political spotlight. Before Ms. Davis appeared, Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Staver took the stage to tell the crowd, in unison, “Kim Davis is free.” 
When Mr. Cruz, who met with Ms. Davis, exited the Carter County Detention Center, a throng of journalists beckoned him toward their microphones, but an aide to Mr. Huckabee blocked the path of the senator, who appeared incredulous.
I'll bet he did! This is such ripe hillbilly Gothic it makes A Face in the Crowd look like Barchester Towers.

Anyway, Davis and her Liberty Counsel lawyers remain belligerent, which promises an interesting first day back at work for Davis as her deputy who's been issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples says he'll go on doing it no matter how hard Davis tries to holy-roll him.

Meanwhile it's not just crackpot Republican candidates who think the law should bow to Goodwife Davis -- here's David French, writer for the once-reputable National Review:
Had her stand happened a few short centuries ago, Huckabee and Cruz would likely have been joined by a few notable figures from Christian history — men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Knox — the men who first put the “protest” in “Protestant"... 
When rulers defy God, they lose their God-ordained authority. When rulers require lesser authorities to cooperate in and facilitate evil, the lesser authorities must resist... 
...to put things more bluntly, Justice Kennedy can purport to change the Constitution, but he can’t transform Christian conviction. Unless his social-justice church grows more tolerant, the Kim Davis case is a harbinger of more conflict to come. We Protestants are simply returning to our roots.
One imagines French running amok in  sackcloth, crying HELTER JESUS! SHE'S COMING DOWN FAST! and looking for some homosexuals to pummel with slurs in hopes of being arrested by the Pinkshirts, thus hastening the "conflict" that will bring the New Reformation.

Between this and Trump it's been a great pre-pre-pre-election. I wonder what these clowns will come up with after Opening Day? I predict the new litmus test will be that every GOP candidate has to do an abortion clinic bombing.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

COMEBACK KIDS.

How goes the rear-guard, dead-ender attack on gay marriage? Hilariously! Have a look at this symposium at Opus Dei strokebook First Things featuring the Douthats of Tomorrow. Say what you will about snake-handlers and desert mystics, there's no crazier Christian than than Christian intellectual; they dress  like Chesterton and talk like the Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne. All the symposiasts  want to see overturned (or, in Scaliaese, o'erturned) not only Obergefell but also America's sexual freedoms in general. Some have interesting ideas as to how to achieve this. Hadley Arkes, who like many of his compatriots compares Obergefell to the Dred Scott decision (because having to live in a world with married gays is the same as slavery), suggests this:
...it must start with the voice that rings out the depth of the wrong and summons the resistance—that “this shall not stand.” We will learn here right away, from the reactions springing from our political class, just who among our political figures may be up the task and adequate to the moment. But it may not be a man in office, or someone running for anything. Rick Santelli, emitting a cri de coeur on CNBC, triggered the coming of the Tea Party movement. A Robert George, with the attention properly focused, might accomplish the same thing.
A Tea Party, only anti-gay! Presumably instead of tricorners and knee-breeches, they'll all dress in Eldridge Cleaver codpiece pants and other affectations of extreme butchness. And with Robert George as their inspirator! This would be the same Robert George who's been wowing the West for years with his rap about how "masturbatory, sodomitical, and other sexual acts which are not reproductive in type, cannot unite persons organically" and other such keep-it-in-your-pants perorations. Put him out on the town square with a bullhorn and watch the next Great Aweakening unfold. (Arkes also calls for a Constitutional Convention, which should go about as well as that schtick always does.)

Some are enraged by the brands who waved their rainbow flags for the decision, and want a holy boycott. Mark Bauerlein:
It’s time for conservatives to apply principles to their purses. Coca-Cola, ESPN, and Walmart are prominent cases of corporate culture warfare, and every time a conservative buys a Coke, watches SportsCenter, or enters the megastore, he helps them do their damage.
I can see the faces of Bauerlein's readers falling, then their wheels turning: Maybe they can drink Coke on the down-low.
No conservative likes to turn his consumption into a political act...
Ha ha -- no conservative, he says! Someone buy that cowboy some Chik-fil-A! Peter J. Leithart wants the brethren to cease with the happy-clappy love-one-another bogus Christianity and cut to the chaste:
And we might as well say it plainly: We oppose gay marriage because we believe homosexual acts are sinful, and we believe that for biblical and theological reasons. Unbelievers already know it. Let’s admit it.
Noted! Rabbi David Novak suggests they "stop co-officiating (i.e., along with the marriage license clerk) at civil weddings, and thus remove their names from the civil marriage registry" -- which is actually sensible, and so will probably not catch on, as his comrades seem to think that when a single God-botherer doesn't like a party it's the party that should leave, not him.

Some of them reach back to root causes, none further than Ephraim Radner, who has half decided that democracy itself is inconsistent with his religion:
Second, the vitality and moral usefulness of the liberal state is increasingly in question: has this form of rule by procedural decision-making served its purpose and collapsed under the weight of its own outsized reach? We are perhaps about to enter times of political revolution and re-inventing government analogous to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Maybe he can mob up with ISIS; really, what's for them to wrangle over except the name of God? Melinda Selmys, meanwhile, blames it all on the disastrous abandonment of arranged marriages. Once upon a time, there was forced marriage for the godly stuff, and "concubinage" for funsies:
The difficulty that presents traditional marriage in the modern world is that over several centuries we’ve undergone a major social shift. The keeping of mistresses or concubines stopped being socially acceptable at about the same time that the idea of “marrying for love” first started to gain traction in the public imagination. The institution of marriage began to change: the focus slowly shifted from the creation of family alliances and provision for the continuation of the line, to the happiness of the couple and the love that they have for one another. In the process, a lot of other concepts (consent, for example) also shifted. The relationship in which people joined their lives on a permanent basis in order to have children became, at the same time, the relationship in which people enjoyed intense erotic attraction and emotionally satisfying interactions.
Now, in a lot of ways this was a good development...
Marrying for love isn't all bad! See, she's meeting you halfway. But:
...Simply put, mutual responsibility towards offspring naturally demands a long-term commitment (at least eighteen years) while mutual attraction and erotic desire does not... The battle over the institution of marriage is basically a battle over which of these two purposes of marriage ought to have primacy.
So if you're not as sexually voracious as you were when you were 20, Selmys doesn't see why you stay in your otherwise meaningless modern marriage. Well, she might win a convert or two among unhappily-marrieds looking for a loophole.

But above all, whining -- always whining. "We have entered Canaan and been swallowed up before Moloch in the same way that Israel was enveloped by a surrounding religion of idolatrous violence," cries Radner. "On the bright side, we’ve entered an era that will make for some of the bravest Christians we’ve ever seen," consoles Mark Regnerus; we will see them huddled in the food courts, enduring the sight of men holding hands. Patrick Deneen compares himself and his buds to Solzhenitsyn, and wails:
What has been most striking all along is not the division, the passion, at times the vitriol. What has been most remarkable is the insistence by same-sex marriage proponents that all dissent be silenced—whether through threats of economic destruction, legal bludgeoning, and now, increasingly by appeal to the raw power of the State.
Did they have a straight Holocaust and I missed it?
The firing of Brendan Eich was a bellwether for what has now become a commonplace: the fanatical insistence that all opposition be squelched, and more—that even belief in an alternative view of marriage be eradicated.
Ah, Brendan Eich -- the rich CEO dismissed by his rich Board of Directors, and therefore a martyr (in fact Rod Dreher -- yeah, they couldn't have this party without him -- declares "We are all Brendan Eich now." I wish! I could probably live on his pool fees).  You know, if one of these Jesus freaks got as upset when, say, a minimum-wage worker got fired for talking to the Washington Post about her shitty job, maybe people would take them a little more seriously.

I'm tempted to say it wouldn't be half bad if an actual Gay Gulag appeared for them to be sent off to, but you can't even joke like that around these guys -- in an hour it'll be added to their list of oppressions. I'll say this for them -- their persecution mania is so intense it almost overpowers the smell of their gay-hate. Say, maybe that's the idea!

UPDATE. Had to gender-correct a pronoun for Hadley Arkes because the gay oppressors forced her to have a sex change. (No, actually he was always a man from what I know.) Also comments are so fun you should just dive in. For example, John Wesley Hardin reveals the revolutionary agenda: "'Taste the Rainbow' is now a diktat from our fabulous cultural commissars!" And there's this cautionary tale from Jay B.: "First they came for flowers and I said 'Since when did fags like flowers?' Then they came for the cake and I said 'Pastries are sacred.' Then there was no one to have cake and flowers with me." I think he speaks for us all.



Friday, May 15, 2015

FRIDAY 'ROUND-THE-HORN.



•    You may remember him for his later, lush 'n' luxe blues stuff, and that's all very fine. I love B.B. King, now passed, for his slightly cheesy "B.B. 'Blues Boy' King" stompers from the 50s like the one above. Sure sounds like him and the "Orchestra" are having a good time. I expect some of my readers have their own favorites to recommend.

•    Many conservatives, even ones who are not Rod "The Get-Ready Man" Dreher, are bitching about that poll showing a slightly smaller percentage of Christians in America than once there was. At National Review David French knows why: "Why Does ‘Organized Religion’ Get a Bad Rap? Because the Elite Lies About It." Evil liberals say Jesus people are obsessed with cultural issues like gay marriage, but the truth is Christians contribute heavily to charity. Yes, it's the old "society claims I'm a pedophile, but I bought twenty tickets to the Policeman's Ball" argument. More interesting to me is this claim:
Sexual politics is simply not a dominant topic compared to scriptural study, discussions of family, or exhortations to serve the poorest and most disadvantaged members of the community. If I were to critique the church, I’d say we need to discuss the sexual revolution issues a bit more — to equip kids and families to face the cultural onslaught.
Don't talk about it enough, huh? Let's look at the past few examples of French's own writing at National Review. What picture of Christianity do you get from it? There's not a lot about charity in there -- in fact, I found no David French posts at all promoting alms to the poor. (Come on, it's National Review!) Here's what I did see:
"The Clintons, Tom Brady, and the ‘Scoreboard’ Life" (Shorter: Libtards cheat because they don't have Jesus);
"When Crusades Meet Courtrooms" and "Three Recent Lawsuits Challenge the ‘Rape Crisis’ Storyline" (Shorter: Rape is not the fault of the men lying bitches falsely accuse of raping them, it's the fault of the sexual revolution);
"Why a Huckabee Loss Would Be a Win for Religious Conservatives" (Shorter: Because all the other GOP candidates hate gays and fornication as much as Huckabee does. Eat it, libtards!);
"Obama’s Crackdown on Dissent Has Made Conservatives a Little Paranoid — and Rightly So" (Shorter: If Ted Cruz was President libtards would so be just as paranoid about Jade Helm as we are, except we aren't paranoid because Obama really is a monster);
"Comedy, Cowardice, or Both?" (Shorter: SNL libtards didn't draw Muhammed! Sure, it was funny, but what's that got to do with anything?);
"Liberals Peer into Your Heart and See the Darkness Inside" (Shorter: Libtards are mean and hateful. Not like us!)
Etc. And here are the records from the other times we've caught French's culture-war act. (This one will do if you can't read them all.) All told I'd say the biggest PR problem Christianity has isn't "Elite Lies About It" -- it's people like David French.

•    OK, here's the advertising portion of the program: A friend of mine in New York is between freelance gigs DON'T RUN AWAY SHE DOESN'T WANT A HANDOUT only another freelance gig. Métier includes branding, marketing, research, strategy, communications, social media, digital product development, content and product creation, etc. Drop me a note if you've got something for her.

•    Melissa Langsam Braunstein of The Federalist testifies to "listening to a panel at AEI on Monday night, during which several contributors to The Dadly Virtues: Adventures from the Worst Job You’ll Ever Love discussed their take on fatherhood." Sounds like a corker:
I cannot imagine a similar panel of mothers laughing as they described purposely breaking their child’s leg, as P.J. O’Rourke’s son believed he did, while regaling the audience with the saga of teaching that young son how to ski. The experience taught O’Rourke that he’s better off being the breadwinner who can afford ski lessons.
And this:
Tucker Carlson’s presentation may have been the most different from what a panel of mothers might offer. Amidst his lighthearted remarks, Carlson repeatedly mentioned that he’s not reflective about his parenting and takes no responsibility for any of his four children’s failings; he believes any mistakes his children make are strictly their own, and he does never holds his wife or himself liable.
And this:
Jonah Goldberg sounded endearingly clueless...
Stop to take a breath here.
.... – since we gather his daughter’s alright now – as he described a fall she took during toddlerhood that resulted in a sizable forehead gash. Apparently, Goldberg was still new enough to parenting that he didn’t realize his daughter’s bloody face needed to be stitched up professionally. Luckily, his sister-in-law was able to advise via telephone and pass along the good advice to wait for a plastic surgeon at the hospital.
Braunstein's conclusion:
This is all to say: fatherhood sounds rather liberating. Whatever our cultural expectations of men, it seems our standards for fathers are less exacting (and crazy-making) than those for American mothers. Having listened to the fathers on this panel, I dare say that difference is largely driven by the fact that men aren’t critical of one another’s parenting in the same way that women can be...
Either than or these guys are just a bunch of fucking idiots.