Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
I know I’m supposed to say ‘Jesus,’ but it sure sounds more like a squirrel to me

I know I’m supposed to say ‘Jesus,’ but it sure sounds more like a squirrel to me

Last updated on: October 10, 2019 at 5:37 pm by Fred Clark

I know I’m supposed to say ‘Jesus,’ but it sure sounds more like a squirrel to me 2019-10-10T17:37:18-04:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

• When I was a kid back in the early 1970s, our small town’s library was a cramped set of rooms on the third floor of the township building. You had to go in past the police desk and up three flights of stairs. My mom was a library regular who was furious that many would-be patrons just couldn’t make it up those stairs. She made library runs for some of her older neighbors who couldn’t manage it, and recruited them all in her campaign for a new library.

Mom wasn’t a natural-born organizer or rabble-rouser, but she was mad, she was right, and she enlisted lots of help from others who agreed. Her model was the persistent widow from Jesus’ parable in Luke 18:

In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.”

For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.”

And it worked out pretty much just like that. The town built a much larger new library — wheelchair accessible, all on one ground-level floor — and the place soon became a thriving center of activities for young children and senior citizens and others who had been unable to use the old one above the Dunellen PD.

The mayor even gave my mom a plaque that basically said, “Fine. We built the damn library. Now leave us alone.” (I’m paraphrasing — it was a decoupaged certificate thanking Jane R. Clark for “his” dedication and service to “his” community. And someone had typed an “er” over the “is” to change his to hiesr.)

Dunellen’s new library didn’t cost anything near $41 million, but I was reminded of that story when I read this: “The New $41 Million Hunters Point Library Has One Major Flaw.”

It’s an otherwise beautiful facility that’s apparently technically in compliance with the ADA. But many of its sections are off-limits to anyone who can’t manage the stairs. If you’re gonna spend $41 million on a new library, at least talk to some of the older folks from your community who might like to use it. A “beautiful” building that is inhospitable to humans is not actually all that beautiful.

• “Pat Boone may be one of the most famous singers in the past generation. In some ways, he was as big as or even bigger than Elvis Presley.” That’s shameless swindler Steve Strang, fleecer of rubes, displaying his usual respect for accuracy and introducing his interview with the man most famous for desecrating Wop bop a loo bop, a lop bom boom. (Hear for yourselves: The Original. The Failed Imitation.)

Like many 85-year-old white men in America, Boone seems to spend too much time watching Fox News and nursing imaginary grievances. He’s angry, for example, that twice-removed former Alabama judge Roy Moore was the victim of “smears”: “Boone says those accusations were never proven — the left just wanted to attack Moore because he defended the Ten Commandments.”

The old fart also warns of “literal campaigns heavily funded by wealthy people to take away our right to even quote the Bible.”

Over the past half century there’s been an ongoing debate about Boone’s personal complicity in the racism behind his whitesploitation covers of songs like “Tutti Frutti.” This bonkers interview would seem to settle the matter as Boone’s confession.

Strang, meanwhile, happily “Amens” and reinforces every Snopes-debunked statement from the reality-fleeing former celebrity. He presents the whole thing with the glee of a man who knows that a Pat Boone interview is just the thing to appeal to the demographic of Fox-addled geriatric Christians he’s scaring out of their Social Security checks and who has studied the actuarial tables to confirm he can siphon money from that crowd until they die and he retires to Paraguay.

• The unfortunate life and fortunate death of States Rights Gist.

• Hemant Mehta points us a local article in the Grand Rapids Press interviewing the two candidates for mayor of that city. The Republican challenger is an earnestly dim pastor named Daniel Schutte. Both candidates were asked about their “top three priorities” if elected. Incumbent Mayor Rosalynn Bliss shoehorns five policy arenas into her answer. Schutte is unable to come up with three.

His top priority as mayor, Schutte says, would be “To proclaim the glory and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only ‘answer’ to every one of our problems and challenges.” To the extent that this means anything at all specific, it does not suggest any reason that Schutte would need to run for mayor to pursue such a priority, suggesting instead that running for mayor seems like a major impediment to and distraction from this pursuit. (If you’re wondering why Schutte puts the word answer in ironic scare quotes, the reason is Jesus Christ, apparently, who is the “answer” to all such questions.)

As for his second and third priorities, Schutte lists abortion and abortion:

To address the No. 1 “civil rights” issue of our day … the murder of the precious and unwanted children of Grand Rapids that may be destined to be destroyed through their murder (commonly referred to as “abortion”).

To seek to make the city of Grand Rapids a “sanctuary city” for all unwanted children destined to be murdered through abortion.

Here is a man who has so thoroughly absorbed the what-about function that is the sole purpose of this self-deception that he what-about-abortions himself. Twice.

That displays the usual effects of the toxic sin of abortion-is-murderism — self-righteous pride, sanctimony, dishonesty, etc. But it also demonstrates the sheer terror that shapes — or more accurately, prevents — Schutte’s thinking. He will not allow anyone to finish a sentence without interrupting to jam his fingers into his ears and recite “What about Satanic baby-killers murdering babies?” to drown out every other thought, question, doubt, fact, person or story. He cannot even allow himself to finish a sentence without doing that.

This is the end state of embracing the sinful lie of abortion-is-murderism. It turns you into the kind of person who couldn’t pass a Turing Test.

Previous Post

October 9, 2019

So I bit him

Next Post

October 11, 2019 LBCF, No. 250: 'The Scornful Colleague'

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did the Israelites have to gather twice as much of before Sabbath?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Fish Barley Manna Quail