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 ain’t got no home in this world anymore

I ain’t got no home in this world anymore

Last updated on: September 29, 2020 at 7:17 pm by Fred Clark

I ain’t got no home in this world anymore 2020-09-29T19:17:45-04:00 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.

• There’s a lot going on in this story from the (N.H.) Union Leader:

The transgender Satanist candidate for Cheshire County sheriff is joining forces with the owner of a controversial pho restaurant, and the pastor at a libertarian church in challenging the city of Keene’s mask mandate.

Aria DiMezzo, who is running as the Republican mandate for sheriff, is suing both the city of Keene over the recently passed mask mandate, and Gov. Chris Sununu over his use of emergency orders to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

DiMezzo, who is the founder of a Satanic church as well as a writer and internet radio host, is joined in her lawsuit along with Malaise Lindenfeld, the owner of Pho Keene Great, and Ian Freeman, one of the leaders of the Free Keene movement and the founder of the Free Shire Church in Keene. They claim there is no need for the state’s emergency order limiting gatherings of more than 100 people, and there is no scientific basis for wearing masks.

The sheriff’s candidate seems to be trolling on multiple fronts. The “libertarian church” — yikes! — seems like a cross between Yankee Hippie woo and sovereign citizen folklore. Normally, I’d have harsh words for the restaurateur’s anti-mask nonsense, but I don’t wish to offend them because one day I may want to use the name “Malaise Lindenfeld” in a novel.

• Made this joke on Twitter, but it’s not entirely a joke.

Love to rent a storefront and hang the sign here to the right advertising “spiritual advice.” Deck the place out like Madam Marie’s with bead curtains and candles and whatnot. Wouldn’t charge anything for this service, but I’d tell every customer who walked in and sat down the same thing: “Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with thy God.”

That may not be every bit of “spiritual advice” that anyone needs, but it’s more than enough to get any of us started. Once we’ve got that nailed down, then we can start worrying about any further, more detailed and specific “spiritual advice.”

This is why I call shenanigans on the “spiritual advice” advertised in this Charisma advertorial piece on how to “Change Your Life by Training Yourself to Hear the Voice of God.” What’s the secret? According to Charisma, the secret is buying a book by “Dr.” Ray Self and subscribing to his podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network.

Somehow when Charisma’s writers, readers, speakers, and podcasters train themselves to “Hear the Voice of God,” that voice is never telling them to do justice or to love mercy or to walk humbly. It’s telling them, instead, to vote MAGA, to preserve WhiteJesus hegemony, to increase their tithes and offerings, to sign up for conferences, and to buy lots and lots of books, tapes, and DVDs. And what do all those conferences, books, tapes, and DVDs tell them? The same thing — to vote MAGA, to preserve WhiteJesus hegemony, to put more in the offering plate, and to repeat the cycle by writing checks for even more conferences, books, tapes, etc.

• Here are three variations on the same story.

First up, an interview with stand-up comic/actor Andrew Dice Clay. Dice is 63 now, but he’s back on the road and a recent gig in Dallas landed him this item in the local paper. The interview involves this odd question and this astonishingly bogus answer:

Interviewer: Johnny Carson once said he stayed away from politics because he didn’t think audiences wanted to hear it; as a comic, is there any way to avoid it?

ADC: I don’t talk about it because you can’t win. I’m one of the smart ones. I learned that when I was about 5 to avoid the subject. I had a smart mother. She said three things, “Never talk politics. Never talk religion. Never bad mouth Frank Sinatra.”

Does Andrew Dice Clay really believe that his act has refrained from “politics”? His entire shtick and career was based on culture-war resentment in defense of a particular strain of toxic white masculinity. His act often seemed less like stand-up and more like a political rally or a “complementarian” Bible conference. Here is how the late great Roger Ebert described it in his thumbs-down review of Clay’s 1991 “concert” film:

Clay is not using humor at all – he is simply pointing, and making fun, like a playground bully.

He has many other targets. The handicapped. The ill.

Minorities. Women. Homosexuals. Anyone, in fact, who is not exactly like Andrew Dice Clay is fair game for his cruel attacks. His material about women constitutes verbal rape, as far as I’m concerned. Using obscenity as punctuation, he describes women as essentially things to masturbate with. …

It is eerie, watching the shots of the audience. You never see anyone just plain laughing, as if they’d heard something that was funny. You see, instead, behavior more appropriate at a fascist rally, as his fans stick their fists in the air and chant his name as if he were making some kind of statement for them. Perhaps he is. Perhaps he is giving voice to their rage, fear, prejudice and hatred. They seem to cheer him because he is getting away with expressing the sick thoughts they don’t dare to say.

That’s political. That’s politics. And, as Ebert said, it’s little of anything else other than politics.

The same confusion — the idea that “politics” is, exclusively, a matter of explicit endorsement of individual partisan politicians — pervades our second example, this piece by Richard Ostling, which claims that “[White] evangelicals are actually America’s least politicized group of churches.”

The entire piece is premised on the notion that “politics” is something that happens on or about Election Day. Ostling uses “politics” as, basically, a synonym for politicking or for campaigning. And he argues, based on that conveniently cramped notion of “politics,” that most white evangelical churches are just exactly as a-political and politically ambivalent as an Andrew Dice Clay set/rally. (Not particularly surprising, I suppose, given that this piece is on Terry Mattingly’s “Get Religion” blog, which purports to be about religious coverage of journalism but is always pervasively about Mattingly’s resentment that religious journalists do not privilege his particular politics.)

This third story, likewise, has nothing at all to do about politics. It is, rather, about the punishment of a young, very conservative Southern Baptist pastor in Texas for promoting “discord” in the church and failing to “promote gospel unity.”

What did this young pastor say that was such a divisive, ghastly attack on the lockstep “gospel unity” of his Southern Baptist church? He criticized Donald Trump and said that his conscience required him to vote, instead, for Joe Biden.

The senior pastor who revoked this young man’s ministerial license insisted this had nothing to do with “politics” or with anyone’s “political” views. Surely that must be true because, after all, white Southern Baptist churches are “actually America’s least politicized group of churches.”

The title for this post comes from the scrupulously non-political songwriter Woody Guthrie, who never, ever had anything political to say.

Previous Post

September 29, 2020

'They're all hustlers'

Next Post

October 5, 2020 I want everyone to get better

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

Who prophesied swords would be beaten into plowshares?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Hosea Micah Joel Daniel