Death On The Installment Plan

Born In Sin, Come On In

(1) I have mentioned my discussions - if you may call such painful wordplay "discussions"-with a young man of the evangelical frame of mind, and that he was surprised at what appeared to be my personal relationship with God. I think what he meant was that he was surprised that anyone could have a relationship with God...outside of his own evangelical belief system. I mean, how could anyone not evangelically aware have a relationship with God!? Everyone who does not sing "Jesus is my Savior!" is some poor, misguided, misbegotten shlub who desperately needs the true hoodia of Evangelical Christianity. Oh, well. They use Reason as a snare to entrap you. Then they quote Bible verses at you to make you feel inadequate. Then they put you on their trophy wall, along with the other beasts they've preyed upon. (2) I saw Tim LaHaye on the TV. He is the author of the "Left Behind" series. The Rapture is extra-scriptural nonsense of the most pernicious kind. It is another form of modern idolatry, similar to its tainted sister, Intelligent Design. When the Deceiver comes, he will deceive you by using enticements that are fair to your eyes, not some outlandish and novel things. The deceptions will be easy, for they will be based on things we are so very familiar with. How easy is it to deceive when you are using folksy and homey notions? It's pretty easy. We got into the Iraq War because we were thinking things like "Saddam is a really, really, really bad guy"...and bad guys should be given their comeuppance, right? The UN weapons inspectors said there were no weapons, but European types are stupid, right? And the little Iraqi people will dance like Muchkins welcoming a great and big Dorothy to their little OZ, and will put flowers on our guns...and we will give them all candy bars like there was no end to chocolate and almonds... I mean, do you really think we Americans are smart enough to see through the Deceiver when we cannot even see through the most bald-faced inanities uttered by mere men, and men of no particular wit, at that? (3) Asia Times http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IF15Ak01.html A general in God's patriotic army wherein we read: Mike Evans is a shock jock for Armageddon, a cheerleader for the apocalypse. These days, the best-selling author and head of the Jerusalem Prayer Team", a US-based pro-Israel Christian evangelical organization, is at the top of his game. On June 3, his new book, The Final Move Beyond Iraq: The Final Solution While the World Sleeps, made it on to the New York Times best-sellers' list at No 1 in the paperback category. ... His prose is pugnacious, a style you might expect from a writer who claims that he is giving the US its "final wake-up call". In the book, and in its promotional materials, such terms as "appeasement", "secular humanist God-haters" and "pro-Islamic radical sympathizers" are tossed around as easily as if he were playing catch in the back yard. Your God is Compulsion and Force. Your God is Inquisition and Fear. I do not even know what those notions mean that you fling around like hash in the short-order grill of your mind. The author loves his end of time, his Armageddon, his time of Rapture. He loves the images of Death. His book is the theological equivalent of the films SAW or Hostel. Dispell the nightmares of Destruction and Decay! This should be a time of Rebirth and Life, not Death... ... NOT the Fulfillment of God's Plan by Death on the Installment Plan. Which is all Easy Credit...easy belief...maybe even free! What could be easier than to let yourselves go mad...and lose all restraint? Thus, you are under no obligations, no duties, other than to fight with the Beserker God, a god who makes no demands on you except that you indulge your frenetic actions fueled by an immortal and unlimited supply of epinephretic blood. These men are legion, and they are wolves.