WataugaWatch

Update on Rev. Marc Grizzard of Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Bethel, N.C., and his announced plans to burn a whole bunch of Bibles that aren't King James versions and other literature similarly inspired by the devil, including tomes written by Christian mullahs like James Dobson, and so-called Christian music by the likes of Amy Grant et al.

Previously.

Today's development.

Labels: censorship, Christianity and politics, Southern Baptists

The Canton, N.C., Amazing Grace Baptist Church will hold a good old-fashioned book burning on Halloween night. Every version of the Bible which is not the 1611 King James Version is scheduled for the flames. (How did that old pederast King James I of England get so privileged?) You have to check out Pastor Marc Grizzard's own high-octane website to believe all this, which is NOT, evidently, a hoax.

And just to keep the flames licking, the church is planning on adding in all the country music and Southern gospel they can find, among other musical genres, and pretty much the entire gamut of "Christian" books written by fake, Satan-worshipping frauds, like Rick Warren, Billy Graham, Mother Teresa, James Dobson, Chuck Colson, and the Pope:

...We will also be burning Satan's music such as country , rap , rock , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel , contempory [sic] Christian , jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.

We will also be burning Satan's popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort , Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham , Rick Warren , Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll , John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn , Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa , The Pope , Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.

The Big Question for this huge congregation of 14 would be ... how many of these documents will that group be able to amass from their vast libraries or from the bookshelves of their alarmed neighbors? Or should this be more properly regarded as a Wish List?

Nothing sez "Prince o' Peace" like a book burning!

(Incidentally, the Pastor's website is a veritable smorgasbord of Christian dee-lites, though the hyperbolic, screaming colors may induce corneal searing.)

Labels: censorship, Christianity and politics, Southern Baptists

Been reading a fair amount since Christmas, mainly a stack of good hardbacks that Santa Claus gifted me with. Here's a progress report:

The Hemingses of Monticello: An America Family, by Annette Gordon-Reed. I'm something of a Thomas Jefferson freak, so this massively researched history of the black slave Elizabeth Hemings and her many children, including most especially Jefferson's famous "concubine" Sally Hemings, was the first big thick book I picked up, and I devoured it like a hungry man eats a cold chicken sandwich. It's dense with historical and genealogical evidence but well worth the effort. I had already thought that Thomas Jefferson could not become more complicated, more compromised, more ... perversely human. But this book proved me wrong. The inter-racial shenanigans of slave-owning white Virginians, Jefferson most certainly included, have rarely been laid so bare for modern eyes. Seems certain that Jefferson did not start his decades-long affair with Sally Hemings until his wife Martha Wayles died. But get this: Martha Wayles' own father had originally owned Sally's slave mother Elizabeth Hemings, on whom he begat Sally. So the slave Sally Hemings and Jefferson's own wife Martha were in reality half-sisters. It gets even creepier than that. A man whose vision of democracy so informed the American Revolution also owned, in the most literal sense imaginable, several of his own children.

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, by David Hajdu. With every current Hollywood blockbuster seemingly based on a comic book -- or "graphic novel," as they now prefer to be called -- today's teenager could be forgiven for not knowing that five and six decades ago comic books were a major target for government censorship and public extermination by the conservative forces of that day (which weren't in fact much different from the conservative forces of our day; only the primary targets have changed). Since I lived through my own scary purges, when my mother came up out of the depths of my cluttered closet with a fistful of my own precious comic-book contraband -- Weird Tales and Superman and Amazing Mysteries -- and burned them all before my eyes as the works of Satan, I could relate personally to this book's pop culture history. The lesson: public hysteria in America was (and still is) a powerful force to be reckoned with.

The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird, by Bruce Barcott. Great introduction to the Central American nation of Belize, its endangered native species, and the bravery of a handful of conservation activists who are willing to stand up against the awful power of government and mega-corporations. Haven't quite finished this book, but so far it doesn't look promising for the little guys.

Labels: Annette Gordon-Reed, Belize, censorship, Sally Hemings, scarlet macaw, Thomas Jefferson

Faculty members at Appalachian State University, and some astute students too, were asking questions last week that are both pertinent and ... no surprise here ... unanswered by the ASU administration. As we have learned over many months now, the current leaders of that institution are not in the habit of stooping to answer questions from mere mortals.

1. The visit of ex-President Bill Clinton to the ASU campus last week went unacknowledged on the ASU website and unannounced on the general-alert e-mail system.

2. A large and offensive photographic display, featuring billboard-size blowups of aborted fetuses, attempting to equate abortion with genocide was announced (and some say promoted) through the ASU e-mail server to all subscribers.

3. When some asked administration officials about this puzzling disparity, the only official response we've seen said it would be inappropriate for the university to use the e-mail system to "promote a political candidate." Apparently, an announcement that an ex-President of the United States would be visiting campus would constitute promotion of a political candidate, while promotion of an anti-abortion display would not be a political statement. Well, okay then.

4. What do you call an institution that couldn't find its ass with both hands and a head-start?

5. Graduating editor of The Appalachian newspaper, Clair Baxter, perhaps feeling finally beyond the range of institutional recrimination, was courageous enough to ask some highly pertinent questions and, wisely, did not tarry for answers:

A club can sponsor a potentially offensive “Genocide Awareness” group to come fill the center of campus with billboards of unborn children while our faculty members are being asked to remove books and posters from their office walls for fear they may offend one student somewhere down the road.

Is there a double standard here?

Do we believe in free speech or not?

I think as a university we need to do some self-reflection.

Labels: anti-abortion activists, Appalachian State University, censorship, President Bill Clinton