Thursday, October 15, 2009

Are some "good books" better than others?


It's always been my belief that people should be free to believe in whatever they like, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think they're jackasses. Speaking of which, a small church down in North Carolina has announced its plans for a Halloween event that will include the burning of “Satan’s music” and “Satan’s popular books.” Now, you might be thinking that they’ll be torching some old AC/DC and Ozzie Osbourne records, along with some nasty scientific journals, but no, these fishers of men are casting a much wider net. The Web site of Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., says music to be tossed on the bonfire includes country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, Western, soft and easy, Southern gospel, contemporary Christian, jazz, soul and oldies.” It appears that Beethoven and Rachmaninoff are OK. The church also is targeting such infidel authors as James Dobson, Rick Warren, Robert Schuller, the Pope and Mother Teresa. Oh, they'll also be torching a bunch of Bibles. You see, this church believes that only the 1611 King James Version of the Bible is acceptable, so all others will be tossed to the flames. Never mind that each and every version of the Bible was pieced together by some bunch of guys. Pastor Marc Grizzard, the dapper fellow shown above, also is offering participants barbecued fried chicken and "all the sides.” Who could resist eating fried chicken by the glow of the flames from a stack of New American Standard Bibles? And these are just rumors, but I hear the ladies of the church are going to have a tobacco-juice-spitting contest, and there will be a rattlesnake toss for the youngsters. You know, if a bunch of atheists announced plans to burn Bibles, I'm guessing that a flood of good Christians would rise up to stop them. I'm wondering whether any will take action when it's one of their own who is spritzing on the lighter fluid. There is a bit of good news in all this. At last check, Pastor Grizzard’s church had 14 members.

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14 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Man, what a deal -- promote ignorance and have your arteries clogged all in the same night!

I'm surprised they're casting their net so far and wide where music is concerned. What's so terrible about Southern Gospel to these folks?

--Brad Hundt

October 15, 2009 at 12:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Forget chicken -- let's toast weinies and marshmallows over the Bible Bonfire. 'Course, since neither weinies nor marshmallows are mentioned in the Bible, I guess they don't exist. (Chickens get lumped under fowl, which are mentioned.)

This reminds me of the recently publicized effort by Conservapedia to produce a "more conservative" verion of the Bible. For example, these folks would eliminate Jesus' pronouncement from the cross, "Forgive them father for they know not what they do." A bit too liberal, they feel. Better he should intone, "I'll be back! in a Terminator-like voice and start shouting, "I know your name! And yours, too!"

I hate to diss anyone's beliefs, but these people sure make it easy. I know I'll be accused of being a left-wing sympatico, but if liberals started editing the Bible to make Christ even more forgiving, I'd have a problem with that, too. Revisionist history indeed.

A pity that god in his infinite wisdom didn't allow someone to invent the video camera in 30 AD so we wouldn't have to argue about who said what, when.

October 15, 2009 at 12:47 PM  
Blogger Cheryl Chamberlain said...

let them burn whatever the frack they want. i will just shrug them off as 14 people who fell on hard times after mommy or daddy didn't love or hug them enough, and found some sort of "salvation" in this blasphemy and will think on them no more. more power to em! i just hope they are ready for the backlash that will ensue from people that are not so tolerant as i. :)

October 15, 2009 at 2:11 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Hi Brant,
I thought you'd get a kick out of this... Seeing stuff like this saddens me in people that call themselves "Christian", and as I said to another friend, it reminds me too much of a group in the 20's and 30's... I wonder where the Grace is the we as Christians are to practice...
Peace,
J-Bo

October 15, 2009 at 2:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

These people match the fruitcake atheists....

osamaobama

October 16, 2009 at 8:57 AM  
Blogger Brant said...

Granted, there's a lunatic fringe of atheists, too, but the vast majority of us have no agenda to push.

October 16, 2009 at 9:21 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You are insinuating that this crowd of religious fruitcakes have an agenda?

osamaobama

October 16, 2009 at 9:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

but the vast majority of us have no agenda to push.

There is a good blog to read that directly contradicts this statement. It called "Views on the News," and has something to do with a newspaper in Washington, PA, observer writer, or similar.

October 16, 2009 at 9:53 AM  
Anonymous x anonymous said...

"It appears that Beethoven and Rachmaninoff are OK."

don't forget that super nasty, delvilish rock star Frédéric f'ing Chopin! Burn his music all so.

October 16, 2009 at 11:55 AM  
Blogger Brant said...

Why don't you go ahead and lay out for me what that agenda supposedly is.

October 16, 2009 at 11:59 AM  
Blogger Brant said...

X, let's also not forget Stephen Stinking Foster. ;-)

October 16, 2009 at 12:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I go to a church where the organist resolutely rejects any song -- hymn or otherwise -- that mentions blood. "Sounds like Dracula!" So what is praise is subjective, I guess.

It reminds me of the scene in Monty Python & the Holy Grail when God says, "It's just like those miserable Psalms. They're So depressing." A lot of the Contemporary Christians songs I hear make God sound like an egotistical power freak. I guess we'll go back to blowing through blades of grass and mumbling praise.

October 17, 2009 at 12:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What's wrong with Foster?

My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night!

"The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home,
'Tis summer, the darkies are gay..."


Never mind, two strikes already.

October 17, 2009 at 3:12 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Anon, has she forgotten that there's "Pauw'r!, Pauw'r! wondrous working Pauw'r in the blood?".

Frankly, let the idiot burn whatever he was, and let us call him and his followers ignorant idiots.

October 22, 2009 at 1:05 PM  

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