when the only true messiah rescues us from ourselves it's easy to imagine

From Pam Spaulding over at Pandagon, we find this atrocity about the ever popular Rev. Wildmon's group:

How about a Volkswagen ad promoting the built-in safety features in one of its models? Passengers in a new Passat blurt out "Holy ..." after surviving a crash. Instead of hearing a profanity, viewers hear a voice-over saying "safe happens." VW's general manager for creative content tells USA Today that it was critical in the commercial that both the dialogue and scene be "extremely natural." He contends that "... anyone who's been in an accident, one of the first things you do is curse."

It is unlikely that Bill Johnson, president of the American Decency Association (ADA), would agree with these companies' rationale behind the commercials. Besides pushing the legal and ethical limits, Johnson believes the advertising approach is designed to desensitize the general population.

"This degradation, this desensitization leads to an accommodation and causes an erosion of our ability to recognize the difference between what is pleasing to God and what is not pleasing," says Johnson.

That is why, warns the ADA leader, it is important that Christians strengthen themselves daily through spiritual disciplines such as prayer, Bible study, and time with God. "Our nature is being changed and so, therefore, when we are exposed to innuendo and subtleties and deception and seduction, we want to have nothing to do with it," he explains.

So that's what's important to you right now, Mr. Christian? "Bleeps" on TV?

How about:

Poverty?

The numbers are staggering. Today 37 million Americans live in a state of poverty, hunger and hardship. That's more than last year.

Oh wait, it's from Catholics. Never mind.

Health care?

Americans pay more when they get sick than people in other Western nations and get more confused, error-prone treatment, according to the largest survey to compare U.S. health care with other nations.

Oh wait, that's from the WaPo. They're communists. Or something.

Hunger?

• In 2005, 37 million people (12.6%) were in poverty.
• In 2005, 7.7 million families were in poverty.
• In 2005, 20.5 million (11.3%) of people aged 18-64 were in poverty.
• In 2005, 12.9 million (17.8%) children under the age of 18 were in poverty.
• In 2005, 3.6 million (10.1%) seniors 65 and older were in poverty, an increase from 3.5 million in 2004. 1
• In 2004, 3.9 million children lived in low-income households where neither parent worked. 2

Oh wait, that's from Second Harvest. They can't be real Christians.

American soldiers dying in Iraq?

Veterans Against Iraq War is a coalition of American veterans who support our troops but oppose war with Iraq or any other nation that does not pose a clear and present danger to our people and nation.

Until and unless the current U.S. Administration provides evidence which clearly demonstrates that Iraq or any other nation poses a clear, direct and immediate danger to our country, we oppose all of this Administration's pre-emptive and unilateral military activities in Iraq. Furthermore, we cannot support any war that is initiated without a formal Declaration of War by Congress, as our Constitution requires.

Well, they say they're a veterans group, but they sound like traitors.

I guess that about covers it. There are no more pressing issues than whether or not TV commercials bleep out swear words that aren't really there.

Priorities, folk. Gots to have them priorities.

Here's what some real Christians say about the Iraq war, by the way:

Charles Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, whose weekly sermons are seen by millions of television viewers, led the charge with particular fervor. "We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible," said Mr. Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. "God battles with people who oppose him, who fight against him and his followers." In an article carried by the convention's Baptist Press news service, a missionary wrote that "American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

As if working from a slate of evangelical talking points, both Franklin Graham, the evangelist and son of Billy Graham, and Marvin Olasky, the editor of the conservative World magazine and a former advisor to President Bush on faith-based policy, echoed these sentiments, claiming that the American invasion of Iraq would create exciting new prospects for proselytizing Muslims. Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the hugely popular "Left Behind" series, spoke of Iraq as "a focal point of end-time events," whose special role in the earth's final days will become clear after invasion, conquest and reconstruction. For his part, Jerry Falwell boasted that "God is pro-war" in the title of an essay he wrote in 2004.

The war sermons rallied the evangelical congregations behind the invasion of Iraq. An astonishing 87 percent of all white evangelical Christians in the United States supported the president's decision in April 2003. Recent polls indicate that 68 percent of white evangelicals continue to support the war. But what surprised me, looking at these sermons nearly three years later, was how little attention they paid to actual Christian moral doctrine. Some tried to square the American invasion with Christian "just war" theory, but such efforts could never quite reckon with the criterion that force must only be used as a last resort. As a result, many ministers dismissed the theory as no longer relevant.

Surprised? Not me.

In a handbasket?

Check.

Pointed toward Hell?

Check.



Thanks, folks. I'm looking forward to your explanation at the Pearly Gates:

"Well, St. Peter, can I call you Peter? No, OK. Well, they were infidels, so we..."

"Yeah, I know what the Commandments said, about thy neighbor, but, I mean, they lived so far away, and..."

"Wait, I mean, it was to spread Democra..."

"I know he, oops, I mean He, sorry, said 'Blessed are the peacemakers', but, I mean, isn't that out of date?"

"No, well, uh, we were spreading the Good News..."

"Um, er, I forgot about that part, about praying in private, and not making a big show about..."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot about the Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword thing. So, we were supposed to take that as, you know, Gospel?"

"What? Did you say 'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.'? Holy crap! No! I mean, sorry. I mean, man..."

"Go sit over here? Um, Ok, but...sorry, yes, Sir, I'll shut up."

Bastards.