Dobson's World

Holy Christian zealots, Batman!

Our man Albert Mohler is making a bigger name for himself. Regular Blue Voice readers have periodically encountered the fundamentalists and Christian Right wisdom of Dr. Mohler here.

Now our Blue Voice partner Mary Ellen just tipped me off that Media Matters has a story out featuring our guy Al: Not to be outdone by Robertson, Mohler claimed that Buddhism, Hinduism, and Marxism are "demonstration[s] of satanic power" 03/20/06. (Well, those godless heathens at Media Matters obviously don't know to spell "Satanic" with a capital "S", do they?). The report:

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host of the daily Christian radio show The Albert Mohler Program, defended Pat Robertson's recent claim that Muslims are "motivated by demonic power," and expanded on Robertson's comments, saying: "Well, I would have to say as a Christian that I believe any belief system, any world view, whether it's Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of satanic power."

Oh, man, can't you just feel the Christian love radiating off the screen?

This reminds me of a column years ago by the legendary San Francisco columnist Herb Caen. After Salmon Rushdie got into deep doo-doo with the Shi'a ayatollahs for writing The Satanic Verses, which they took to be blasphemous against Islam, Caen got a hot tip about the new book Rushdie was working on. He said it was going to be called Fatso: The Story of Buddha.

Our man Dr. Al seems to be working from the same playbook!

Yeah, let's see how many people in the world we can piss off by demonizing (more or less literally!) their religions. I notice he only mentioned Zen Buddhism. What about regular old mainstream Buddhism? And what about Taoism? Don't they deserve to be insulted too?

Jesus really would be amazed to see some of his followers today. Hey, the historical Jesus was a Jewish preacher and prophet who was on fire with the revelation that the Kingdom of God was at hand and that the Jews need to be faithful in observing their Judaism in terms of love for God and love for other people and radical pacifism. No, I don't think he would be that impressed with out man Al.

Hey, but what would he know? They didn't have the Internet or even TV back then. That Jesus guy was just a dirt-poor preacher with a hick Galilean accent. But Dr. Al is president of a Baptist Seminary. No comparison at all.

Dr. Al made this comment on Bill O'Reilly's show on Republican State TV (FOX). But let's give, uh, the devil his due. O'Reilly may be a nasty sexual harasser and kind of a psycho sometimes and a cheap bully. But the part quoted by the Media Matters piece shows him asking question like a real journalist would. He must have forgotten that guys like Dr. Al are his allies in one of his favorite causes, fighting the Jew Conspiracy to destroy Christmas. And Christiantiy. The fact that it's as nonexistent as the Iraqi WMDs doesn't seem to inhibit O'Reilly when the holiday season rolls around. Damn, did I say "holiday" season?

Think about this comment of Dr. Al's. It must be kind of scary to walk around with stuff like this in your head:

Well, there's a point to be made there about how we should learn to speak in a way that follows some kind of etiquette. But at the bottom line, etiquette has to give way to truth. And in the case of the two statements from which you pulled there - from Dr. Graham and from Pat Robertson, they were speaking a deeply Christian truth there that Christians have believed for 2,000 years. And by the way, not with Muslims, because of course now we have only 14 centuries of dealing with the challenge of Islam, but any belief system that keeps persons from coming to Christ we would see as a manifestation of a demonic power.

Dr. Albert has his own blog. He writes there about scary Negroes and things like that: The Plight of Black Men - Another Warning 03/20/06.

I'm completely confident that Dr. Al regards black people with the same kind of Christian love he has for Muslims, Hindus and Zen Buddhists.

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