Consider that he STILL isn’t in jail.

Can we lock up our felons already?

I really really really really really wish Blumenthal were making these people up. Really.

Man, that Lieberman performance needs wider recognition: Pastor Fruitbat-Nuts Hagee is like Moses … only better.

I too yearn for the rapture. Upon that momentous day, I will find Tom DeLay for the sole purpose of viewing the look on his face when he realizes that he is in fact to be “left behind” for all of his various transgressions against a wise and just God. If he were to actually be taken, I would regard that as evidence that the Creator is in fact an evil lunatic and I would slit my own throat and depart gladly to hell.

What kills me is that all this has happened before. In the 80s. Jerry Falwell — and Ronald Reagan, for that matter — used to say that kinda shit all the time. Only then Satan was behind the atheistic Soviets (supposedly identified in the bible as “The King of the North”), whom the Rapturists were sure would strike Israel.

Anyway, I’m sorry, but the worst people involved in this are the cynical wingnut Jews like Gold and Lieberman who know damn well what their Fundie Xtian friends think of them deep down, and what they think the destiny of the Jews is, but ignore it all for the sake of pepetuating Likudist policy in Israel and neoconservative foriegn policy in the U.S. I mean, this is why jackasses like Norman Podhoretz absolved fundies of anti-Semitism by recalibrating the term to mean “critical of Israel” rather than “bigotry to Jews”. It’s why a professional terrorist like Menachem Begin gave Jerry Falwell, who lived and died a dedictaed anti-Semite, a private jet.

I wish I could deal with this topic more, but I’m simply not Jewish enough. I’m pretty sure my great-great grandmother was a Jew, but my and my family’s identity has always been gentile. The only people who can really deal with it without being smeared as anti-Semites are lefty Jews like Weiss and Richard Silverstein and Max — and thank God that they are.

Okay, nuclear war between Iran and Israel is bad, but you need a war to touch off the end times.

Hellooooo……

Max is incredible. He is a good journalist, but an even better guerrilla filmmaker. This conference is scary.

I don’t like saying it, but a nerve gas bomb to those people would be a good thing.

It’s all about “fundraising”. Without some sort of always immediate crisis lurking in the shrubbery or up in the trees,they can’t raise obscene amounts of cash. I grew up around this crap,I hated it when I was 10,I really hate it now.

I wish I had the money my parents sent to Jim and Tammy,Pat Robertson,Jerry Falwell,Focus on the Family,etc,etc. While families send in their money to these pricks,they get rich doing schtick. Oh,they may believe some of their own bullshit,after a few decades,but it’s all about raising money for the smarmy fuckers at the top of the heap. Tom Delay doesn’t believe for a half a minute Jesus is coming back,if that were true he wouldn’t be needing all that money and clout for anything. If anything he wants Jesus to get here before Justice and/or Karma gets him.

What we have in place now is the end result of over 30 yrs of getting dominionist/rapture ready conservatives into government on every level. They started local and used bidness models to make government a for profit venture confirming their “values”,enriching themselves in the process. Religion gives you tax breaks and cover. For some reason people are afraid to call bullshit on phony religious charlatans in this country.

What I don’t get is working class people falling for it. This astounded me as a kid. I could see my mom falling for it(she went from super abusive catholicism to wingnut baptist fundie,eek),but my dad came from working class people who farmed and also worked in unions in factories. People who used to be the backbone of the Nation.

(((sigh))) it’s scary and sad.

I really really really really really wish Blumenthal were making these people up. Really.

I find these people entertaining because they’re so utterly fucking batshit, but at the end of the day…yeah, I kind of wish this were a strawman conference instead of actual people expressing their actual views so that it didn’t come accompanied by this twinge of depression that we have a major political party that not only listens to but explicitly caters to these specimens.

What I find most amusing about Max’s transparent video is in the fact that he mentions that thousands came to see Hagee, but Blumenthal chose a very select portion of the “flock” to interview for his piece.

Anyone who knows Blumenthal’s point of view on matters of organized religion, the Christian Right and Republicanism/Conservatism, would expect this from him, and he did not fail to be predictable.

Maybe Max can now show you an edit of more footage, with the doctors, lawyers, small business owners, teachers, scientists and the literally thousands of others who were there who were not speaking from an uneducated perspective and who were not doing interpretive dance in the aisles, and show that there is a movement of people who do not subscribe to “the rapture” and just believe that god’s-will will be revealed one day, and until then, our lot is to work together for a common goal of survival.

Max forgot to include Hagee’s comment while holding his friend Rabbi Aryeh Sheinbaum, an Orthodox rabbi from San Antonio when asked about eschatology, “we both know that one day when we’re dancing in the streets of Jerusalem together, one of us will have to seriously reevaluate our beliefs.”

That said to anyone else listening, that while Hagee is indeed a Christian and holds to the belief in Christ, he does acknowledge that maybe he does not everything and that God’s design is still truly unknown.

Max, an honest reporter would try to stay honest, but one with an agenda will always only find the facts that support his ends.

…I will find Tom DeLay for the sole purpose of viewing the look on his face when he realizes that he is in fact to be “left behind”…

I know I’ve brought this up before, but can someone tell me what makes these people think Jesus is gonna save them? Let’s not forget that Jesus (Joshua bin Joseph) was a Jew and a Torah scholar until the end. God sorta has a pre-existing deal with the Israelites as the Chosen Ones, so wouldn’t that make jewish folk more likely to be, um, “Raptured?”

Just askin’.

Oh, nonsense, Johnny. Blumenthal’s interview practice here involved:

1. Recording keynote and featured speakers (who presumably cannot be used as examples of cherry-picking).

2. Recording interviews with those attendees who were actually willing to be interviewed.

3. Being honest about who he is and what he’s doing there.

4. Getting kicked out by people who don’t want their answers to his questions to be captured on video.

Even if Blumenthal were working for a major news outlet and were assigned to cover the event, he’d be under no obligation to interview people based on demographics such as those you outline (and your assumption that doctors & lawyers are inherently less likely to hold wacked-out rapturist visions in their heads is interesting but unsupported — I also find interesting your apparent bias against interpretive dance).

In any case, he did exactly what good investigative documentarians do: allowed his subjects themselves to demonstrate what they’re all about. And he did it ethically. You want a video with all those reasonable Rapturist professionals sounding rational while they talk about Armageddon? Make it yourself. And good luck.

I’d like to watch Delays face when the “Rap-tour” comes. No way is he gonna be sucked up to heaven. Dragged down to Hell, maybe.

I visited the site on the shirt at the end of the movie. Here are some cherry-picked quotes:

A man inserts his penis into his wife’s vagina, the genital canal, and a baby is born.

There are a few steps missing there, bub.

To speak or act as oral or anal intercourse is sex is blasphemous and profane.

Sounds like a good excuse when your wife catches you getting a hummer.

Also, the site uses a picture from The Onion. Probably thought it was real.

When he gets kicked out of these places, he should ask to speak to a supervisor. Just keep going up the chain like that until you get someone who has an explaination for why they’re being kicked out—or at least can’t say, “I don’t know” in direct and plain terms like that cop did. I mean, we all know why, but make ’em squirm a bit first.

Johnny,

You so full a shit yer eyes is brown!

Do you really expect us to believe that a meeting of Premillenial Dispensationalists is going to include those rational enough to disregard the bad theology of the rapture?

Do you really expect us to believe that when the Hag said ” one of us will have to seriously reevaluate our beliefs”, he meant to imply any doubt regading his own fanatical belief system?

Dude, these people are Fundies, y’know, AKA Talibangelicals.

NB: Much of my family are True Believers, and they never ever doubt the rectitude of their own opinions.

I’d be so sad if it wasn’t so ugly.

Clearly these people didn’t hate the hippies for their dancing.

Duros62 asks:

I know I’ve brought this up before, but can someone tell me what makes these people think Jesus is gonna save them?

That’s an excellent question, and I’ve wondered about that myself. As near as I can tell the answer is: It’s magic. No, really, that’s all there is to it. They just have to say the magic words “I accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior” and that’s it, they’re in heaven. It’s a very perverted view of pre-destination. There’s also a perversion of the faith/good works argument. It’s as if they think that actually doing good works is denying faith. That’s partly why they don’t care about any one else. Coming from a Catholic background, where you’re always one step away from the pit of hell, this is very hard to get your head around.

God sorta has a pre-existing deal with the Israelites as the Chosen Ones, so wouldn’t that make jewish folk more likely to be, um, “Raptured?”

Another good question. I’m about a quarter way through James Carroll’s Constantine’s Sword, where similar questions come up. He starts with the question, is Chritianity instrinsically anti-Jewish? And if heaven is available only through the grace of Jesus, will heaven be judenrein? Get back to me when I’m finished.

I will never look at American bible-thumping fundamentalism the same again since an experience I had about ten months ago.

I have a friend who comes from a fundamentalist family, all the way down to the small-town Baptist church. Now, he is probably a six on the Kinsey Scale, and unfortunately deals with quite a lot of self-esteem and depression issues. Some of it is medical—he’s on medication which does help, but it doesn’t take a licensed psychiatrist to see where his family, and having to hide his secret while growing up, has taken it’s toll on this poor fellow. Thankfully, he lives away from home in the city and is reasonably open about his sexual preference there, but he lives within driving distance of his dot-on-the-map hometown and is frequently there on weekends. His mother suspects him, unfortunately.

I was pursuing a possible relationship with him last fall, and while that fell apart (although we gradually became friends), I still have the e-mails I exchanged with him—to hear him talk about his experience would break your heart. If there’s any justice in this world, he will find love—he needs it more than most of us.

i almost have to wonder if these people are so anxious for the end of the world because it would mean that they’d finally be able to remove the planks from their eyes and the sticks from their asses.

If i had to spend a lot of time being a humorless and joyless supplicant, i’d be pretty eager for the end to come too

I remember that lady filmed in the last scene. She was doing that same crazy dance at a Grateful Dead show at Boston Garden in ’72. I recall we were warned her then about eating the orange micro-dot like they were Pez candies…..seriously, I haven’t seen that many people tripping in one place since the Merry Pranksters were doing their thing back in the 70’s.

just for the record:

1. i heart max blumenthal.
2. not all christians are like this.

If they’re really that ticked about an anti-Christ being “someone who comes preaching peace”, they may be in for a huge disappointment if Jesus ever does come back.

If they’re really that ticked about an anti-Christ being “someone who comes preaching peace”, they may be in for a huge disappointment if Jesus ever does come back.

they’d crucify him all over again because they really are a perverse amalgamation of the Pharisees and the Romans of that earlier era

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“You want a video with all those reasonable Rapturist professionals sounding rational while they talk about Armageddon? Make it yourself. And good luck.” – Smiling Mortician.

that says it all. I doubt there was a person attending that conference outside of Max and a few cops – that wasn’t a bit meshugah.

Tova Reich satirizes this collaboration between Christian and Jewish extremists in her novel The Jewish War.

but Blumenthal chose a very select portion of the “flock” to interview for his piece

Yeah, like the man who founded and leads the organization in the first place. Sheesh.

I can’t imagine a worse hell than a heaven populated with evangelicals.

Max Blumenthal has a pair, that’s for sure.

It’s true that all Christians are not like this. But all Christians at that convention are. And if they’re not–if, per Johnny, above, there are sober, intelligent, rational people expressing a non-insane, non-bloodthirsty faith–then they’re in the wrong room. Or they’re as disingenuous and false as Johnny accuses Max of being.

HTML is dead right about the true scorn being due those smarmy Jews, like Lieberman, who know full well what these provincial cretins think of him and his “race,” but stand up there and call that preening pastor a “man of God.” Or maybe he’s right. They’re both men of God, which is one of the worst things you can say about God.

I am currently working on the final draft of How to Profit From the Coming Rapture, due out next year (in Sept., probably.) Our main source has been Revelation Unveiled, by Tim LaHaye, published in 1999 before the Left Behind series got started.

For a complete, lunatic, and often unwittingly amusing play-by-play of the Rapture and the Tribulation, that’s your book. Unless you’ve read chapter after chapter of what these maniacs are obliged to assert because they take the Bible literally, you haven’t lived. But make sure it’s your only book, because no two books, and no two web sites or magazine articles, agree on this supposedly “fated” event. You can go nutz trying to figure out what will “really” happen by reconciling these varying “teachings.” (They obviously have.)

Read about the Seal, Trumpet, and Bowl judgments to understand what a sadistic, ultra-bloody revenge fantasy (against modernism, ultimately) this is. When you hear these sincere, smug, idiotic people like that woman talking about Satan, this is what is in the back of their minds. This is what they can’t wait for.

And, of course, as soon as the self-validating thrill of this barbaric fantasy is challenged by its own contradictions….as soon as you point out that you can’t take X literally (which you want to) without having to take Y literally (which contradicts X), they smother it with pious bullshit or change the subject.

I was going to say “don’t get me started,” but it’s too late, innit?

Strange, and sad, what a basically good philosophy has become isn’t it?

Read about the Seal, Trumpet, and Bowl judgments to understand what a sadistic, ultra-bloody revenge fantasy (against modernism, ultimately) this is. When you hear these sincere, smug, idiotic people like that woman talking about Satan, this is what is in the back of their minds. This is what they can’t wait for.

This shit is really terrifying to think about. Not knowing a whole lot about it, it seems to me that If enough people start taking this type of theology as truth, it could seriously tear our entire society apart.

And I must say, I have seen otherwise perfectly normal, nice people, not even particularly religious, start to really get into that “Left Behind” series over the past few years.

As a secular person, my knee-jerk reaction is to consider stuff like this to be so doggone wacky that I can only laugh. But then I remember that these people are serious, organized, and powerful, and they actually want to start a frikkin’ nuclear war.

That Left Behind stuff eventually leads to this and this.

Frankly, I’m at least mildly scared of ALL Christians nowadays. I can’t help but wonder what it will take to push even the nice ones over the edge into Rapture Ready territory anymore.

Sarah,

not all christians are like this

Name some.

I mean, off the top of my head, I can name Robertson, Falwell, Baker, Swaggert, Buchanan, O’Reilly, Ratzy, and Judie Woodruf as very well-known Christians who interpret the calling of their faith and fame to be laying the smackdown on the heterodox. Name anyone since Sloane Coffin and Rev. King who is taking Christ’s message of love and tolerance to the public square as the true motive of Christianity. Because, from my experience, if there is a silent majority of Christians who feel that Christ is love, they are certainly doing a good job of keeping their light under a bushel.

Or is your careful phrasing acknowleding that most Christians are like this?

Frankly, I’m at least mildly scared of ALL Christians nowadays.

Jillian:

I don’t know that you necessarily have to be scared of all Christians. I also know Christians that aren’t into this kind of thing at all. I know two people who have expressed interest in the “Left Behind” series over the past couple of years. One a rather right-wing, but very nice, relative. The other is a heavy-metal-listening, dope-smoking co-worker, who I’m also freindly with.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it is not always the ones you expect who get into this kind of End-times theology.

Name anyone since Sloane Coffin and Rev. King who is taking Christ’s message of love and tolerance to the public square as the true motive of Christianity.

Mo:

Religion Reporter Cathleen Falsani.

The Ex-CIA Analyst Ray McGovern, who tirelessly points out what a murderous disaster the entire “War on Terror” is.

The Rapper “Speech” of Arrested Development

Jim Wallis – I don’t agree with him about homosexuality, and other issues, but he clearly cares about the poor, and peace.

And that’s off the top of my head. There are a lot more. Check out the United Church of Christ for a group of Christians who obviously take the message of love and acceptance quite seriously, even if you and I don’t agree with everything they say.

I think that part of the problem is that non-extreme Christians don’t get the kind of exposure that Pat Robertson, Falwell et. al. get through their syndicated programs. And that issue, the marginalization of non-extreme Christianity, is a really serious problem.

Purely from a ‘Realpolitik’ standpoint, it makes any kind of coalition building with Christians, on any important issue, very difficult. And, I don’t know what country you are in, but here in the USA, self-described Christians make up about %75 of the population. Which means that if Christians really start to get it in the heads that their religion is ‘under attack’ by ‘secularists’, etc, then USA secularists are fucked.

“I think that part of the problem is that non-extreme Christians don’t get the kind of exposure that Pat Robertson, Falwell et. al. get through their syndicated programs. And that issue, the marginalization of non-extreme Christianity, is a really serious problem.”

I think you’re correct. I’m very non-extreme (unless you piss me off), also a Christian (have been most all of my life) but really, you don’t have to worry about most of us.

You don’t wanna be one – you don’t have to be one (Christian, that is) We don’t care. It’s still America (where I live) and that still means you’re free to be or not as you choose and may it ever be so.

I will fight to my last breath for your right not to be one if you so choose.

Can I get a witness?

**** the fundies. They’re nuts. They don’t even know their Bible good … I bust ’em all the time on their bogus BS.