Self-Destruction Derby Standings

But they’ve all got perfect teeth… surely that counts for something?!

I think this explains a lot of Ensign’s and Sanford’s behavior – an interview regarding The Family/C Street:

Lindsay Beyerstein: The Family has some strange ideas about what it means to be chosen by God. Tell me about the incident in the book when Doug Coe’s son, David Coe, dropped by Ivanwald to give the brothers instruction on chosenness.

Jeff Sharlet: David Coe used to be the heir apparent in the Family. He’s still involved in ministry to congressmen, and at the time he was also meeting with Hillary. He’d come around to talk to the young guys at Ivanwald to talk about his vision of Biblical leadership. One day he says to brother Beau: “Suppose I heard you’d raped three little girls, what would I think of you?” Beau, being a human being, says, “That I’m pretty bad?” But David Coe says: “No, no, I wouldn’t. Because you’re chosen … like King David.”

Shocking that we are ruled by such people.

@blogenfreude:
Sweet Zombie Jeebus. This whole “It’s okay cause Jeebus wuvs me” pass to be an awful person kinda violates the whole Christianity thing as taught by some guy from Nazareth. BTW, aren’t these the same assholes who hate Catholics for their pagan ways (like confession and tithes)?

@blogenfreude: HFS.

So, they think they can get away with anything, because Jesus gots they back?

If someone had explained it to me like that, I would have signed up!

@blogenfreude: This is surely a version of Calvinism: one is born one of the Elect, one cannot gain salvation by a good life, if you are born one of the Elect it doesn’t much matter what you do in life you WILL got to heaven and you WILL like it. Admittedly, Coe’s account is the Dispensationalism for Dummies version but not too far from the founder’s theology. Which seems to me to fly in the face of all Jesus ever taught but which has been a profound and pernicious influence on our body politic over the years.

What I could never discover was how one know one was of the Elect and how the Elect came to be elected in the first place. Their names were, according to Calvin – or was it Knox? – recorded since the beginning of time.

@Benedick: Calvin. Knox is the guy who started Presbyterianism.

@mellbell: I thought that Knox founded the church of Scotland which was grimly Calvinist in its theology. I was brought up Anglican – aka Catholicism Lite.

@Benedick: I guess they’re intertwined. Knox as father of Presbyterianism is just trivia to me. I was brought up in The One True Church, but am now what my grandma would euphemistically refer to as a “lapsed Catholic.”

This is the whole part they are missing, as I remember from seminary, one could never be sure one was part of the “elect.” Course I am Methodist so what do I know….John Wesley got really pissed off about that whole thing….

Oh yeah, and as I recall, King David didn’t fair so well either…back to lurking….

@Benedick: @mellbell: Incidentially, it’s John Calvin’s birthday today! Whoo hoo! I grew up in the Dutch reformed church, which is also grimly Calvinist, but I never heard about that election bullshit until college. What I mostly associate calvinism with, though, is that attitude of humankind being utterly depraved and having zero redeeming qualities without God’s grace. Good example: the famous “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sermon by Jonathan Edwards, which describes humanity as a repulsive spider that God is dangling over the fire and is very, very tempted to let go. Twisted? Yes. But also awesomely gruesome! BTW, this latent calvinism is what I credit my deep-seated cynicism to.

@cuthbert: Compared to Calvin, Wesley was a skipping through the meadow happy-time guy. The pastor at the Methodist church I now go to, who knows my background, never misses an opportunity to tease me about this.

@flippin eck: My grandfather was a Methodist pastor, though the Methodists down here are closer to the Baptists in some parts–but not completely.

@cuthbert: But there is the doctrine that worldly riches in this life are in fact evidence one is one of the elect, don’t forget that lovely theory.

@mellbell: I think it accurate to say that the Catholic church is the church I do not attend, and that the Catholic God is the god I am unsure of the existence of.

I have found that the essential difference between calvinists and especially prebysterians and catholics, is that catholics have a general mindset along the lines of, God is so great, he loves us assholes, whereas prebyterians do have a slight tone of “we are so great, that God loves us.”

@rptrcub: That’s the thing with these already-divided-and-divided-again denominations: You can find churches all across the spectrum from borderline-unitarian liberals all the way to bible-thumping fundies even in the smallest of them, depending on region of the country, urban vs. rural, etc.

@flippin eck: Sometimes, schism is the only solution.

@Benedick: As a child, I was forced to attend my grandfather’s Presbyterian church, UNTIL they explained the whole election thing in Sunday school. I then refused to go because there was no point–If it was already decided whether I’d go to heaven or hell, why should I get up on Sunday AM, when nothing I did could change my fate? My Episcopalian grandmother backed me up, as this would let us get to brunch and Bloodies at the country club earlier.

@rptrcub: You say schism, I say you’re going to hell.

BTW, relative to nothing but… Did anyone see the recent American Masters on Garrison Keillor? It was fantastic. I thought of it because he seems to have a genuine religious belief and great sweetness and intelligence. A true republican, in the virtuous, old fashioned meaning of the word.

@rptrcub: The Southeast Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church is not unlike the Anglicans in wanting to align with the African churches to bring in the very fundy, conservative power. Flippin is right, there is a huge spectrum in the UMC, and around Asheville NC, and urban areas there are quite a few liberal churches in the South. The Bishops tend to be way more liberal than the locals. Enough inside baseball. Sorry about that.

@Mistress Cynica: Which would be the logical thing to do.

@cuthbert: This is the stuff we need to know here.

@Benedick: Hell is Sarah Palin fucking Mark Sanford.

@cuthbert: Never apologize for being extremely knowledgeable and/or wonky about any subject here…and sometimes the more obscure, the better. That’s one of the beauties of this place.

@flippin eck: @cuthbert: Indeed. We lurves teh wandering subjects. Including the Jesusy ones (Jesus was a pretty cool guy from what I’ve actually read in the new testament. I hope when/if He comes back, he’ll bitchslap fundamentalists like they owe him money).

@rptrcub:

Jeebus was actually pretty cool, which is the krayzeeist thing of all.

How the teachings of New Testament hippie Jeebus got transformed into the “fuck the poor,” and “you’re ah-gonna fry in eternal Hay-ell if you don’t believe exactly what I believe” and “Gawd hates fags” mentality of the majority of AmeriKKKa’s xtians would make a nifty social psychology thesis.

In a desperate bid for attention and to keep their horse in the race now that he’s being held incommunicado in his in-laws gated community in FL, the Columbia, SC newspaper is reporting on the e-mails from the gov’s office arranging his state-funded trip to BA so he’s have his evenings free.