BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Wednesday, March 30, 2005
A LIFE LESSON. If you read
Brian MacQuarrie's horrifying
story on the Wilkersons all
the way through yesterday, you would have learned that evangelical
yuppie strivers Michael and MarCee not only condemn Gandhi and Jews
to hell, but aren't so keen on Catholics, either. Check this
out:
Like many evangelical
congregations, Hope Church is nondenominational. Its members
include former mainstream Protestants as well as one-time
Catholics "who now are Christians," Michael says. "The Catholic
religion? I'm not too sure that Jesus is a big, integral part of
that."
Perhaps MacQuarrie and Jack Thomas
can arrange a meeting between the Wilkersons and Ric Teves so that
Michael can explain to Ric where he's gone astray. Thomas has a
wonderful
piece in today's
Globe about Teves, a State Police trooper who's caring for his
severely brain-damaged partner, Ellen Engelhardt, also a trooper.
(Suzanne Kreiter's photos are equally wonderful, but you'll have to
take my word for it, since they didn't make it to the online version.
Grrr.)
But Teves and Engelhardt are not
only Catholics, they're both divorced, and they (gasp) bought a home
and lived together without benefit of marriage.
Hey, Wilkersons - sin alert! It's
too late to set Engelhardt straight, but surely you can help Teves
see the light. That is, if he's not too busy suctioning out his
girlfriend's tracheostomy tube.
At least the Wilkersons are
Christians. Ric Teves is merely a saint.
posted at 10:43 AM |
10 comments
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10 Comments:
It may not be a major thing, but the Globe is incorrect in treating Hope Church as "nondenominational." It's part of the Evangelical Free Church, a Calvinist denomination — although amusingly one of the Globe captions mixed up the name and referred to the congregation as "Hope Free Evangelical Church." (My wife was raised in an "E-Free" church before becoming an Episcopalian, which is how I came to know this.)
If I remind the Wilkersons that I, too, have strong convictions, and want to make this country a better place, can I claim they and their ungodly president are going to hell for not believing in my God? And how do I get their newspaper to write about me so glowingly?
These people are normal-seeming on the outside, but inside they are freaks.
Dan, did you happen to attend a protest during the gay marriage debate or a nice helping of the International Answer folks during the DNC? If so, you may note that condemning the goofy rhetoric of some harmless family of reborn Christians in Ohio seems pretty lame. Sorry I forgot, you're smarter than everyone else.
Wacky Christians are an easy target for Mr. Kennedy. Notice he never writes about the mysogony in the practice of Islam (that wouldn't go over well with the WGBH crowd) nor does he mention that Judaism has similar "all or nothing/chosen people/supernatural mythos" beliefs at its core (that DEFINATELY wouldn't go over well with the WGBH crowd.)
Re: Today's story about Ellie and her family;
Every once in a while, we are reminded of what real love and good character are. A ray of light among all the crappy news out there. However you do so, take a moment to say a prayer for Ellie.
Rick
the Globe should have never ran that story... I don't give a you-know-what about some bible thumpers from a state I hope to never visit.
If the Globe hadn't done that story, many people would still be in the dark about Kerry's loss to Bush last fall. The point is, a majority of the country is more like that "wacky Christian" couple than like the average Bostonian. And they're more self-assured and righteous every day that Bush's army triumphs over the infidels in Iraq.
The majority of the country also believes in ghosts. That doesn't make them right, no matter how self-righteously they bleat.
Is it really Bush's army? I recall Rumsfeld saying something about going to war with the army you've got, not the one you want.
Also, how did Dan get so many freepi commenters?
Re: Anonymous, at 6:24 PM's post:
"Wacky Christians are an easy target for Mr. Kennedy. Notice he never writes about the mysogony in the practice of Islam... nor does he mention that Judaism has...etc."
That's because the Globe didn't run a page 1 story on them being the mainstream of America, or at least a group well-represented in our current goverment. They're minorities whose religious views aren't being pushed on us.
Nice to know heartland America still harbors some old time anti-catholicism.
MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.