{"id":7038,"date":"2006-04-03T13:37:20","date_gmt":"2006-04-03T17:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7038"},"modified":"2006-04-03T13:37:20","modified_gmt":"2006-04-03T17:37:20","slug":"lock-and-load-for-christ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/lock-and-load-for-christ\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Lock and Load’ for Christ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just to follow up for a moment on the “War on Christians<\/a>” conference in DC last week, my friends at People for the American Way published a terrific report<\/a> on the event’s panel discussions and forums, which included some eyebrow-raising rhetoric.<\/p>\n

I was particularly struck by the remarks of Rod Parsely, pastor of the Columbus, Ohio, World Harvest megachurch, one of the religious right’s rising stars.<\/p>\n

Parsley compared the struggle against the “war on Christians” to the civil rights movement, defiantly shouting that “We [are] not going to the back of the bus \u2026 My Father owns the bus line. I will sit where I please!” He promised “freedom at any cost” — “If you think 2004 was something, we have not reached critical mass! We are the largest special interest group! … We’re building order from chaos! We’re fighting the sword with the word! We’re fighting savagery with hope!” Swelling with the force of his own metaphors, he shouted at the crowd, “I came to incite a riot! Man your battle stations! Ready your weapons! Lock and load!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First of all, I’m just some secular liberal, but I’ve never understood this back-of-the-bus fixation the far right has. These guys use the line all<\/a> the<\/a> time<\/a>. For wealthy white Christians, who have allies at every level of government, to believe that they are suffering the same way African Americans did under Jim Crow laws isn’t just bizarre, it’s mentally unbalanced.<\/p>\n

And second, I’m probably being overly sensitive, but when a powerful preacher starts boasting about inciting a riot, and his desire to “lock and load,” I start to wonder why the Pentagon is spying on anti-war pacifists<\/a> and leaving the religious right alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just to follow up for a moment on the “War on Christians” conference in DC last week, my friends at People for the American Way published a terrific report on the event’s panel discussions and forums, which included some eyebrow-raising rhetoric. I was particularly struck by the remarks of Rod Parsely, pastor of the Columbus, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}