Jesus Made Me Puke: Matt Taibbi Undercover with the Christian Right
The whole idea behind Christian Zionism is to align America with the nation of Israel so as to "hurry God up" in his efforts to bring about Armageddon. As Hagee tells it, only after Israel is involved in a final showdown involving a satanic army (in most interpretations, a force of Arabs led by Russians) will Christ reappear. On that happy day, Hagee and his True Believers will be whisked up to Heaven by God, while the rest of us nonbelievers are left behind on Earth to suck eggs and generally suffer various tortures.Link...
"In the name of Jesus," continued Fortenberry, "I cast out the demon of astrology!"
Coughing and spitting noises. Behind me, a bald white man started to wheeze and gurgle, like he was about to puke. Fortenberry, still reading from his list, pointed at the man. On cue, a pair of life coaches raced over to him and began to minister. One dabbed his forehead with oil and fiercely clutched his cranium; the other held a paper bag in front of his mouth.
"In the name of Jesus Christ," said Fortenberry, more loudly now, "I cast out the demon of lust!"
And the man began power-puking into his paper baggie. I couldn't see if any actual vomitus came out, but he made real hurling and retching noises.
Now the women began to pipe in. On the women's side of the chapel the noises began, and it is not hard to explain what these noises sounded like. If you've ever watched The Houston 560 or any other gangbang porn movie, that's what it sounded like, only the sounds were far more intense.
It was not difficult to figure out where the energy was coming from on that side of the room. Some of the husbands glanced nervously over in the direction of their wives.
"In the name of Jesus Christ, I cast out the demon of cancer!" said Fortenberry.
"Oooh! Unnh! Unnnnnh!" wailed a woman in the front row.
"Bleeech!" puked the bald man behind me.
Within about a minute after that, the whole chapel erupted in pandemonium. About half the men and three-fourths of the women were writhing around and either play-puking or screaming. Not wanting to be a bad sport, I raised my hand for one of the life coaches to see.
"Need . . . a . . . bag," I said as he came over.
He handed me a bag.
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Touched by His Noodly Appendage:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/23/25321856_10291ad77b.jpg
It's jackasses like this televangelist that ruin Christianity for the rest of us ...
The Daily Show just did an interview with the same topic.
http://watch.thecomedynetwork.ca/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/full-episodes/may-27-2008/#clip55771
For what it's worth, charismatic churches are just a subset of evangelical Christians. When you see people speaking in tongues, handling snakes, etc, a lot of Christians think these people are nuts, too.
Demon of Astrology? Are there really people out there who can't stop doing star charts without Divine aid?
Someone please exorcise Uwe Boll of the Demon of Crappy Movies.
must be useful jutsu here. If there is a primate (or even social mammalian?) sympathetic puke reflex evolved to protect from poison or decay by taking distress/regurgitation cues from other troop members, there must be a way to induce it on demand in individuals. And thus Hork-Do is born; the art of self defense by having your opponent choke to death on their own vomit....
Uwe Boll >is
Not that I am big fans of either guy, but the "..." is a change of subject and you should be ashamed for pulling a bait and switch on your readers. Mashing two stories to make it look like that demon event happened at Hagee's ... nice.
"Boll is wonderful for many reasons, including his pugnacious attitude toward his critics: he once challenged them to a boxing match (Boll is a talented amateur fighter), and pummeled the five who responded. Recently, he told a movie website called Fearnet that he would quit moviemaking if a million people signed an on-line petition asking him to do so (www.stopuweboll.org is the place to go. "
The Daily Show link above didn't work for me (they helpfully showed me an ad before telling me it wasn't available outside of Canada though)
I believe it was supposed to be this interview with Matt Taibbi:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=168759&title=matt-taibbi
Eli Sunday: Daniel, I'm asking if you'd like to have business with the Church of the Third Revelation in developing this lease on young Bandy's thousand acre tract. I'm offering you to drill on one of the great undeveloped fields of Little Boston!
Plainview: I'd be happy to work with you.
Eli Sunday: You would? Yes, yes, of course. Wonderful.
Plainview: But there is one condition for this work.
Eli Sunday: Alright.
Plainview: I'd like you to tell me that you are a false prophet... I'd like you to tell me that you are, and have been, a false prophet... and that God is a superstition.
Eli Sunday: ...but that's a lie... it's a lie, I cannot say it.
[long pause]
Eli Sunday: When can we begin to drill?
Plainview: Right away.
Eli Sunday: How long will it take to bring in the well?
Plainview: Should be very quick.
Eli Sunday: I would like a one hundred thousand dollar signing bonus plus the five that is owed with interest.
Plainview: That's only fair.
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet and God is a superstition. If that's what you believe, then I will say it.
Plainview: Say it like you mean it.
Eli Sunday: Daniel...
Plainview: Say it like it's your sermon.
Eli Sunday: This is foolish.
[long pause]
Eli Sunday: I am a false prophet! God is a superstition! I am a false prophet! God is a superstition! I am a false prophet! God is a superstition!
[pause]
Eli Sunday: Is that fine?
Did someone mention stopping Uwe Boll. Well, here you go. If this petition gets a million signatures, he'll stop making movies. It's at 285,010 so far.
http://www.petitiononline.com/RRH53888/petition.html
I'll wait for Postal. Judgement reserved.
The sooner the better, I can't wait for all of those self-righteous, and otherwise righteous, twats to leave. And good riddance!
Sorry about Israel and all.
The problem with that is confusing John Hagee as being part of the "Christian right". FAR right, perhaps, but don't lump him in as a mainline Christian.
I have no doubts the puking and all that were real, but were brought on by extreme emotional states. I've been in churches where that kind of thing has gone on. I don't believe for a second, though, that it's some supernatural being causing it.
The mass vomiting ususally comes after you eat the cookie that them man in the dress calls "The Botulism of Christ"
Hmmm.... is this another sect?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/15/toilet1.jpg
Oh, you blasphemous, blasphemous #17.
(Still, what can one expect from somebody with a username that's an anagram for "Satan's Keen!")
Wow, it's like they decided to pick one of the few guys I have less respect for than the crazy puke-prophets to write the article about them.
If you want to know why I don't like Taibbi, well...
http://www.nypress.com/18/9/news&columns/taibbi.cfm
But Royaltrux, in this church they barf up the milkshake.
Jeez about thirty years ago I read an article in High Times about an Order of Monks who practiced vomiting at will in order to enhance control of the autonomic nervous system by the conscious mind and to explore the altered state of consciousness that was puking.
I laughed so hard I almost puked!
I was a charismatic/Pentecostal Christian in the Dallas area from about 1975-1985. And based on my experiences, I am almost certain the leaders of all notable charismatic and Pentecostal groups are frauds.
Take the revivalists, like Ken Copeland, one of the big "faith teaching" guys. He and I had some mutual friends back in the early 80s. Around then, a woman had what seemed to be a genuine, documentable spontaneous remission at one of his services. (I'm sure it was autosuggestion or a misdiagnosis.) His ministry bought her family a house, and he gave her a job so he could trot her around to revivals to "give her testimony". If people were getting healed right and left like he claimed, why did he bother with this? And if God was so interested in her, why did her marriage subsequently break up?
At best, as Marjoe Gortner admitted, they're entertainers. But when guys like Hagee try to get people to take them seriously, and inject their nonsense into public policy, they're just flat dangerous.
Shat-Karma (yeah, I know - I ate some Dharma, then I shat Karma) is one of the arms of Hatha Yoga. It includes drinking salt water and vomiting it up, enemas, nasal irrigation, etc. Non-Indian yogis don't seem to practice it much except for the nasal irrigations.
As a liberal Catholic, I don't find Taibbi's atheism an issue, but his rancorous cynicism is just as poisonous as the fraudulent preachers he lambastes. One gets the feeling that he despises anyone who seeks a spiritual journey as being closeminded and ignorant, but he seems to lack any emotions outside of revulsion and contemptuous irony. So who is happier, someone attempting, however misguidedly, to seek spiritual healing, or the pop-elitist critic forever standing in the woods while he watches, shivering and angry, while people sing by the campfire?
... Route 410 in San Antonio ...
The author makes it sound like this is some farm to market road in the sticks, and not the Interstate Highway that encircles the city.
All I have to say is this brand of Christianity is not one that I am familiar with. Hopefully the readers here are sharp enough to know that you can have a faith in God, but not buy the spiritual "snake-oil" being sold in some corners of the institutional church. I don't know whether I am more disappointed by the broad brush Tabibbi seems to be painting Christianity with or by the fact that this kind of emotional manipulation exists in branch of faith that I share with others.
Wow, it's pretty overwhelmingly egotistical to assume you can "hurry up God." Does that mean that if some Christian-right big-wig convincingly identifies "the anti-Christ" then the true believers should do all they can to make sure he gets into power? "We have figured out according to prophecy that BARAK OBAMA is the anti-Christ, so it is the duty of every good Christian to vote him into office and usher in the Last Days."
"What God wants, God gets." --Roger Waters
The Rapturists and their ilk love Israel because they view it as the catalyst for world wide war - Armageddon. It takes a bit of mental gymnastics to get there from The meek shall inherit the earth, eh?
When Taibbi has racked up the total of evil acts, violence, and perversions that the Catholic Church has, and lives in his own country in Rome surrounded by zillions of dollars worth of earthly wealth stripped from the backs of the poor, I'll reconsider, but for the moment he doesn't bother me all that much, relatively speaking.
You're unfortunately missing the really interesting part of his book by only focusing on the church experience of it. His central thesis is that the American public is so disgusted with the real world that they've begun immersing themselves in delusional alternate realities. The fundamentalist churches are one example of this on the right, but he also cites 9/11 conspiracy theorists as an example of this on the left. His argument isn't against faith, but that 9/11 and its aftermath have resulted in us not, as so many predicted, re-engaging with the rest of the world, but instead crawling further up our own asses. Its a funny and thought provoking read, and hes one of the few writers to take up the gonzo journalism mantle who doesn't let the gonzo overshadow the journalism.
I can sympathize with the Christians who are appalled and want to make clear that these are fringe sects.
But, speaking as an atheist, it doesn't comfort me at all to hear that this is fringe, when McCain had sought out Hagee's endorsement and was willing to fling mud about Rev. Wright all the while hoping no one would make too big a deal about Hagee.
Until moderate, non-fringe Christians help get this Bible-thumping, holier-than-thou aspect of politics back in a less prominent place in our public discourse, I'm more than happy to let these influential leaders set my impression of their faith. After all, the Bush administration actually held a meeting with many of these end-of-timers before the war in Iraq.
If you want culture wars, then culture is fair game. And this is part of YOUR culture, like it or not.
John Hagee's church is part of the Christian Right in the same way that the Earth Liberation Front is part of the Secular Left.
I know there are smart, intelligent christians. This particular article is not about them. It's about people who don't want to think.
It is interesting and important to take a look at these paticular people and think about how they affect our world. There is a good book by Bob Altemeyer on autoritarians: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ (for an explanation and free pdf)
sorry - Authoritarians.
#31, the 9/11 Truthers are actually often on the right; I've known of few that weren't. In fact, a lot of them are on the extreme right, whether it's Ron Paul supporters or neo-nazis who can't believe that Arabs are smart enough to carry out 9/11 (not surprisingly, there's a lot of overlap in those two groups).
Much of the movement is based in cognitive dissonance created between the idea that "we're #1" at kicking butt and the fact that we actually got our supposedly invincible butts kicked. Thus, the Truthers are almost entirely (if not entirely) people who are trying to convince themselves that America couldn't possibly have been defeated.
People on the right, especially the extreme right, are much more susceptible to this sort of illogical thought than the left, as the right ioften holds a strong belief in American exceptionalism. There are some on the left who are, but these are usually weak-left liberals and centerists. The far left seems to be particularly immune to the Truther ideology, as they tend to be very "International" and not at all concerned with American exceptionalism.
Dear Christians complaining about being lumped in with crazies like Hagee: If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it. The ones lumping you in with crazies like Hagee are yourselves.
Perhaps you believe (from my point of view) silly, but perfectly harmless, things. Asking me on that basis to not criticize promoters of very dangerous, crazy ideas will garner little sympathy.
And Clay: The Earth Liberation Front is a few crazy guys nobody prominent would have anything to do with. Hagee, or better yet Pat "Gays caused Katrina" Robertson, are respected figures whose endorsements Presidential candidates are eager to accept with fanfare. They are the Christian Right.
as I understand it (and the book i'm quoting this from was presented on boing boing, by cory i believe so i read this on his recommendation.)
"The universe was created by an all-powerful all-knowing being who came down to us in the form of a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father who can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree."
Based on that i'm gathering here is that these other christians give average christians a bad name by speaking in tongues and acting a little wacky?
everything is relative i guess.
Twoshort - did anyone here ask you not to criticize them? It seemed like even the Christians were.
The reason why Hagee and Robertson and the rest are sought out for endorsements is twofold: first, unlike larger global churches like Catholicism or Methodism, they will give those endorsements; second, unlike those other churches, the faithful will generally follow whatever their pastors say without question. I don't think that people like Hagee and Robertson are necessarily marginal - they have very large churches if not always a large organization - but they are a very different animal.
#31: "His central thesis is that the American public is so disgusted with the real world that they've begun immersing themselves in delusional alternate realities." Perhaps I will have to look closer at the article, then, because I by and large happen to agree. I don't think it started with 9/11, though, nor do I think it's a purely American phenomenon.
#20 If you want to know why I don't like Taibbi, well...
That's exactly why I like him. He's sort of like a mild Hunter Thompson for the 21st century.
From Wikipedia:
Taibbi defended the controversial piece as "an off-the-cuff burlesque of Truly Tasteless Jokes," which he said was designed to give readers a break from a long run of "fulminating political essays" in his column space. Taibbi claimed his piece had been a protest against "the agonizing marathon of mechanized media grief and adulation we so inevitably go through after the passing of each and every hallowed leader or celebrity." In the same piece Taibbi admitted that the column was "written in the waning hours of a Vicodin haze".
That is pure awesome. The guy does some great pieces, and I love that brand of reckless cynicism.
Hey now. Don't disrespect Jewish zombies. They are far tamer than your garden variety zombie. They won't even eat human brains (they aren't kosher).
brains aren't kosher? how about halal?
Study religion in Peace.
In War the study and achievement of Peace must replace and supplant the study of religion.
To do otherwise would be irreligious.
End the Iraq occupation now!
Three "wise men"(wise guys) of the jesus myth were astrologers. That is how they Knew what the Star of Bethlehem meant.
So this guy is more respectable than Jeremiah Wright?
Um... no?
Taibbi is spot on.
#31 - Don't really see that "His central thesis is that the American public is so disgusted with the real world that they've begun immersing themselves in delusional alternate realities." He's only talking about one small segment of the American populace, and were he to expand it, it might be interesting. Instead he's only really interested in toothless mockery, because no one reading Rolling Stone (wait, people still do?) has any effect on this world.
Also, I've never seen someone be so extraordinarily homophobic and heterophobic at the same time as Taibbi was in this piece.
Yeah. It's always the guy in the other church who's giving you a bad name.
Right.
#48 I don't think the original post makes it clear, but this is an excerpt from Taibbi's latest book: "The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire" He expands on it a lot in there.
It seems like apropos time to recommend reading The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. It's not just the people like Fortenberry who worry me. It's the everyday person who believes in the supernatural that is just as worrisome.
So I liked the inside description of the spiritual retreat (Ridiculous demon-name contest, anyone? I could do with exorcising the Demon of Short Attention Spans), but it doesn't really illuminate my bigger worry about Hagee - his fanatical devotion to Christian Zionism. Beyond the fact that after a weekend of this sort of manipulation, people will buy just about anything, it all boils down to a creepy kind of self-help seminar. That is, I object strongly to the content (homophobia, militarism, &c), but it's harder to object to the delivery system, except on an aesthetic level (puking is gross!). Or are the two inseparable?
Anonymous "I can sympathize with the Christians who are appalled and want to make clear that these are fringe sects."
Fringe compared to the billion-plus Roman Catholics, yes. But then, all other denominations are fringe compared to them.
57,000,000 Pentacostals is one hell of a fringe. That's a fringe the same size as the population of Italy.
Modusoperandi, I only have my own experiences to go on, but most of the Pentacostals I know would be just as disgusted and alienated by the behaviour described in this article as most readers surely are.
Just so that it goes on the record, though I agree that Pentecostals can be weird as all-get-out (and I say that as a Christian myself) the ones who are slavering for armageddon ARE a fringe. Unfortunately, the nut jobs are always more eager to grab the microphone than the rest of us.
Stories like this make me want to start a non-profit organization devoted to doing nothing but denouncing alleged Christians who say asinine things in the media. Just to be a voice for sanity. Anyone want to join?
prom77 "...the ones who are slavering for armageddon ARE a fringe."
Is 11% of Americans a fringe? It's a minority, true, but 33,500,000 people is one hell of a fringe, again by analogy, being the population of Canada (granted, the poll I linked is based on a small sample, but a quick googling will come up with multiple polls over the last couple of decades that have similarly terrifying statistics). That 11%, by the way, is just those that believe the He will be back by the end of the year (that it's a poll from last year doesn't matter, as the stats don't seem to vary all that much year to year). More believe that He will return in their lifetime (40%, if memory serves), although their faith is weak if they're still paying premiums on life insurance.
Why does this matter? Because what comes along with His imminent return?...that's right, Armageddon. Plus the rapture (depending on sect, denomination and how conservative/liberal their church is), apparently, so those that believe He'll soon return commonly believe that they won't be around for the sh*t storm, or they'll be around for the first 3 1/2 years of it, or some other variant that will be "discovered" when some out-of-work theologian notices an obscure passage or three from the Bible and writes some new eschatological doctrine around it (see John Nelson Darby).
@ #1
Touched by his Noodly Appendage is all well and good, but this sounds like he stuck said Noodly appendage down their throats.
@#8,joeljohns:
This is Hagee's church. That particular event came from a retreat during his initiation.
I'm sorry, these guys are snake oil salesmen, and they make Christianity look bad. Of course the whole child rape thing didn't help either.
Most people can't equate the difference in the many forms of Christianity. Usually anybody that reports on Christianity lumps all of these different churches together.
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Denominations
@Pipenta
Truly, that dangly piece in the back of your mouth is a piece of His Noodly Appendage, reminding us that His presence is always with us, inches away from inducing Holy Vomit.
RaMen
Modusoperandi: Thanks for the link. But what I meant by "slavering for armageddon" were those who believe that their action (political or personal) can bring about the end of the world sooner, not just those who are of the opinion it's coming soon. That survey doesn't seem to make a distinction.
Also, the return of Christ and armageddon (in the final war or battle interpretation) are not always equivalent, as there are dozens of interpretations of Christian eschatology. Believing that Christ will return doesn't require or imply belief in an armageddon event.
I agree though, 11% is a scary number. Especially when you consider that even the Bible says not to try to guess. My only consolation is that that 11% are probably taken from the 30% or so of people who actually answer phone surveys. ;)
I'd say that those like the members of Hagee's church are still a fringe within that 11% though.
is there some arrangement in place that keeps those "slavering for Armageddon" out of positions where they have access to large red buttons that launch nuclear weapons?
Prom77; I hope that I'm just being paranoid. This does not mean, however, that everyone isn't out to get me.