The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Michael Wolraich's picture

    Welcome to the Republican Christian Olympics

    By Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 3:28pm | Politics, Humor & Satire

    When Gov. Rick Perry of Texas called for a day of prayer and fasting in Houston, world-famous televangelist John Hagee answered enthusiastically.

    "We pray for our governor, Rick Perry," he gruffly proclaimed, "who has had the courage today to call this time of fasting and prayer just as Abraham Lincoln did in the darkest days of the Civil War."

    When Perry officially launches his presidential campaign this weekend, he will not be the only Republican candidate to carry the banner of Christian piety. The presidential pre-primary season has not featured so many brave Christian Abraham Lincolns since the days of Abraham Lincoln himself.

    Read the full story at CNN.com

    Topics: 
    Politics
    Humor & Satire

    Comments

    Great article. If these fundamentalists weren't such a large part of the Republican party I would be laughing at the hypocrisy. I think if Romney gets the nomination, they'll have to run a Bachmann with him. If Perry gets it, he'll garner the fundamentalists and open the path for a Toomey, or such. Either way, we're looking at a heavy dose of shameful religious posturing. I grew up in a Baptist church. I don't know today's fundamentalists. They are truly scary in their zealotry. I can only hope that those in the middle, including some upscale suburban Republicans, will have had their fill of these zealots and see the danger of putting them so close to total power.  


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 3:49pm

    I suspect that Romney has little interest in replaying the McCain-Palin romantic comedy. Like Palin, Bachmann's negatives are too high, and she's not a team player. He'd probably pick someone with religious right creds though.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:17pm

    Besides, from Mitten's point of view, Michelle's version of Jesus is truncated, leaving out the important mission to the Native Americans ten lost tribes...(Look in the hat....) 


    by jollyroger on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:24pm

    He should branch out and get himself a Scientologist. Is Tom Cruise a Republican?


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:32pm

    A Mormon and a Scientologist are about one in the same as far as a Christian fundamentalist is concerned.


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:50pm

    Nah, if we're goin' all culty, why not Tony Robbins

    Cruise is too short, also.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 11:00pm

    Nope. Works for me. Signed, Rick Perry.


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 11:10pm

    Just saw Colbert's first ad, actually going to run in Des Moines. What a riot. It's a push to write in the name of Rick PARRY in the Ames straw poll. pArry. A for America. A for iowA. Very funny.


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 11:27pm

    The author of the article (some Michael W guy, or other) failed to render Bachmann's rather indiosyncratic Yiddish into the phonetically correct "Choot-spa"  Other than that, terrific job.


    by jollyroger on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 7:07pm

    Nah, the religious right totally digs yiddish. Just don't say haboob.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:21pm

    Gesundheit


    by Donal on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 5:30am

    hahahahahahahahahahah


    by Richard Day on Fri, 08/12/2011 - 2:51am

    Very nice. I like the quiet prayers myself. Seems like people are making an ego statement when they need a loudspeaker to pray.

     

    ps. The comments that accompany your articles on cnn are always so, um, interesting.


    by emerson jr. (not verified) on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 8:42pm

    Thanks emerson. Yeah, I try not to spend too much time in those threads. Someone once trash-talked my yellow teeth. I didn't like that.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:29pm

    yes yesyesyes

     
    I can see why.   


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:47pm

    Trash talking a person's yellow teeth is about as original and clever as calling someone an Obamabot.

     

    I never noticed yellow teeth but I have often thought you look like the young man who plays Harry Potter. That's a compliment. Harry's cool.


    by emerson jr. (not verified) on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 11:50pm

    I would guess, Emerson, that you are a Quaker.


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:57pm

    I typed a long reply on the little keyboard on my phone. The page reloaded before I sent. My writing disappeared. Here is abbreviated version. Not sure what you mean. I suffered through 3.5 hour government audit. Now have double vision in left eye. Perhaps not understand because of that. Research Quakers. See they do quiet prayer. Is that what you meant? I like quiet contemplation. But not what I meant. I meant quiet pray-ers, as in one who prays. Grew up Catholic. Was religious as child. Prayed before lunch. No one knew because I did it quietly without needing audience. Suspect some use religion for collective ego.

    Seriously, I'm not sure if this is shorter than my original. What the heck?!


    by emerson jr. (not verified) on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 12:09am

    Sorry for the confusion. I was thinking Ralph Waldo Emerson was a Quaker. I was wrong, he was a Unitarian. And a transcendentalist. They were quiet.

    Unitarians pray. To God and not through Jesus. As a college freshman I went to New York to hear the great Theologian Paul Tillich speak. He prayed to "God above God."  

    I think quiet prayers might be the only kind that God might hear.


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 8:28am

    Correction.

    I would have guessed, Emerson, that you are a transcendentalist.


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 9:35am

     

    Or consider instead, Qnonymous 5:5-5:

    "And when you blog, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to blog from amidst the crowds at the leadership conventions and in the election newsrooms, the better to be seen by others ....

    But when you blog, go downstairs to your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen, but upstairs nonetheless. And yeah, though He grumbles about paying all the goddamn bills, he's not gonna throw you out. At leats, not while your Mother's alive....

    Oh. And also, do not Twitter. Seriously. Just f*cking don't.

    *Unholy sigh* Twitter. Jesus told me it would come to this."


    by Qnonymous (not verified) on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:43pm

    Genghis 100:100

    Beware the unverified, lest he jerketh thy qwerty


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 08/10/2011 - 11:30pm

    I was listening to an on-line news feed that carried parts of his speech. I noted he said something to the effect that God doesn't pick a political party. And I noted a few other statements that basically distanced God from politics. 

    Seems what I thought he was saying was the exact opposite of the reason for the prayer meeting.

    Or was I just picking up some stray and random noise on my internet feed?


    by Beetlejuice on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 7:21am

    That was Jesus weeping in despair at the corruption of his essential message of humility.


    by Oxy Mora on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 8:13am

    So I wasn't experiencing a rapture then? He really did say it?


    by Beetlejuice on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 11:24am

    So funny, so truly true.  Good job, G.  But "calculating and un-Christian"?  Of course they are.  The voters wouldn't have them any other way.  Love the picture they chose over there at CNN.  Menacing but reassuring.

    Okay, I laughed out loud at this pp:

    Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty discovered his inner Honest Abe at the Faith and Freedom Conference in June. Heedless of the risks to his campaign, Honest Tim read from the Bible and thundered to the mostly evangelical audience, "We need to be a nation that turns toward God, not away from God!" (Note: My use of the word "thunder" in this context is artistic license. A more accurate but less dramatic rendering would have been, "stated woodenly without apparent emotion.")


    by Ramona on Thu, 08/11/2011 - 8:00am