This is a children’s crusade

The following article is on how Rep. Obey’s wanting examined allegations of Christian proselytizing and religious intolerance in the US Air Force Academy, was the trigger for Hostettler to go off on how Democrats are demonizing Christians and that they want to erase every vestige of Xtianity from Amerika. I was thinking about doing a graphic on it and found some old illustrations of Xtians burning at the stake a few of the 40,000 to 100,000 “witches” who met a similar end, and the Spanish Inquisition contorting the bodies of infidels into tortured pretzel shapes and roasting them over flames. But the illustrations had the effect of taking some of the already listing zip out of me and the boat went down. Over the past two thousand years, tens of thousands killed here and hundreds of thousands there, a few million killed here and there as fitting the call to Xtian Public Service, and, well, I got lost in the numbers thus no graphic.

Is it any wonder Xtians feel persecuted? Others standing up to them and saying, “No I will not pray in your god’s name” is pretty novel. They used to be able to kill a person for that.

Veteran Republican Alleges Democratic “War on Christianity” on House Floor
June 20, 2005
NJDC: “Enough is Enough; The GOP’s Religion-Bating Must Stop”

Washington, DC: During a debate today surrounding an amendment by Rep. David Obey (D-WI) to fully examine allegations of proselytizing and religious intolerance at the United States Air Force Academy, six-term Republican Rep. John Hostettler (IN) rose to assert that “Democrats can’t help denigrating and demonizing Christians.” [Rush transcript.] Rep. Obey, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, interrupted Hostettler’s deeply disturbing remarks and demanded that they be formally retracted; Hostettler ultimately agreed to retract one sentence from his diatribe.

Earlier in his remarks, Hostettler discussed the drive by Democrats to erase every “vestige” of Christianity from America; he also prefaced his remarks by noting that “The long war on Christianity today continues on the floor of the House of Representatives.” During a meeting of the House Armed Services Committee on May 18th, while debating a similar amendment by Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), Hostettler referred to “the mythical wall separation (sic) between church and state that’s been erected by the courts.”

“Enough with the religion-bating already; the GOP and conservatives must stop attacking Democrats as being against Christians and against faith in America. Such ludicrous assertions and stereotypes coarsen our political debate, they have no place in civil discourse in this country, and they are utterly beneath one of America’s two major political parties,” said National Jewish Democratic Council Executive Director Ira N. Forman. “The heroic efforts by Representatives Obey and Israel supporting religious expression by people of all faiths at the Air Force Academy — including people of no faith — are hardly an attack on Christians, as Mr. Hostettler disturbingly alleged.

“In fact, Reps. Obey and Israel are working to protect the religious liberty of every American, which is exactly what our military has fought to protect again and again. If anything, Rep. Hostettler’s shocking display demonstrates just the type of religious intolerance that Reps. Obey and Israel were seeking to address. But the GOP has had their say today, and sadly voted down the Obey amendment.

“Today on the floor of the U.S. House, we’ve seen Republicans overrule Democratic efforts to squarely address proselytizing and religious intimidation at the Air Force Academy, and perhaps more shockingly, we’ve seen a key Republican allege a Democratic ‘war on Christianity.’ On both counts, they just don’t get it,” Forman added.

Hostettler is a Dr. James Kennedy clone who received the Distinguished Christian Statesman Award in 2004.

Seems one day years ago Hostettler thought, “Oh my god, one day I’m going to die”, considered if he would leave the world a better or worse place, and decided he would help light the way for America.

He “received” Christ at an evangelistic meeting at the age of seven, when his sister asked him if Jesus came down through the stadium roof if Hostettler was ready to go with him to Heaven.

At the age of seven I would have thought, no, I would like to live a while longer, please. My son is seven years old and if I said to him “If Jesus came through the stadium roof would you be ready to go to Heaven with him,” he’d interpret Jesus as some sort of new Power Ranger. He’d ask where and what is Heaven and flip out over this new Power Ranger wanting to take him away from his toys, which he’s not done playing with yet. He’d wonder if he could take his toys with him. He would form an alliance with the new Power Ranger to ensure it would let him keep his toys.

Conversion experiences do not happen at the age of seven. Being scared witless into becoming a Xtian drone does.

As an adult, Hostettler had apparently not ever examined closely the internal rock upon which his Christ’s church was built. Had he looked under it he would have found a comic book character.

So as an adult he thinks about mortality and returns to the experience that defined for him the passing ticket to the brand of immortality in which he is confidant he will be able to pass with all his toys. Dr. James Kennedy’s call for Christians to become engaged in “changing our culture” for the better by entering public service sounds great as it’s always best if everyone else is playing the same game he is. Same game board. Same action figures. Indeed, he can’t imagine it any other way.

And here you can start imagining the rest of the piece, all that I had written on Hostettler’s association with Dr. James Kennedy and Dr. James Kennedy’s media empire, which was gobbled up by my keyboard, which is having problems, never can tell what will happen the past week if I press something as innocuous as the shift key. Like this morning when I pressed the shift key to capitalize and the keypad took this as a command to go to another page and I lost what I’d been working. So much for that.

But my finishing point was this is indeed a children’s crusade. Seven years of age seems to be the rule of thumb for not just beginning in earnest religious indoctrination but often demanding decisions that will determine whether you’re going to blue sky heaven or lava pit hell. A seven year old doesn’t think critically. Which is perhaps a reason the indoctrination begins so young. It’s one thing to show a child how to add and subtract. Another to tell them that if they don’t receive Christ they’re damned. It’s something like the glacial age of spirituality for people. Adults should be able to reflect upon their pasts, look in the ice and see the frozen artifacts that have done their thinking for them. But to do so would mean growing up. Questioning their well-established seven-year-old view of life, death and the universe would mean losing their grip on that seven-year-old’s view of reality, which, for them, would mean a period of madness..

The world of the Christian Dominionists is the world of a seven-year-old. This is a reason why addressing them as mature adults doesn’t work. They may look like adults but behind the mental buttresses sits a child with a long static feudal Xtian Power Rangers kingdom, omniscient eye maintaining its map and every battle position just so. Knock a figure over and he or she will stand it back up again.

Asks the adult of his seven-year-old king, “Have I done well, my lord and liege?”