Comments on: Evan Hurst: An Eyewitness Account of Lou Engle’s “Stealth Bomber Meeting”

By: cd

cd — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:32:29 +0000

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.

–Susan B. Anthony

By: Shannon Spencer Fox

Shannon Spencer Fox — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 17:30:53 +0000

To me, Lou’s understanding of God is the one I grew up with, and I’m guessing, Tim, that it’s not that difficult for you to see, from a Biblical perspective, where he’s coming from.

Sorry, justsearching, but the phrase ‘nice try’ is what comes to my mind to that.

Simply put, if you want to look at it from more of a purely ‘Old Testament’ angle, then you have to ask yourself if Engle is advocating all of the edicts laid down in Leviticus, and not just the ones he agrees with. Stuff like not eating shellfish and other ‘unclean’ animals, not wearing anything but natural fibers, shunning his wife for however many days after her period, and so on. Given we’ve yet to see him protest outside a Red Lobster, it’s almost assuredly not the case.

The problem is, of course, if you believe in the supposed ‘old-school’ version of Jehovah, in theory you can’t just pick and choose which particular laws you want to follow. (Even though it’s been tried, and rather hilariously at that… though for the life of me I can’t remember the person’s name who tried that.)

By: justsearching

justsearching — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:42:55 +0000

“I cannot for a moment fathom a God even remotely similar to that which Engle worships.”

I think more reading of the Old Testament and less reading of the New will bring you closer to an understanding of the sort of God that Lou envisions. God has all sorts of laws in the Old that are arbitrary and don’t make sense. Why can’t “thou shalt not do gay things” be one of them? Why can’t God demand that everyone follow that arbitrary rule? In the context of theocratic Israel it seems reasonable enough. To me, Lou’s understanding of God is the one I grew up with, and I’m guessing, Tim, that it’s not that difficult for you to see, from a Biblical perspective, where he’s coming from.

By: Evan Hurst

Evan Hurst — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:46:50 +0000

God, I love Anne Lamott.

I’m not even a Christian, and I freaking love Anne Lamott.

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:45:01 +0000

Jason

Thanks for the clarification. :)

Another one of my favorite quotes by someone who I think really gets the God thing (which she would completely deny) is this from Anne Lamott

You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

By: Jason D

Jason D — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:13:58 +0000

to be clear, that quote refers to “engle” types, not Timothy Kincaid types.

By: Jason D

Jason D — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 03:12:42 +0000

This occurred to me while watching the leaders of the “Fellowship of the Sun” on a season 2 episode of True Blood (for those not follow, “Fellowship of the Sun” is to Vampires as FRC, AFA, Exodus is to gays)

God is the name you give to your desires so that you do not have to take responsibility for your actions.

By: Rick James

Rick James — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:48:00 +0000

Timothy, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I tried to communicate some of the very same things – with regard to the nature of God – to my mom after I came out. In a rather lengthy document I composed (entitled “A Peek Inside the Closet”) designed to help her better understand what it was like growing up gay, homophobic, and deeply closeted from the perspective of our ultra conservative religious environment, I wrote:

“Do you really believe that God wants His gay children to live as I have described above? God has given to every person the fundamental need for human intimacy. Science tells us that sexual orientation is fixed early in life and is immutable. Straight people are supposedly given God’s blessing to express and experience this fundamental, God-given need, while gay people are told that we must change (what cannot be changed), or remain celibate – never being able to express and experience what straight people take for granted.

“Is this really a ‘God of love?’ Or is this a picture of a cruel and sadistic God?

“I don’t believe in that God anymore.”

By: Regan DuCasse

Regan DuCasse — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 01:47:31 +0000

I swear these people are all starting to look alike to me.
I wonder why that is?

By: Evan Hurst

Evan Hurst — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:14:04 +0000

It was very strange for me, as a nonbeliever who was formerly an Evangelical, to sit through this. I really had to try to summon a sort of combination of my 16 year old self and my current self in order to really interpret it. As I said when The Edge interviewed me last week, you don’t have to be a person of ill will to fall into this sort of thinking, because the echo chamber mentality is SO strong. There was a guy sitting next to me, who was actually pretty cute (there were a lot of cute guys there, but that wasn’t the point, I don’t think?), who seriously looked like a guy I might call to play guitar for me when I go into the studio. He even spoke to me, very briefly, during the service, mostly to explain why he had just cheered out so wildly at something Lou had just said, and it was this weird moment, where I’m going “HOW did this person end up thinking the things he thinks?!” But then 16 year-old me spoke up and said “You used to think those things too.”

But as I said in my piece, those who still hold those beliefs aren’t blameless. They have every tool at their fingertips to know better.