Greg Martin
others so
Not all. Many are genuinely concerned about the fate of the unsaved. They believe that the rest of us who haven't been reborn as an evangelical fundie are going to hell. (Yes, that includes catholics and other forms of non born again evangelical christians and it certainly includes moslems, jews, non-semetic religions and atheists.)
would
You've never met an evangelical Christian then.
I was taken along to an evangelical rally last night at the Potters House in Beechborough, Perth. (My wife wanted to go after being invited by a friend and I had to drive). It was an absolute bedlam with peple shouting out with the "gift of tongues" and falling over a lot.
The preacher was your stereotypical american fundamentalist lunatic who sees smut everywhere he looks. He gave a firebrand sermon on Sodom and Gomorrah and said love turning people into crazed persons. e.g. Ted Bundy who was a good Christian until he became addicted to love (something that has been refuted as a "Christian urban legend" by the FBI, among others, who found no love in Bundy's house and feel the whole love thing at his trial was some kind of lame attempt at a deflection of blame and an insanity defense). Another interesting claim was that "explicit love scenes" appear every 9 seconds on MTV. He also spent a lot of time bashing rap music and much of popular culture and "entertainment", naturally he had nasty things to say about "love and the City" and "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" etc. (Which often brought out joyful shouts of "praise Jesus" and "that's right!" from random audience members.)
Anyway, lots of people stood up and gave their testimonials, including someone who had been preaching in public with a megaphone. He said people were shouting at him and his friends to shut up but they were doing it for the Lord so they don't care how many people abuse them. This got a standing ovation from the crowd so clearly not too many people were able to see that this kind of bible bashing alienates the majority of people and makes them think Christians are lunatics.
I don't think they are only interested in "number one". Born again evangelical Christians are infected with a very powerful "meme" (look it up on Google) that can become all consuming, to the extent of insanity and hysteria in some cases. Last night hundreds of people gibbering in tongues and shouting out at random is the closest I've ever come to witnessing genuine mbutt hysteria and I've attended evangelical services before.) These guys were so crazy they were actually scary.
Travis
