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Brothers and sisters -
We all know the dangers of Harry Potter books, the New Infidel Version "Bible", and Dr. Seuss's blasphemous Cat in the Hat. I don't need to remind you about O - Oprah's magazine. These horses have been flogged long past their "bury-by" dates; we needn't discuss them further!
Recently, I visited Powell's City of Books in Portland, Oregon. (Rosa dragged me into that cesspool of depravity following a Christian leadership conference in nearby Beaverton.) Never in my days have I seen so many rows, shelves, and stacks of books authored with the sole purpose of confusing the reader -- male, female, young, old -- and distracting from God!
Let's discuss those here, that we each warn another! Let us do more than share a title and author; please tell one another precisely what is horribly wrong with the book, lest one of us fall prey to curiosity when hearing a well-known author condemned! Remember: Curiosity damned the cat; you don't want to end like that!
I shall start with something truly horrifying:
We all know Mark Twain for his delightful tales of Americana. In his stories, young white boys befriend grown Nigra bucks and sail downriver, playing Navy together. What could be more wholesome?
Alas, not all which comes from this man is innocent! Twain wrote a book, Letters from Earth, which purports to reproduce letters from Satan to the Archangels Gabriel and Michael. Expecting to revel in Satan's well-earned despair at being cast from Heaven and hoping to learn a new trick to loosen his clutches on my fellow man, I eagerly dove into the warm waters of Twain's fluid prose. Here's an excerpt of what I discovered 'neath the waves:
Imagine my horror! The whole book is nothing but a collection of "proofs" that God isn't real!
I apologize that I cannot quote further from the book. That tome of false illumination finally offers a Godly light, the flaming leaves casting a ruddy glow upon the pages of Ulysses. Hopefully, this well-reputed novel from the 1920s will neither disappoint nor disgust, but enlighten!
Mark my words: Letters from Earth is written solely to cleave you and God in twain! What God has joined, let not man put asunder!
We all know the dangers of Harry Potter books, the New Infidel Version "Bible", and Dr. Seuss's blasphemous Cat in the Hat. I don't need to remind you about O - Oprah's magazine. These horses have been flogged long past their "bury-by" dates; we needn't discuss them further!
Recently, I visited Powell's City of Books in Portland, Oregon. (Rosa dragged me into that cesspool of depravity following a Christian leadership conference in nearby Beaverton.) Never in my days have I seen so many rows, shelves, and stacks of books authored with the sole purpose of confusing the reader -- male, female, young, old -- and distracting from God!
Let's discuss those here, that we each warn another! Let us do more than share a title and author; please tell one another precisely what is horribly wrong with the book, lest one of us fall prey to curiosity when hearing a well-known author condemned! Remember: Curiosity damned the cat; you don't want to end like that!
I shall start with something truly horrifying:
We all know Mark Twain for his delightful tales of Americana. In his stories, young white boys befriend grown Nigra bucks and sail downriver, playing Navy together. What could be more wholesome?
Alas, not all which comes from this man is innocent! Twain wrote a book, Letters from Earth, which purports to reproduce letters from Satan to the Archangels Gabriel and Michael. Expecting to revel in Satan's well-earned despair at being cast from Heaven and hoping to learn a new trick to loosen his clutches on my fellow man, I eagerly dove into the warm waters of Twain's fluid prose. Here's an excerpt of what I discovered 'neath the waves:
It is most difficult to understand the disposition of the Bible God, it is such a confusion of contradictions; of watery instabilities and iron firmness; of goody-goody abstract morals made out of words, and concreted hell-born ones made out of acts; of fleeting kindness repented of in permanent malignities.
However, when after much puzzling you get at the key to his disposition, you do at last arrive at a sort of understanding of it. With a most quaint and juvenile and astonishing frankness he has furnished that key himself. It is jealousy!
I expect that to take your breath away. You are aware—for I have already told you in an earlier letter—that among human beings jealousy ranks distinctly as a weakness; a trade-mark of small minds; a property of all small minds, yet a property which even the smallest is ashamed of; and when accused of its possession will lyingly deny it and resent the accusation as an insult.
Jealousy. Do not forget it, keep it in mind. It is the key. With it you will come to partly understand God as we go along; without it nobody can understand him. As I have said, he has openly held up this treasonous key himself, for all to see. He says, naïvely, outspokenly, and without suggestion of embarrassment: "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God."
You see, it is only another way of saying, "I the Lord thy God am a small God; a small God, and fretful about small things."
He was giving a warning: he could not bear the thought of any other God getting some of the Sunday compliments of this comical little human race—he wanted all of them for himself. He valued them. To him they were riches; just as tin money is to a Zulu.
However, when after much puzzling you get at the key to his disposition, you do at last arrive at a sort of understanding of it. With a most quaint and juvenile and astonishing frankness he has furnished that key himself. It is jealousy!
I expect that to take your breath away. You are aware—for I have already told you in an earlier letter—that among human beings jealousy ranks distinctly as a weakness; a trade-mark of small minds; a property of all small minds, yet a property which even the smallest is ashamed of; and when accused of its possession will lyingly deny it and resent the accusation as an insult.
Jealousy. Do not forget it, keep it in mind. It is the key. With it you will come to partly understand God as we go along; without it nobody can understand him. As I have said, he has openly held up this treasonous key himself, for all to see. He says, naïvely, outspokenly, and without suggestion of embarrassment: "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God."
You see, it is only another way of saying, "I the Lord thy God am a small God; a small God, and fretful about small things."
He was giving a warning: he could not bear the thought of any other God getting some of the Sunday compliments of this comical little human race—he wanted all of them for himself. He valued them. To him they were riches; just as tin money is to a Zulu.
I apologize that I cannot quote further from the book. That tome of false illumination finally offers a Godly light, the flaming leaves casting a ruddy glow upon the pages of Ulysses. Hopefully, this well-reputed novel from the 1920s will neither disappoint nor disgust, but enlighten!
Mark my words: Letters from Earth is written solely to cleave you and God in twain! What God has joined, let not man put asunder!
I'm greatly looking forward to the release of this book.
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