Groups sue to have Jesus picture removed from high school hallway

Two civil liberties groups sued in federal court Wednesday to remove a picture of Jesus that has hung in Bridgeport High School for over 30 years.

Even a Christian minister says this improperly sends the message that the school endorses Christianity as its official religion.

"I frankly cannot understand why this school insists that it is doing nothing wrong," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "This is pretty clear constitutional law. Public schools cannot promote specific religious ideas."

The Harrison County school board's vote on removing the painting ended in a tie.

"At this point, it's a matter that's pretty much going to be up to the board," Superintendent Carl Friebel Jr. said. "It's just going to be very interesting for me to see what the board wants us to do with it."

Superintendent Friebel has the easy job, doesn't he? Sort of like Pilate, he gets to wash his hands of the affair and leave it up to someone else.

Jesus Christ | Americans United for the Separation of Church and State | Christianity | Bridgeport High School | Born Jesus

Christian Skate Night called discriminatory

A skating rink in upstate New York got a visit from state officials after the rink began advertising their "Christian Skate Night" on Sundays. The state warned the owner that he was violating anti-discrimination laws.

I read about this at a television station's website, which ran a poll alongside the story asking readers if they agreed that the skating rink was practicing discrimination. At the time of this writing, the respondents to the poll overwhelmingly say no, it is not discrimination, by 91% to 9%, with about 16,000 people answering the poll.

What do you think?

Do opinions of what is and what is not discrimination change when the respondent is a member of a group that is supposedly discriminating? I'm assuming — rightly or wrongly — that most of the respondents are Christians. If the skating rink had advertised Muslim Skate Night or Satanists Skate Night or Gay Skate Night and then been called on the carpet by the state's Division of Human Rights, would the opinions of those 16,000 have been the same, that is, that the rink was not discriminating?

The owner of the rink, Len Bernardo, has renamed Sunday "Spiritual Skate Day."

A blog called Badlands has gotten itself pretty upset over this, ranting and railing against Jews for creating a climate of hate against Jesus Christ, saying Lester Maddox was supporting the Christian faith by chasing blacks with pickaxes and guns, and repeatedly referring to Martin Luther King as Marren Loofer Keen. He calls newspapers "Jewspapers." It must really suck to be that filled with hatred and still think you're a Christian.

Even funnier, or sicker, are comments left on his blog by a visitor saying that the skating rink owner should be arrested for opening his skating rink on Sunday! Yeah... that's what we need in this country, a return to Blue Laws. Jeez.

Meanwhile, the Traditional Values Coalition has fired off a letter to New York Gov. George Pataki asking him to "rein in this illegal attempt to manipulate the law to accomplish a violation of basic civil rights."

A quick look at the Traditional Values Coalition finds they hate gays, hate "radical feminists," support right-wing activist judges, and want the Pledge Protection Act to pass the Senate. This bill, S.1046/H.R. 2389, sponsored by Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Representative Todd Akin (R-MO), would take away the Federal court system's ability to rule on certain issues, namely, any case involving the Pledge of Allegiance.

The chairman of this group, Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, says, "The 9th Circuit Court in California and other federal courts have shown that they are incapable of issuing fair rulings on the Pledge of Allegiance and the words ‘under God’ in the Pledge. We must remove power from these federal courts to tamper with the Pledge — by prohibiting them from ruling on the Pledge in the future."

Jesus Christ | Roller Skating | Christianity | Discrimination | Born Jesus

Jesus may be dallying, but Superman returns next week!

Is Superman a Christ figure? Well, duh!

An Associated Press story today asks that question.

Director Bryan Singer, who is Jewish, said the notion of Superman as a Christ figure is simply another case of contemporary storytelling borrowing from ancient motifs.

In other words, it's just as Joseph Campbell said: It's all One Story, that of The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

In the newest version of the Superman saga, Superman Returns, which opens next week, Kal-El (the born-name of Superman, and hey, "El" is a name of God in the Old Testament) hears his father tell him he has been sent to Earth because humans "lack the light to show the way. For this reason I have sent them you, my only son."

Before being kidnapped by villain Lex Luthor, Lois Lane assures Superman, "The world doesn't need a savior, and neither do I."

Luthor — a Loki/Lucifer-like character if ever I saw one — said, "Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don't share their power with mankind."

Kal-El is truly a "Born Jesus"!

Jesus Christ | Superman Returns | Christianity | Movies | Born Jesus

Passion 2: The Resurrection, coming Easter 2007

So far it's just a rumor — nothing yet on the Internet Movie Database — but all the cool blogs like Celebrity Religion, WhizBangPop, and Sacred Fems are reporting it, so we're jumping on the bandwagon, too.

Sony Pictures is planning an Easter 2007 release for a feature tentatively titled The Resurrection, which will tell the story of Jesus Christ beginning with the day he died. As such, some liken it to a "follow-up" to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. "The Passion ends with [SPOILER ALERT!] Jesus being taken from the cross, and The Resurrection opens with an empty cross," a source familiar with the script tells Reuters, adding, "This is a serious attempt to understand the Roman world in which Christ moved and the Christian era was born."

Jesus Christ | Passion of the Christ | Christianity | Movies | SacredFems.com

Jesus loves a machine gun

Excerpt from San Francisco Chronicle, June 7, 2006, by Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist, reprinted from The Burning Taper.

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission — both a religious mission and a military mission — to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state — especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice.

Ah yes, the neo-Christian ideal. The ultimate dominionist police state, a smoking, reeking, post-apocalyptic vision of New York, a world teeming with nonbelievers just waiting to be either converted or massacred by nothing less than a Christianized American Taliban, a world of righteousness and judgment and death, all in the name of one very nasty and bloodthirsty God. It's "Grand Theft Auto" for the Rick Santorum set. It's "Resident Evil 4" for American Family Association types who eat too much BGH meat and never have sex.

It's the new "Left Behind" video game, due out by Christmas.

Oh but wait. There's a lovely kicker: When you get bored with the sanctimonious drabness of fighting on the side of a hateful Christ (which, invariably, you most certainly will), the game apparently allows you to switch modes and fight for the army of the Antichrist, unleashing cloven-hoofed demons who feast on the flesh of the righteous as you blow away Bible-thumping soldiers who, just before they die, secretly confess their intense gay love for their platoon commanders. Isn't that thoughtful?

It's also a bit of genius marketing. After all, aren't the villains always far cooler and sexier than the self-righteous and the holy? The devil always has better vodka than God. Who wants to run around shooting Buddhists and praying, when you can don the armor of hell itself and drink and have dirtyfun sex and get tattoos and listen to Metallica and wear low-slung jeans and laugh easily? No one, that's who.

Which is why the game could become the sleeper hit of the year. Sure, brainwashed fundamentalist kids will love playing on the side of God. For a while. But then the dark side will beckon. The irresistible scent of rebellion will hit their noses like hot porn pizza. They will fall into the clutches of a crazy self-defined happiness, they will squirm and giggle and feel anarchic and seditious and free, running clean in a place where the beer is cold and the dancing is hot and no one is telling them they have to kill someone because that person dared to believe that God isn't, well, a misanthropic, murderous jackass.

Now that's heaven.

Read the whole enchalada....

Jesus Christ | Left Behind | Christianity | Video Game | BornJesus.blogspot.com

Lightning strikes praying woman

Clara Jean Brown's prayers may have been heard, but she may not be too sure by Whom.

While the Alabama woman stood in her kitchen praying for the safety of her family during a strong thunderstorm on Memorial Day, lightning exploded through the room, blowing a whole in the linoleum and blackening the concrete underneath. She dazed by the blast, but unharmed.

But while she prayed, lightning suddenly exploded, blowing through the linoleum and leaving a blackened area on the concrete. Brown and her 14-year-old granddaughter fell to the the floor as the lightning whizzed by them, dazed and disoriented by the blast, but otherwise uninjured.

Lightning | Prayer | Alabama