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This book is for you if:
-You know little or nothing about the fundamentalist movement in America but you want to understand why it has become such a prominent force in our government;

-You are concerned or curious about the problem of religious abuse and spiritual bullying that takes place in fundamentalist churches and schools;

-You are still part of the fundamentalist movement but you have doubts, questions or concerns; or

-You want to be moved by reading a good story that will make you laugh, cry and become angry.

Spiritual Probation is available in paperback, Kindle, Nook and iBook, and soon it will be in other ebook formats. Although it is fiction, the story is loosely based on the events surrounding the federal lawsuit of Baker v. Bob Jones University. It is ultimately one young man’s survival of religious abuse, a form of bullying that receives little attention.

What is it about?

Nate O’Connor wants to do right. His senior year of college, though, gets off to a rocky start. He’s a student at Bob Johnson University, the flagship institution of higher learning in American fundamentalism, where he and his best friend are placed on spiritual probation after being accused of disloyalty to the school. Their attempt to repair their reputation backfires and when Nate meets two women–one beautiful and smart, the other wise and charming–his entire belief system is uprooted. Nate’s world is further rocked by tragedy and his life will never be the same.

What are people saying about it?

“Setting his tale inside the closed society of a fundamentalist university, Rich Merritt tells a fascinating story that is alternately disturbing and inspiring. Spiritual Probation opened my eyes and touched my heart.
-Joe DiPietro, Tony-Award winning playwright of Memphis

“In every decade, a true classic emerges, which demonstrates the strength of the human will to conquer and survive the ills of its society. Merritt has written such a work in this coming-of-age story of courage and conviction in a world that is perceptively lacking in empathy and compassion for the individual spirit and soul. A poignant ‘must read’ for such present times, which is so heavily burdened with the painful effects of emotional bullying and spiritual abuse, so currently at the forefront of daily life.”
-Lynda Mandell, M.D., Ph.D., Board Certified Psychiatrist

“For those of us who have left fundamentalism, our exodus stories are often met with a caveat-emptor-inspired ‘You chose to go there!’ or a flippant ‘You should have known better!’ Merritt’s Spiritual Probation meets those consumerist dismissals head on. Merritt’s is a very human story–with bright, promising young people caught in an oppressive, intrusive ideology and thrown into the most senseless tragedy. … This story is our story.”
-Camille K. Lewis, Ph.D., author of Romancing the Difference: Kenneth Burke, Bob Jones University, and the Rhetoric of Religious Fundamentalism

Read Dr. Lewis’s complete review at her blog, “A Time To Laugh.”

“Rich Merritt’s assault on the malign effects of religious indoctrination at faith-based schools combines high drama, hot romance and the pathos of families victimized by name-brand Christianity.”
-Elliott Mackle, author of Captain Harding’s Six-Day War and It Takes Two

“Mr. Merritt’s writing is brilliant. His use of certain books of the Bible as chapter names brings home some of the ironies. His subtle cues of timeframes (e.g., songs that may not be familiar to younger readers) may not be immediately appreciated, but like any good book, a second reading brings even more details to the reader’s attention. … The story is painful, yet beautiful. The reader will enjoy the friendship, love, and devotion shown by the principal characters and will despise the treachery, viciousness, and power-mongering demonstrated by the antagonists. Most of all, the reader will be reminded of what it’s like to be alive, young, and on the path to discovery of what matters.”
-Leland Dirks, author of Jimmy Mender and His Miracle Dog

Chris Peterman kriegt seinen Abschluss nicht, weil er "Glee" geschaut hat

Last week I wrote about Chris Peterman, the young man who was expelled from Bob Jones University days before his graduation for, among other things, watching an episode of Glee. Since then, thanks to readers of this blog and many others, the story has been picked up by a countless number of news outlets, including the Huffington Post.  It has received international media attention as well. Even the Russians are calling into question our schools of higher learning. “в Штатах из универа отчислили за просмотр “Glee”. у нас плохое образование, говорите?”

The nature of fundamentalism is that it blinds its adherents to the world around them, because they are taught that the world is an evil place. When a situation like Chris Peterman’s arises, they are unable to see what is really going on. They react by attacking and that’s what they’ve done to this fine young man. They impugn his motives, question his credibility and make false accusations. Rather than link to this detritus, here is Chris responding to these allegations in his own words. I trust this man to be his own best advocate. If you have an ounce of judgment, no doubt you’ll agree.

Chris discusses a bit about his background, explaining how he paid for college himself and has not wasted his parents’ money. For the record, his widowed mother is seventy-five and lives off Social Security.

Some have wondered why a twenty-three year old college man would care about the issue sexual abuse, as if caring for sexual abuse victims is a bad thing. That’s what I mean by fundamentalism causing a lack of awareness. Here Chris explains that his sisters were victims and with their permission, he tells their story. Tina:

and Debbie:

As the story continues to gian the attention it deserves, I’ll post more this week.

What is Bob Jones University? It was founded in 1927 by, guess who? Bob Jones Sr. It was then presided over by his son, Bob Jones Jr.

Meet Bob Jones Jr., who, before he became president of Bob Jones University had aspirations of becoming a thespian:

—–

This is not a headline from The Onion. It happened to Christopher Peterman on Tuesday.

Here’s what really happened.

In the late 1990′s, a 15-year old girl was raped by a married man at her fundamentalist church in New Hampshire. She became pregnant. When the girl reported it to her pastor, the pastor had her publicly apologize to the congregation for her role in an adulterous relationship. Then he sent her to live with people in Colorado where she had the baby and gave it up for adoption. The pastor’s name was Chuck Phelps. (No apparent relation to Fred Phelps of the Westboro Church in Kansas).

A year ago, ABC’s 20/20 aired an entire episode on this incident, with Elizabeth Vargas reporting. Soon after, the rapist was brought to trial, convicted by a jury of his peers and sentenced by a judge to 15-30 years in prison, where he is today.

As it turns out, however, the pastor who covered this man’s crimes for fifteen years remained on the board of trustees of Bob Jones University, the self-proclaimed “Fortress of Faith” in Greenville, South Carolina. The founder of BJU famously said that if his university ever strayed, he hoped alumni and students would take action and demand the administration “Do right.” His most famous saying was “Do right til the stars fall!”

Christopher Peterman decided to do just that, to follow the founder’s admonition and demand that BJU “Do right” and remove Chuck Phelps from the board. BJU, in typical fashion, rather than do the right thing, threatened Chris with expulsion if he continued to protest the school’s board member.

Chris refused to be silenced. Rather than back down, he organized a protest of students and alumni. A protest at Bob Jones University! Last December, those who opposed BJU’s decision to keep Phelps on its board wore red to show their opposition to Phelps. A BJU spokesperson told a reporter that the university would take no retaliation against any students organizing or participating in the protest. Days before the protest, in an unprecedented move, Phelps stepped down from the board. Naturally BJU said his resignation had nothing to do with the protest.

At BJU, however, nothing is ever as it seems. Despite its claims that no retaliation would be taken against the students, Chris became a marked man. He was called into meeting after meeting, sometimes in the middle of the night, to talk about his spiritual condition with a dean. They moved an informant, a resident assistant, into his room, to report on his activities. Finally, days before he was to have graduated, they expelled him. Supposedly, his expulsion was due to an accumulation of demerits for offenses like watching Glee. But we know the truth and the truth has a nasty habit of coming back to haunt those who don’t want the truth to be known. Just ask Ernie Willis. He’s just begun a 15-30 year prison sentence because the truth, although slow, eventually became known by everyone.

Here’s what happened in Chris’s own words:

Marion Lorne as "Aunt Clara"
BEWITCHED

We’ve all got one. An insane relative who lingers under the misguided impression that it’s cool to pass along every loony email she receives. You can spot the emails: the subject line and at least half the text are in all caps and two or more of her cats had a disturbing fascination with the exclamation point key (quite a feat for a cat since that key usually must be paired with the shift key). Another indicator that it’s a dreaded email from the crazy relative is the amount of scrolling down you must do past multiple forwarded email addresses to get to the actual substance of the damn thing. FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, LEARN HOW TO CUT AND PASTE ALREADY!!!

Ugh. I’ve succumbed to the temptation of caps lock and exclamation points. For the sake of brevity, we’ll refer to these kooky conservative relatives collectively as “Aunt Clara.” (for the record, I LOVED Aunt Clara – who didn’t -I just wanted an excuse to post her picture)

A friend recently emailed me to say she was borderline psychotic – I told her she was half-right – because she had just received the email below from her own kooky Aunt Clara. My friend said she couldn’t take one more of these lunatic emails so I told her I would take care of it.

For the sake of clarity I’ve cleaned up most of the typos, grammatical and spelling errors and I’ve removed the all-caps and many of the exclamation points. Like the email rebuttal I wrote to the law student, the original email below is in black and my response is in blue.

Except for this, just one more thing. These emails usually refer you to an authentication site, like snopes.com to prove they are legit. I encourage you to follow this advice because, as in this case, the author of the email obviously had not read the complete entry on Snopes.com as s/he asked my friend to do because Snopes basically says that the email, while technically true, is a pile of steamy shit. (I’m taking liberties and paraphrasing a bit).

Here goes:

Stephanie Courtney as "Flo"
Progressive Insurance Ad

Progressive Insurance is exactly what the name implies, PROGRESSIVE

I assume this is meant to be some kind of sinister put-down but taken at face value it’s absurd. Imagine this:

“Reliable Sprinklers are exactly what the name implies, RELIABLE.”

Now, Aunt Clara, do you see why this makes you look like a fucking moron?

Progressive Insurance…who are they?
PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE is owned by Peter Lewis: Who is he? Read this…

If I’ve gotten this far, I’m already reading. Quit wasting my time.

You’ve seen and probably smiled at the clever Progressive Insurance TV commercials.

Um, no. I watch HBO and YouTube. But if you insist, I DO have access to the internet and will look up what you’re talking about.

Oh yeah, now I recognize them. Eh, not really my sense of humor. She’s annoying. But perky. I can handle perky after coffee.

Paul Harvey

Well, as Paul Harvey would say, “You’re about to learn the rest of the story”.

Who? Ugh. Let me google… you really need to insert links and images into these… oh. Um, Paul Harvey wouldn’t say jack shit cause that motherfucker’s dead.

PROGRESSIVE AUTO INSURANCE:

You know their TV commercials, the ones featuring the ditsy actress all dressed in white.

You’re sort of repeating yourself, Aunt Clara. Stop it. It’s embarrassing.

Peter Lewis

What you might not know is that the Chairman of Progressive is Peter Lewis, one of the major funders of leftist causes in America.

Ah, here it is. “Leftist causes.” Cause all that’s left after your lobotomy is the part of your brain that lets you hit the “send” button.

Between 2001 and 2003, Lewis funneled $15 million to the ACLU,

Okay, that’s a big fucking funnel. Why can’t you say he “gave” or “donated?”

 the group most responsible for destroying what’s left of Americas Judeo-Christian heritage.

There’s so much wrong with that sentence fragment…I’m debating whether to get into it. Ahhh why not.

First. There’s no such thing as a “Judeo-Christian” heritage. You only trot this tired phrase out when you feel it’s convenient. If you’re serious about it, wear curly sideburns and a yarmulke out for half a day and see what America thinks of its JUDEO-Christian heritage.

Second, assuming there were such a thing, it’s not in any danger of going anywhere. 40% of Americans believe the universe is 6000 years old and God created the world in six 24-hour days. I’m afraid that so-called heritage of which you speak will be around for a long time.

Third, assuming America were losing something, it’s not because of the ACLU. The ACLU actually defends religious organizations all the time when the government tries to interfere with their right to worship as they see fit. Uh huh. It’s true. Check Snopes.com (or ask Fred Phelps). yeah, that’s right. the ACLU supported the “Gods hates Fags.com” asshole. He’s one of yours, Aunt Clara.

Lewis also gave $12.5 million to MoveOn.org and America Coming Together, two key propaganda arms of the socialist left.

Hmmm. You’re right about MoveOn.org, I’ll give you that. And you WERE right about American Coming Together. But they disbanded. SEVEN YEARS AGO.

His funding for these groups was conditional on matching contributions from George Soros, the America-hating socialist who is the chief financier of the Obama political machine.

The obligatory Soros reference. It wouldn’t be a kooky conservative email without it. We don’t know, and Snopes can’t verify, that Soros hates America and yes, he donated a lot of money to Obama but so did millions and millions and millions of other people.

Lewis made a fortune as a result of capitalism, but now finances a
progressive movement that threatens to destroy the American free enterprise system that is targeting television
shows on Fox News.

What the what? “Targeting?” Don’t you mean using the free market system to freely advertise on Fox News? You do realize, of course, that if this is true, and your boycott of Progressive Insurance is successful, Fox News will lose money. Logical analysis was never your strong suit was it, Aunt Clara?

Peter Lewis is making a fortune off of conservative Americans (who buy his auto insurance) that he then applies to dismantle the very system that made him wealthy.

Nothing is being dismantled, okay, except the connective tissue between your neurons.

He’s banking on no one finding out who he is,

If he were banking on “no one finding out” don’t you think it would have been smarter to have made anonymous donations, since that’s a more certain way to make sure no one finds out than attending banquets given in honor of his own charitable contributions? See comment above about your skills in logic.

so STOP buying Progressive Insurance and pass this information on to all your friends..

You don’t have to obey this. It’s not a commandment. Please STOP. FORWARDING. EMAILS!

Aunt Clara, you’ve made me late for work. Again. There’s more, but I’m going to have to continue this tomorrow in Part Two. It’s a good thing you’re so lovable!

My EGI (Earliest Gay Influence – work with me, people, I’m trying to “start a meme” here as my young friend Will puts it) was not a robot, but he was extra-human. You may know him as Paul Lynde from the Hollywood Squares but I’ll always remember him as the warlock, Samantha’s Uncle Arthur from “Bewitched.” “Well, Endora, what are you going to turn Darren into today?” I can still hear him ask. One reason I still have so much lingering bitterness toward Richard Nixon is the Watergate hearings deprived me of my morning “Bewitched“ ritual the summer of ’74. Not a nice trick to play on a budding six-year-old homosexual boy. Yes, that’s a lot of bitterness I realize.

But another early gay influence that I wrote about in my memoir was a series of books I read. No, not the Danny Orlis series, that’s another blog post. Here, I’m talking about The Hardy Boys.

Here’s what I wrote in 2003-2004:

“It wasn’t just the boys’ sleuthing that caught my attention. Frank and Joe’s adventures frequently took them to remote destinations in the woods where they had to cross a body of water. Sometimes they swam across a river, other times they might fall into a lake while boating or they might simply find themselves caught in a rainstorm in the middle of a forest. Inevitably the brothers would strip naked and wait for their clothes to dry. They would use this time to ponder the clues they had uncovered or talk about the next step of their investigation. But  I couldn’t get the visual out of my head.

“They were naked! “

Forget that they were brothers. I was a nine and ten-year-old boy when I read these books. All I knew was that these images excited me unlike anything I’d ever imagined. When I wrote the memoir it had been 25 years since I’d seen a Hardy Boys book. Afterward, I wondered if my memory hadn’t been playing tricks on me. Well…recently I ran across my old Hardy Boys books and I grabbed two at random.

 Here’s what I found near the beginning of Book 2:

“Of course I don’t want the news broadcast,” Mr. Hardy said, “but I know I can trust your special friends. Call them up.”

“How about Chet and Biff?” Joe consulted Frank. As his brother nodded, he said, “You pack the telescope on your motorcycle. I’ll phone.”

Chet Morton was a stout, good-natured boy who loved to eat. Next to that, he enjoyed being with the Hardys and sharing their exciting adventures, although at times, when situations became dangerous, he wished he were somewhere else. Chet also loved to tinker with his machinery and spent long hours on his jalopy which he called Queen. He was trying to “soup up” the motor, so that he could have a real “hot rod.”

As I read these two books I was disturbed at the rampant racism and misogny but I don’t want to get into that as it’s kind of a downer. I’d rather focus on “Tom of Finland” artwork that passed for pictures in these books.

Another theme is how fat Chet is. Poor Chet. Chet with his Queen, the “hot rod” (I did NOT add those quotation marks, btw, those in the book too!)

Don't you love how they fight in V-neck sweaters and ties? Or...is this fighting? Or hooking up at The Eagle?

Here’s some more stuff about Chet:

Chet put his hands into his trouser pockets and with a grin pulled out a pair of pliers, a screw driver and a wrench. “I was working on the Queen this morning. Good thing I happened to put these in my pocket.”

Joe’s mind was racing with his throbbing motorcycle. In a few minutes he had far outdistanced his brother. Frank did not dare go any faster because of the telescope strapped onto his handlebars.”

Another thing I liked about the Hardy Boys was the absence of women:

“Biff, I’m afraid you’re going to be late getting home.” Frank chuckled. “Who is she?”

Biff reddened a little. “How’d you guess? I have a date tonight with Sally Sanderson. But she’s a good sport. She won’t mind waiting a little longer.”

Again the four boy straddled the motorcycles…

Mr. Hardy – “Fenton” – the boys’ father, is a detective who gives them cases. For a supposedly world-famous investigatory, Fenton Hardy relies on his teenage sons to solve a lot of problems. He’s also getting captured by the bad guys a lot. By the middle of the second book, for example, Mr. Hardy is already a hostage. Mrs. Hardy is your typical Harriet from Ozzie and Harriet. I don’t think she even gets a name until later in the series.

Mrs. Hardy was accustomed to her husband’s comings and goings at odd hours in connection with his profession and she had learned not to ask questions.

That’s a healthy notion to plant in the minds of young closeted homosexuals - that their wives shouldn’t ask about their comings and goings.

The nakedness in this book actually begins with their olive-skinned (his description, not mine) Italian-American friend, Tony Prito:

“Propeller started to foul up with some wire on that log.” Tony began to peel off his clothes. “Get me some pliers, will you?”

It doesn’t take Frank and Joe long to join in the striptease:

Quickly Frank and Joe took off their slacks, T shirts, sweaters, and sneakers. They rolled them up, and with twine which Tony provided, tied the bundles on top of their heads. They slipped over the side into the water.

Yes, I know there was a television series in the seventies. Don’t even get me started about that. I was NOT a fan. THAT “Frank” and “Joe” didn’t look anything like their pictures on the book covers and I wasn’t having it! Even the South Park episode about The Hardly Boys wasn’t very good.

Back to the books!

Ah, the subtext…

Mr. Tuttle seemed to relish the boys’ attention. “Well,” he went on, “some mighty queer things been happenin’ down there lately.”

More nakedness:

Soon the fire was burning briskly. As its warmth penetrated the cave, the boys took off their drenched clothes and spread them about the blaze, then wrapped themselves in the heavy blankets they had brought with them.

The rest of the afternoon the rain continued unabated. The clothes dried slowly. Chet produced the frying pan and the fragrant odor of sizzling bacon soon permeated their refuge. They ate ravenously, and at last sat back with deep sighs of sheer content.

Later in the same book:

“I have an idea,” Frank said. “We’ll swim out to the sub.” He stripped down to his shorts and Joe did the same. The brothers concealed their clothes behind a rock, then waded into the surf.

 I know what you’re thinking. That I’m applying a twenty-first century understanding of the world to a mid-twentieth century America that was much simpler. Also, that men used to be much more comfortable with being naked around each other and that it didn’t mean anything. I get that. Andrew Sullivan had a lengthy and interesting discussion about it on his blog late last year.

All that’s not my point. What I’m saying is that for me, twenty-five years after reading these book, these are the sections I recalled. And I wasn’t making them up.

Promotion to Captain, June 1, 1995

When people join the military, they swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” That’s the beauty of our system: there’s no loyalty oath to an individual or even to an office like a monarch or President. It’s to the Constitution.

I like the part about “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” My original idea for a title for my novel Code of Conduct was “Against All Enemies” because in my view, anyone who supported “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was a domestic enemy. I have my reasons. I didn’t go with that title, though, because by the time I published it, about a half dozen authors had stolen my idea for a title.

But that was fiction so it was fine. And I never intended to publish it while I was in the Marines. Part of the reason was that I didn’t know how to publish a book back then but I also understood that Marines don’t criticize their superior officers, including the Commander-in-Chief. Remember, it was President Clinton who passed “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Even when the Navy Times published my column, pseudonymously, in 1997 criticizing “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” I was careful not to criticize the President, as much as I wanted to. Members of the armed forces don’t get to do that. It’s one of the many rights people surrender when they join the military.

 I love how conservatives are just now discovering this situation. A case that has caught my attention involves hypocrisy on an infuriating level.  On April 13th, a  federal judge denied a request to block military discharge proceedings against a Camp Pendleton Marine who called President Barack Obama an enemy on Facebook.

Let’s say that in 2003, there was a Marine who believed that going to war under false pretenses like, oh I don’t know, allegations about weapons of mass destruction and made-up assertions about a connection to 9/11, was a violation of the Constitution he was sworn to protect. Now, assume Facebook existed then and that this hypothetical Marine had used it to create a page advocating service members disobey President Bush’s order to go to war. Conservatives would have been screaming treason, calling for this Marine’s head!

Now, however, they don’t like the Commander-in-Chief, they have suddenly discovered that service members don’t necessarily have all the same rights as civilians. Even Bob Jones University has jumped into the fray, posting on their website an article titled “Military Members Should Be Able To Exercise Free Political Speech.”

“Military members can’t have the liberty to say whatever they please. They can’t divulge anything that would compromise the security of the United States or the success of its Armed Forces. As with anybody with access to confidential information, they have limitations on what they can communicate.

But that does not mean their rights as citizens should be revoked. If anything, those rights should be exercised and enjoyed more fully by those who are giving of themselves to protect them.”

Guess what, Bob Jones. Some of us have been dealing with the issue of free speech among service members for a long time. In fact, Stanford University (an actual institution of higher learning) had compiled a database of real court decisions where the parties have spent decades hashing out this issue.

Recently the Bob Jones University Chancellor joked in chapel that he wished President Obama could hear a lecture by some so-called Constitutional Law experts who happened to be visiting his campus that day. It’s typical of Dr. Bob Jones III to assume that he understands things better than he does, never mind that President Obama is a constitutional law scholar and lecturer at Univ. of Chicago, with a JD from Harvard, editor-in-chief of the Harvard Law Review, and Bob Jones has a PhD from his Grandpaw’s unaccredited school. So it’s not surprising that the BJU student newspaper would solve this complicated and nuanced political and constitutional issue in two simple conclusory paragraphs. But they’re wrong. And hypocritical. Where was Bob Jones’ support when we were arguing throughout the eighties and nineties that OUR free speech rights were being abridged as LGBT service members? That’s right, he was exercising his First Amendment right, calling for homosexuals to be stoned to death while my gay service members and I were serving in silence, protecting his right to do so.

(Thanks to Phil Lehman for directing me to the BJU website on this issue)

(The Columbine tragedy occurred 13 years ago today. This is the final part in a four-part series about the myths that continue to linger from that terrible event. Read parts one, two and three.)

We could discuss other aspects about Columbine. Why boys were able to obtain such powerful weapons so easily. Why Eric Harris’s mental condition wasn’t diagnosed and treated properly. Why boys who had been in so much trouble with the law before had been treated so leniently (psychopaths like Harris can turn on the the charm when it suits them). I highly recommend Dave Cullen’s book, Columbine. He explores these issues and many others. This week, however, I’ve been sticking to the theme of the myths of Columbine and today I’d like to veer off into a discussion of another psychopath: Hitler.

Adolf Hitler was born 113 years ago today. (A few days ago I saw a cartoon on a right-wing Facebook page that showed a guy praying to God, asking Him why the Divine hadn’t sent anyone to cure cancer. God replied: “I did, but you aborted him.” My reaction to that sort of propaganda is: Okay, but don’t we wish someone had aborted Hitler? Maybe in some cases, even from a right-wing perspective, abotion isn’t such a bad thing.) One of the first false rumors to emerge from Columbine was that Harris and Klebold were neo-Nazis who had chosen April 20 because of that connection. Harris had written about Hitler in some of his early journals so people made that assumption. The truth, however, is that the boys never explained why their original choice was April 19, but they discussed “topping Timothy McVeigh,” the Oklahoma City bomber, which had occurred April 19, 1995. When the date rolled around, Harris decided he wanted more ammo so he decided to wait one more day. No explanation. April 20 – Hitler’s birthday – was just a bizarre coincidence.

There’s something called “Godwin’s Law” – “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” The corollary to Godwin’s law is: “once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.”  I wrote that here so you’ll know that this discussion does not violate it because what I’m about to say is a rebuttal to something that someone else has already said about Hitler. Besides, perhaps one day a year we could have an exception to Godwin’s Law.

A few months ago I read William Shirer’s The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich. One major aspect of Hitler’s rise to power was his ability to make the German people feel like they were the ones who were being persecuted. He pointed to the Jews and blamed the Germans’ financial problems on Jewish bankers. He pointed to the Versailles Treaty and blamed Germany’s inability to get a handle on its problems on its war debt and reparations. He pointed to communists and socialists as a threat to Germany’s existence and instilled fear in the German people about every “other” group from the Poles to the Russians to the Hungarians.

So, in this video, when you listen to Dr. Bob Jones III, then-president and now-chancellor of Bob Jones University, ask yourself: In a nation that has never elected anyone but a Christian as President, who is being like Hitler? (for the text of the video see below the clip).

In a sermon posted February 20, 2001, “Christ Prayed for Us”:

@16:22: “Here in the United States, it’s becoming increasingly aware to me and it probably is to you that we believers who stand up for the Lord are more and more treated like the Jews were treated in Germany at the time Hitler was coming to power. They were marked, they were isolated, they were limited, they were made the object of derision and hatred, the symbol of everything dangerous, and of everything that impeded the way of progress in a new nation that was under construction.

“We live in the post-Christian era in America. The deconstruction has taken place, the new construction of a heathen, pagan nation is taking place. And believers, who are a part of what has been destroyed, are looked upon with great suspicion and great hatred, we’re marked, we suffer opprobrium, we’re ridiculed, we’re lied about, we’re slandered, we’re made to appear evil, and threatening to the populace at large and so this hatred grows and grows as derision grows and grows, the editorials increase against the Christian believer and the Bible-believing church, the Christian school, and after a while it’s just like the Jews were in Germany under Hitler. And in surrounding countries like Poland. When Germany took over these nations they were marked for death and extinction. They were lied about, the general populace was made to fear them and consider them a threat and so the populace got behind the government in snuffing them out if possible.

“Are you ready for this? To be hated for His sake? You better be.”

Many Americans – well, many Americans who know anything about history – would probably say the most “infamous” day in US history is December 7, 1941. After all, President Roosevelt declared December 7th a day that will live in infamy. We don’t get Presidential decrees like that very often. For most Americans alive today, however, the actual, if undeclared, day of infamy, is September 11, 2001. Most of us remember that day and it was a made-for-tv mass murder. In both cases, our enemies knew what they were doing and they did it with precision. But there’s a third day that to, seems more ominous. That day is today. April 19th.

As tragic as 12/7/41 and 9/11/01 were, those were days that somebody attacked us. Someone else, other than us. An enemy. The Japanese navy attacked and we obliterated much of Japan. Al Qaeda attacked, and we wiped out Al Qaeda. The problem with April 19th is that everything that happened on this day, we’ve done to ourselves. For this reason, we like to forget about April 19, a day that will live in obscurity.

SIEGE OF WACO

April 19, 1993: David Koresh was a cult leader, a bad man by any reckoning. In 1989 he declared that God wanted him to father a new “House of David” so he dissolved the marriages of his followers and procreated with their wives. One cult specialist said:

“[Koresh is] your stock cult leader. … They’re all the same. Meet one and you’ve met them all. They’re deeply disturbed, have a borderline personality disorder and lack any type of conscience. … No one willingly enters into a relationship like this. … So you’re talking about deception and manipulation (by the leader), people being coached in ever so slight increments, pulled in deeper and deeper without knowing where it’s going or seeing the total picture.”

But on April 19th, the siege went horribly wrong. Accounts differ on what happened in Waco, Texas, but after a 50-day siege of the cult-leaders compound, federal agents move in to end the siege and arrest Koresh. Instead, the compound burned to the ground and 76 people, including 20 children and 2 pregnant women, died in the fire.

OKLAHOMA CITY

April 19th 1995: The siege of Waco had spectators on site. One was a young war veteran named Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh saw Waco as government oppression. He didn’t balance the fact that Koresh was a child-rapist who held people against their will. All McVeigh saw was that the government had overstepped its bounds and had killed innocent children. So McVeigh decided to take matters into his own hands. On 4/19/1995 he bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 people, including 19 children under the age of 6. McVeigh specifically chose April 19 because of what had happened at Waco.

Four years later, Eric Harris set April 19th as the date for the Columbine Massacre, but if you read about Harris, one fact stands out – the boy was incompetent. Arrogant, narcissistic, ant-social yes, but thankfully the bombs he made didn’t go off. Otherwise, hundreds of students would have lost their lives that day, far more than the 12 teenagers and 1 teacher he and Klebold killed. Harris specifically wanted to outdo Timothy McVeigh. More about that tomorrow.

 USS IOWA

April 19th 1989: Something happened that isn’t related to Waco, Oklahoma City or Columbine, except its infamous date and the loss of America lives in an explosion. Another common feature is the amount of misinformation that arose out of the Iowa explosion. The following is paraphrased from Wikipedia:

The explosion in the center gun room killed 47 of the turret’s crewmen and severely damaged the gun turret itself. Two major investigations were undertaken, producing conflicting conclusions.

The first investigation into the explosion, conducted by the US Navy, concluded that one of the gun turret crew members, Clayton Hartwig, who died in the explosion, had deliberately caused it. During the investigation, numerous leaks to the media, later attributed to Navy officers and investigators, implied that Hartwig and another sailor, Kendall Truitt, had engaged in a homosexual relationship and that Hartwig had caused the explosion after their relationship had soured. In its report, however, the Navy concluded that the evidence did not show that Hartwig was homosexual but that he was suicidal and had caused the explosion with either an electronic or chemical detonator.

The victims’ families, the media, and members of Congress were sharply critical of the Navy’s findings. The congressional committees inquired into the Navy’s investigation and later released reports disputing the Navy’s conclusions. The Senate committee asked the GAO to review the Navy’s investigation. To assist the GAO, Sandia National Laboratories provided a team of scientists to review the Navy’s technical investigation.

During its review, Sandia determined that a significant overram of the powder bags into the gun had occurred as it was being loaded and that the overram could have caused the explosion. A subsequent test by the Navy of the overram scenario confirmed that an overram could have caused an explosion in the gun breech. Sandia’s technicians also found that the physical evidence did not support the Navy’s theory that an electronic or chemical detonator had been used to initiate the explosion.

In response to the new findings, the Navy, with Sandia’s assistance, reopened the investigation. In August 1991, Sandia and the GAO completed their reports, concluding that the explosion was likely caused by an accidental overram of powder bags into the breech of the 16-inch gun. The Navy, however, disagreed with Sandia’s opinion and concluded that the cause of the explosion could not be determined. The Navy expressed regret to Hartwig’s family and closed its investigation.

Charles C. Thompson II wrote a book about this incident called A Glimpse Of Hell. Naturally, some of the Navy officers involved sued the author and his publisher for defamation. Some of the suit was dismissed, but some settled out of court. The publisher issued a statement:

W. W. Norton did not publicly retract or repudiate any of the material in Thompson’s book, however, instead sending a letter to the former officers stating, in part, “To the extent you believe the book implies that any of you were engaged in a cover-up, were incompetent, committed criminal acts, violated Naval regulations or exhibited faulty seamanship or professional ineptitude, Norton regrets the emotional distress experienced by you or your family.

A beautiful statement indeed.

One of the lessons of Columbine that is overlooked is that it illustrates in real-time how a myth is created. I use “myth” here in the modern sense, to mean something that isn’t true. Without going off on a tangent, the actual definition of myth, according to the late Joseph Campbell, is “truth speaking to us as metaphor.” Although I prefer Campbell’s usage, I’ll succumb to modernity for this post and use the word to mean a falsehood.

Within minutes after Cassie’s death, the rumor began that she had died as a martyr for Christ and because of her mother’s book and the song by Michael W. Smith, the odds are that most people today who know of Cassie believe in the literal truth of her martyrdom. Think about – it’s been only 13 years, with all the modern technology we have and people still believe a legend rather than the factual account.  (Perhaps it’s BECAUSE of modern technology, but that’s another subject…) Now, go back in time to the desert of the Middle East 2000 years ago. Bart Ehrman has written extensively about this subject; most of the information below is from Jesus Interrupted: Revealing The Hidden Contradictions In The Bible (and why we don’t know about them).

The year is approximately 30 A.D. (or 30 CE as it’s now called). There were no recording devices, not even pencil and paper. Let’s assume Jesus did live (even though there’s no record of his existence other than the Biblical account and the manuscripts that didn’t make it into the Bible). The disciples and the others who followed him didn’t write down his words; most of them were illiterate fishermen or other laborers. After Jesus died and his followers dispersed, how do you think his story was recorded? That’s right, by word of mouth. For almost forty years, the story of Jesus was passed around his groups of followers and early converts verbally. Imagine the children’s game of telephone for over a generation. How accurate is it going to be?

Around 70 CE the early Christians decided to write down the legend of Christ. Of the four Gospels we have in the New Testament, Mark, the second in order, was the earliest written. Then Matthew and Luke were written, borrowing heavily from Mark. Matthew and Luke also appear to have borrowed heavily from a theoretical Gospel, known by historians as “Q.” Matthew, Mark and Luke are known as the synoptic Gospels. Finally, the gospel of John was written. It’s very different from the other three.

In fact, there are many differences between the four Gospels. What were Jesus’s last words on the cross? It depends on which Gospel you believe. Literalist Christians believe that Jesus uttered all seven of the different statements recorded, but in order to believe that, you have to create a fifth gospel of your own by overlaying the others on top of each other. Not one of the Gospel authors included all seven statements. So…did Jesus say “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” or “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit?” or “It is finished”? It depends on whether you read Mark, Luke or John. Likewise, did Cassie Bernall say “Yes,” that she believed in God just before she died?

According to Erhman, Jesus probably lived. He may even have said something during his crucifixion. His words recorded in the gospels have significant meaning, as described here on the LGBT-BJU website before Easter. But it doesn’t matter whether he actually said them or not, because he almost certainly did NOT say them, definitely not all of them (a man dying from asphyxiation couldn’t have said all those words moments before death). Their value comes from what they mean to you, as you read them now and apply them to your life. THAT is mythology. So, Cambpell was right after all. Myth = Truth, speaking to us as metaphor. After all, Jesus gave us his greatest lessons in the form of parables. If myths were good enough for Jesus Christ, shouldn’t they be good enough for today’s Christians?