Christopher Hitchens on Obama’s selection of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his Inauguration:
But if we must have an officiating priest, let it be some dignified old hypocrite with no factional allegiance and not a tree-shaking huckster and publicity seeker who believes that millions of his fellow citizens are hellbound because they do not meet his own low and vulgar standards.
Andrew Sullivan links to a fascinating interview from the late 1980’s between Allen Ginsberg and John Lofton. Lofton is a former Washington Times columnist and a current crazy right wing blogger. Here’s a teaser:
LOFTON: Well, that’s certainly what S&M is all about—power.
GINSBERG: And you seem to like that don’t you? Have your sexual fantasies ever involved that kind of power relationship?
LOFTON: No, not to my knowledge, I’m a Christian. So I don’t fantasize.
GINSBERG: Do you ever have sexual fantasies?
LOFTON: No.
GINSBERG: None at all?
LOFTON: No, I said I am a Christian.
GINSBERG: You’ve never had any sexual fantasies!
LOFTON: Before I was a Christian, I had them, absolutely.
GINSBERG: And since you’re a Christian you don’t?
LOFTON: No.
GINSBERG: And when you had them, did they involve any dominance/submission fantasies!
LOFTON: Mine were pretty orthodox heterosexual kinds of fantasies. But there’s no doubt they were bad. And I am so glad that Jesus Christ delivered me from them.
GINSBERG: You have no erotic dreams now, at all, that you remember!
LOFTON: None that don’t feature my wife, no.
GINSBERG: Yeah.
LOFTON: It’s an amazing thing what Jesus can do for a person.
GINSBERG: Uh-huh.
Joe Carter outs Obama as a phony Christian. A spirited debate ensues in the comments section. My take? Some people take religion way too seriously.
Religious zealots appear to use the Merryl-Lynch bull as some kind of prayer antenna to beseech Jesus to reinvigorate their 401ks.
Apparently you’re the real reason we’re having this financial crisis.
(via Crooked Timber)
