Havin' Us a Book Burning

Posted by : Rev. Ouabache | Wednesday, October 14, 2009 | Published in

I've had a survey over there to the left for the last week or so asking what you plan on doing this Halloween. Looks like there was a certain option I forgot to include: Book burning.
A Baptist Church near Asheville, N.C., is hosting a "Halloween book burning" to purge the area of "Satan's" works, which include all non-King James versions of the Bible, popular books by many religious authors and even country music.

The website for the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., says there are "scriptural bases" for the book burning. The site quotes Acts 19:18-20: "And many that believed, came and confessed and shewed their deeds. Many of them also which used curious arts, brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."

Church leaders deem Good News for Modern Man, the Evidence Bible, the New International Version Bible, the Green Bible and the Message Bible, as well as at least seven other versions of the Bible as "Satan's Bibles," according to the website... "I believe the King James version is God's preserved, inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God," Pastor Marc Grizzard told a local news station of his 14-member parish.

Yes, you read that correctly. A Christian church is going to burn Bibles because the Bibles (which they are about to burn up) told them to. It's like Irony has turned itself into a snake and is currently trying to swallow its own tail. To show that they don't just hate the translation work of other Christians they gave us a handy list of other books they plan on burning:
We will also be burning Satan's popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort , Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham , Rick Warren , Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll , John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn , Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa , The Pope , Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.
I'll admit that I don't know half of those names but I can understand why a couple of those are on the list. Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Rick Warren and TD Jakes have always been considered by fundies to be too liberal and squishy when it comes to theology. The Pope and Mother Teresa are obviously on there because Baptists have long hated all things Catholics. Some even go so far as to deny having a "common ancestor" as it were. Swagart and Hinn are there for being outright con men. The ones I don't understand being on there are Dobson, Colson and Tim Lahaye. They are about as far right theological speaking as you can get in the United States. At this point the only Christian authors left for them to read are John Haggee, John Calvin, Tertullian, and Genghis Khan.

To round everything out they will also be tossinga couple of old LPs and Satanic CDs onto the fire:
We will also be burning Satan's music such as country , rap , rock , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel , contempory [sic] Christian , jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.
So presumably this means that Stephen Curtis Chapman, Carmen and DC Talk will join the usual suspects of AC/DC and Judas Priest in the flames. (Yes, all of my references to contemporary Christian music are from 15 years ago.) And you know you are dealing with the fringe of the fringe when a Baptist church in the South hates Southern Gospel music. It makes me wonder what kind of music they use in their services.

As always, Poe's Law is in effect here. This whole thing might be an elaborate hoax to make Christians look goofy. The point of Poe's Law is that there is no way to tell without an overt sign of humor. This is more than likely just a dozen people in a strange fundamentalist cult who feel like they are fighting the brave fight against modernity. I'm going to pull a Glenn Beck for now and just say that my sources have not been able to disprove anything yet.

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