Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Another Christian Lies For God

A week into the New Year and we're already knee deep in bullshit. Originally I was going to call this "Christian Author Steals Story to Praise Jesus, Make Cash," but the shit goes far deeper than that.

Seems Neale Donald Walsch, the best-selling author of something called Conversations with God, posted an inspirational story on a religious blog about a Christmas pageant he'd seen. Unfortunately, it turns out this exact tale had been printed ten years earlier in a magazine called Clarity. Written by somebody else.

Mr. Walsch makes odd excuses, saying he must have received it in an email and then "internalized it as [his] own experience.” The story's author, Candy Chand, doesn't buy it. “I have strong issue [sic] with anyone who would appear to plagiarize my work and pretend it is his own,” she scolds.

Well, Candy, I'm going to call bullshit too. Your story is absolutely preposterous, and I'd sooner believe in Herman Rosenblat's apple-tossing little girl or Charlie Crist's heterosexuality than this ridiculous BS.

In the story, a "Winter Pageant" is held in one of those secular public schools that long ago abandoned Our Saviour Jesus Christ. "Because our public school system had long stopped referring to the holiday as 'Christmas,'" Ms. Chand writes, "I didn't expect anything other than fun, commercial entertainment - songs of reindeer, Santa Claus, snowflakes, and good cheer. So, when my son's class rose to sing, 'Christmas Love,' I was slightly taken aback by it's bold title."

Candy, I'm slightly shocked that Jesus hasn't taught you the correct use of apostrophes. But more importantly, I'm startled by the song choice. You say the school system sucked all the Saviour out of the holiday. So, what's this tune about? I can't find any mention of it online. Is it about opening presents with family? Drinking eggnog with friends? Drunken snogging with Santa? It's odd Google has never heard of any tune called "Christmas Love."

As the song concludes, the kids whip out cards that spell out the title. Yeah, we've all seen this before. Donnie and Marie do this in all their TV specials just in case somebody's taking notes. In a serendipitous turn of events, though, the seventh little girl gets her card upside down, making the kids' message read "CHRIST WAS LOVE."

"A hush came over the audience and eyes began to widen. In that instant, we understood the reason why we celebrated the holiday in the first place. Why that, even in the chaos, there was indeed a purpose for all the festivities."

Oh. My. God. How sweet. How heartwarming. Well, EXCEPT FOR THE BUDDHISTS, MUSLIMS, AND JEWS in the audience. They were left out, as always. But God Himself forgot about them, so why the hell shouldn't we?

Meanwhile, I'm absolutely positive a friend of mine went to this exact same performance, but she said the kids got all the letters mixed up. They turned their cards over and spelled out SMOVE CLIT RASH. Well, the entire audience broke out laughing, and then everybody realized there is no god.

THE END


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