It's always gonna be sour grapes with you boy, until you get right with Jesus. Amen!

wow. I really don't know what to say. I am enraged and saddened at the same time. I don't even know where to start so I'll just introduce the article and see where this thing takes us.

Here is the article to begin with. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20278737/jesus_made_me_puke/

This week I have been presented with an alternative viewpoint to our lovely text book. This comes out of the pages of Rolling Stone and the article is called, Jesus Made Me Puke by Matt Taibbi. Initially I figured this would be another article bashing the 'christian right'. Long story short: it was, but this bashing was fully deserved.

Taibbi's mission for this issue was to infiltrate a church and join in with a week end 'encounter' event. Initially as he describes the typical church characters getting on the bus to head off to the unknown my stomach sunk a little as I could see where this was going. Taibbi goes through the events of the week end and at first they seem to be a typical Evangelical event. I was first dumbfounded when it came time for people to split into small groups and share an issue from their past. Taibbi's is second in the circle and so he is forced to quickly think something up.
"'Hello,' I said, taking a deep breath. 'My name is Matt. My father was an alcoholic circus clown who used to beat me with his oversize shoes.'"

The fools fall for his story. I don't understand how people can be so blinded that someone making up such an obvious lie. I am saddened for the image that is portrayed of the poor misguided people who have attended these events.

As the weekend progressed things seem to be the typical strange and shallow TV and political jargon that can be expected from the 'christian right'. Then it happens, an exorcism. That's right, the 'pastor' proceeds to tell the group that all of the sin in their lives is not actually their fault but the fault of demons that are with in them.

"He had cast out the demons of every ailment, crime, domestic problem and intellectual discipline on the face of the Earth. He cast out horoscopes, false gods, witches, intellectual pride, nearsightedness, everything, it seemed to me, except maybe E. coli and John Updike novels."
Some of these notable ones being: the demons of Philosophy and Handwriting Analysis. Since when is my degree minor a demon?

I am angered because this is the view that many people are getting of the church today. What this truly is, is a perversion of the original order, a cult. It is also the most outspoken American group of 'Christians'. How are we as Christians supposed to act when we see this kind of thing? I would find it hard to muster the strength to go up to a preacher and tell the man, 'HEY! YOU! YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!' This almost seems to be a potential media crisis that Christians need to dealing with because I get the impression that its leading most of the western world to believe we are crazies.