LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY loquaciousnut)

This made me laugh, for some reason. :-)

Let us eat goldfish
November 1, 2005

The First Assembly of God Church in Florence, Alabama, has agreed to discontinue its practice of asking teenagers to swallow live goldfish. A minister, Anthony Martin, said the goal was to teach the teenagers about fear.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals asked for a ban on the practice, Associated Press reports. The pastor, Greg Woodall, replied to the group in a letter: "I do appreciate your concern and just wanted to let you know that this will never happen again … We love God's creatures and would never want to show them harm."


http://www.smh.com.au/news/unusual-tales/let-us-eat-goldfish/2005/10/31/1130720481957.html

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This NYT article talks about the evangelical version of 'sexual purity' and how it's being seeded in the military along with some very nasty misogyny:

Sex and the Faithful Soldier
By JOHN LELAND

ADD another item to the well-equipped soldier's duffel. An evangelical radio ministry has developed a book kit meant to help soldiers protect their sexual purity, and is raising money to send 6,000 kits to chaplains who have requested them.

The kits, from New Life Ministries, which broadcasts on 150 stations nationally, is intended to promote Bible-based abstinence from pornography, adultery, nonmarital sex and masturbation. "Your goal is sexual purity," the authors write. "You are sexually pure when no sexual gratification comes from anyone or anything but your wife."( Read more... )

The Revealer has some additional thoughts on this program:

NYT Chuckles at Fundies, and Does Their Work For Them
30 October 2005

Jeff Sharlet: Are U.S. military chaplains promoting homophobia and discrimination against non-Christian women on taxpayer time? The New York Times reports that New Life Ministries plans to send 6,000 sexual abstinence kits, titled "Every Soldier's Battle," to U.S. military chaplains who've requested them as counseling tools for soldiers. The Times notes that the kits are a spin-off of the bestselling "Every Man's Battle" series, but reporter John Leland doesn't bother to investigate the source of kits, books created to help conservative evangelical men erase lust, masturbation, wet dreams, and women who don't conform to the books' vision of "male headship" from their lives. Women, meanwhile, must help men by wearing chaste clothing and not bending over in their presence. Married women must provide for their husband's satisfaction at regular intervals, regardless of their own desires.

Last spring, I wrote about the series for Rolling Stone: "The authors of the books hold up the books of Joshua and Ezekiel as armor against non-Christian women. 'Mixture,' they write, 'can destroy a people.'" The authors refer to sexually active, unmarried women with the name "Betty Jo 'B.J.' Blowers," and consider homosexuality a satanic deception to be cured through vigorous Bible study. According to the Times, "Sgt. First Class Daniel L. Roberts, a chaplain's assistant at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, requested 200 kits for troops in basic combat training." Another chaplain's assistant, Michael Music, led 100 men through the program while stationed in Iraq.

The Times seems to find it all amusing, if perhaps helpful to soldiers struggling to keep their marriages together. The peddlers of the "Every Man's Battle" series, meanwhile, must appreciate this infographic from the paper of record, tongue so firmly in cheek that it functions as advertising you couldn't buy.