LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY enkinhou)

...WTF?!?!?

Straight Pride Wear

May not seem that bad, until you see these two pages:

About Us: Straight Pride Clothing Company

Save America: Straight Pride Clothing Company

So, I'm betting this is part of the Dominionist shadow economy that we know all-too-well about...

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

Today's Salon (day pass required) has a great article about the mixture of sports and evangelical Christianity.

Former NFL player Anthony Prior is one of the most outspoken critics of Christian practice in pro football. Prior, a defensive back for the Jets, Vikings and Raiders from 1995 to 2000, has published a book, "The Slave Side of Sunday," that likens the experience of black pro footballers to slavery. He cites a deep racism in a system in which whites hold most of the administrative positions of power, and in which young black men burn out their bodies in short, physically brutal careers like so many plantation field workers.

Religion, Prior says, is one means by which players are inured to injustices and encouraged to swallow the status quo. "It's mind-boggling the way they push Christianity on players," says Prior. "It's packaged in a way to basically make players submissive."

Prior also questions popular religious practices in pro football that he believes border on the superstitious and silly. "How can you say Jesus helped you score that touchdown when the player you beat believes in Jesus too?" asks Prior. "You've embarrassed him in front of his fans. God answers your prayer and not his? Why pray for protection for your body? You can get seriously injured, even die, in a professional football game. But my philosophy has been that if you're scared to play, don't play."

In training camp, Prior adds, some marginal players vying for roster spots carry around their Bibles and attend religious services to impress management. If they're still on the roster after the final cuts, "then their Bible is nowhere to be found," Prior says. "Until they get injured, of course, and then the Bible is back in your hand."

Prior and others say evangelicals often drive a wedge between players on a team, with Bible study and chapel participants forming one camp and the outliers forming another. Former NBA player and Dennis Rodman sidekick Jack Haley has described such a dynamic affecting the San Antonio Spurs teams of the mid-1990s. The Christian faction was led by the fervent new convert and team superstar David Robinson; Haley and the decidedly unreligious Rodman headed up the other clique.

Esera Tuaolo, who played in the NFL for 10 years before retiring in 2000, says he was offended by team religious practice during his season with the Jacksonville Jaguars, whose roster included a group of players participating in Champions for Christ, another evangelical sports ministry. As Tuaolo, a Christian, told Between the Lines, a Michigan weekly, the evangelicals formed a clique and displayed an intolerant attitude toward teammates who did not share their beliefs. "I went to a Bible study, and, lo and behold, it was about homosexuality," recalls Tuaolo, who came out as a gay man after his retirement. "I was thinking, 'Is this a sign?' That was what really turned me off."

"Evangelical Christianity is very exclusive in its claims," Hoffman says. "And that doesn't go down well in a society where you're not supposed to make judgments about someone else." In the evangelical mind-set, he adds, "the gospel is pretty cut-and-dried: There's a formula for going to heaven, and if you don't follow it, you're doomed."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This LA Times article talks about the 'Left Behind' video game:

One game, "Left Behind: Eternal Forces," which debuts today at the expo, features plenty of biblical smiting, albeit with high-tech weaponry as players battle the forces of the Antichrist in a smoldering world approaching Armageddon.

The creators hope the game packs enough action to appeal to a generation of kids reared on such titles as "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" and subtly coax them to consider their own spirituality.

"Eternal Forces" is part of a new wave of religious games coming out at a time when the mainstream industry faces increasing criticism that its products celebrate misogynistic mayhem. Another publisher is marketing games based on the "Veggie Tales" series of Christian videos for children. Another is pitching "Bibleman: A Fight for Faith," about a superhero who stands up for the word of God with his sidekicks Cypher and Biblegirl.

Games "will be a new tool to get the two-minute generation to think about matters of eternal importance in a way that isn't religious," said Troy A. Lyndon, one of the "Left Behind" game's creators.

Christian-themed games historically have had limited appeal. Developer Digital Praise has sold a reported 30,000 copies of its most popular product, a Christian title called "Dance Praise." By contrast, "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" has sold 5.1 million copies worldwide.

" 'Left Behind' has the Antichrist, the end of the world, the apocalypse," said co-creator Jeffrey S. Frichner. "It's got all the Christian stuff, and it's still got all the cool stuff."

***

But critics counter that, in an effort to make Christian games appealing, developers such as Lyndon and Frichner are doing little more than putting a religious veneer on the same violent fare.

"We're going to push this game at Christian kids to let them know there's a cool shooter game out there," said attorney Jack Thompson, an author and outspoken critic of video game violence. "Because of the Christian context, somehow it's OK? It's not OK. The context is irrelevant. It's a mass-killing game."

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY jehovahsfitness)

Often Christians use the creation accounts in Genesis to justify domination of animals and the natural world in general. However, I noticed this interesting tidbit in the Book of Ecclesiastes the other day:

"For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity." (Ecc 3:19 KJV, emphasis mine)

The world "breath" is of particular note. I'd say the translators fudged this one to maintain the previously mentioned view that humans are superior to animals. The original Hebrew "ruach" can be translated as "breath" but is more often rendered as "spirit". In fact, two verses down (in an equally interesting passage) "ruach" is translated as "spirit":

"Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?" (Ecc 3:21 KJV)

or more clearly:

"Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?" (NIV)

After all, humans are animals too: "I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts." (Ecc 3:18)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY larathia)

Good news, possibly? I know Protect Marriage Illinois has popped up here before.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY gkingsley)

Shockingly, teenagers who pledge to keep their virginity sometimes have their fingers crossed.

http://www.southflorida.com/news/chi-0605080119may08,0,2235851.story

Thanks to chimp_ninja for the link.