LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY shawnsmalley)

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/03/golden.compass.religion.ap/index.html

My favorite quote from this article:

Sister Rose Paccate, director of the Pauline Center of Media Studies in Culver City, California, said the books portray benevolence toward children and a God figure -- just one that's much different than the one Christians know.

She sees irony in calls to shun the film, considering that one of Pullman's central themes is that people should not follow orders and forfeit critical thought.

"If you just say 'no' to your kids without engaging in a conversation, they're going to see the movie anyway and all you're teaching them is power, not really teaching your values," Paccate said. "If we have faith, what are we afraid of?"

That quote pretty much sums it up for me.

In regards to the recent buyout of Livejournal by SUP Inc. (which is apparently a company owned by friends of present Russian President Vladimir Putin), and also in regards to concerns that multiple people on my LJ friends' list have raised in regards to this recent buyout:

a) In the specific case of Dark Christianity I don't expect any major changes in how we do business here. The major areas where we *have* discussed Russia and the former USSR have been in regards to Orthodox Christianity's version of the ultramontaine movement and--more directly--in regards to neopente dominionist groups that have been invading Russia and other ex-USSR countries. (Of particular note, we've discussed "Watchmen On The Walls"; its leader is a Latvian-Russian national who is prohibited from entering Russia itself under its laws against hate crimes, but who has accomplices within Russia and who has actively fomented hate crimes against LGBT people in the US, Latvia, and Ukraine.)

Unless Russia goes dominionist, it's unlikely they'll crack down on this group--but it is understandable why people would be worried, what with an increasingly poor press freedom record within the USSR.

b) If things go bad, we *do* have backup plans in place, and we have for quite some time (since the Warriors for Innocence debacle back in May of last year, in fact). Not only do we maintain regular backups of posts here on Dark Christianity (including comments), we also have backup communities set up ready to "go live" in case anything bad happens.

Users of InsaneJournal--which is becoming a very popular alternative to Livejournal, especially for people who are concerned about SUP's buyout of LJ--will want to know that a Dark Christianity RSS feed exists for the LJ community on InsaneJournal; I am also (as we speak) mirroring all Dark Christianity posts over to the InsaneJournal Dark Christianity community as an additional protective measure in the event that this community leaves Livejournal.

There are also other community options that can be put in force if need be, including Wordpress-style communities if necessary. We are not letting the community go away.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY multiclassgeek)

A friend of mine asked for help in attempting to get a handle on the source of a particularly unpleasant cold-call. It seems as if some pollster got hold of their (ex-directory) number, and was looking to do some *very* selective sampling for their survey.

( Reposted, with permission )

Whilst I realise this may not be a Dominionist group behind this, it sounds like the sort of thing they might try and pull (especially since the city where she lives has an Assemblies Megachurch in it), but I'm not aware of it having happened in the UK before. I was wondering if there was any precedent for it in other Dominionist groups? Are there any factions which have it as a 'signature tactic'?

Ideally, we'd like to try and get an idea of what (if any) Dominionist group is behind this, so that Action Can Be Taken, but any help that any of you can provide will be welcomed, even if it's just eliminating a Dominionist-friendly group as a probable/possible source of this.