Things of note today:

[catscradle]

The Pentacostal Church I studied for my Psychology of Religion course a few years ago is once again sponsering the Hell House of Denver. For those of you that don't know what a hell house is, it's a religious version of a haunted house that's intent on getting people to repent and convert. They show things like an aborted fetus and hellfire and brimstone that's suppose to represent what hell looks like, I guess.

The same church has a billboard up that supports the war with Iraq as the catalyst that will bring about the apocalypse.

Smallpox: President unsure what to do - he forgot that the vaccine causes defects in children. Oops. Probably thought it was that Polo one, but you know, it's a weird sport anyway.

Sniper: May or may not have been caught. Thanks to the FBI for that clarification.

Nick spent all of Saturday posting flyers for the protest march on the 26th. Of 100, only about 20 got ripped down so far. At least we know someone is paying attention.

Bowling for Columbine opens this weekend in Denver. We've got it playing in two art theaters here - so kudos to Denver's Landmark Theaters for getting us two copies of the film. We still don't know if there will be protests here or not. We live in NRA country - and then there are the folks that are merely reactionary and haven't looked past the title. I sincerely hope Denver surprises me and things remain calm.

Michael Moore will be on Donahue tonight to promote the movie. 8PM ET, 9PM CT, 10PM MT.

Comments

Kind OT... another church

[wiebke.livejournal.com]

Mention of that church brings up a lot of issues for me, but the most immediate is a case still pending here in Atlanta with a church called the House of Prayer. A small black church in a poor area, HoP was put in the spotlight a couple of years ago when authorities learned that the church's leader and all the adults were very, VERY big on corporal punishment and basically all the kids were beat on as a matter of course. The pastor also encouraged 13 and 14 year old girls to get married and have kids, drop out of school. Everybody lived in houses nearby the church. So the authorities (not sure if city, county or state or all of them) seized all the kids. There has been a long process of putting kids back. Every case is being judged separately as parents agree / do not agree not to beat them again. The children, including the older ones, are totally devoted to the pastor and though they admitted to the very strict punishments they received, refused to really complain about it and said they wanted to go home. Things got really complicated for 14-year-old "minors" with their *own* children. Some parents agreed to reform their methods but others won't and they're the ones whose kids are still in limbo while they battle in court, charches are pressed against minister. The weird thing for me is that while biking through a really obscure part of town, where ghetto degenerates into a sort of dilapidated old suburb / country envvironment, I actaully SAW this church -- it was Sunday and I swear it was the day the first group of kids was first let back home. Everybody was out front and there were big anti-government signs. All the houses around there were really run down. Overall I felt like I must be way out in the country like in some very rural area like Mississippi or someplace else in Georgia, but this was in Atlanta. Weird.

Re: Kind OT... another church

[catscradle.livejournal.com]

The church I studied was a very poor ethnically mixed community. The Pastor was a bit senile and he had 6 daughters - all of whom sang beautifully and were about to have they're own gospel record made. For a poor church, they had a magnificant sound system. Anyway - one night I was talking to the Pastor and he was talking about his daughters. He was telling me he just couldn't understand why one of them wanted to work (she had a degree in education) when her husband made more than enough money to support her. He preached a lot about the place of women in the home having babies - which freaked me a tad.

Then one night they had some poor girl witness. She was converting. Seems she was staying at the church because she was being abused by her family - so they used that time to convert her to their faith. Her friend was staying there too, but refused to convert or enter the church, so they were holding a prayer services and telling the girl who converted that she had to save her friend's soul.

I wasn't suppose to interfer - but my God it took ALL my strength not to grab that girl and run. What choice is there? Get the shit beat out of you at home or convert to Pentacostalism? =P

Re: Kind OT... another church

[wiebke.livejournal.com]

Well, wouldn't you know yesterday's paper had more on that church here in Atlanta...

HOUSE OF PRAYER: As jail time looms, pastor wields belt
Sermon includes mock whipping
Jill Young Miller - Staff
Monday, October 21, 2002

Even as he is about to go to jail, convicted of cruelty to children, the Rev. Arthur Allen Jr. encouraged House of Prayer members Sunday to continue whipping disobedient children.

He even took off his belt during church and gave a demonstration on a teenage boy.

The cooperative boy wasn't lashed; Allen waved the belt in the air behind him, administering a mock punishment. Allen had two men hold the boy's arms after Allen had shown how easily the boy could escape if Allen alone tried to hand-spank him.

"See if he's going to stand up there and let you hit him with a belt and you don't hold him," Allen said.

The pretend whipping mocked a judge's stern order last Thursday that Allen and his followers use only an open hand on their own children's buttocks --- and not bring them to the small Atlanta church on Hollywood Road to have them whipped while men restrain them.

A Fulton County jury convicted Allen and four other church members last week of cruelty to children, a felony, for severely whipping two boys, then 7 and 10, at the church in February 2001.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford warned Allen and the others he could put them in prison for years if they don't follow his orders on discipline. "What happened here was not about disciplining children," the judge told them. "It was about, for lack of a better word, beating children."

More: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/monday/metro_d33bb8e0b181f0690026.html

Ugh.