Al Gore won an Oscar last night for his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” An Oscar that everyone saw coming from 2 million light years away. Which is why I’m not surprised that conservatives were ready to counterattack this morning with a number of articles pooh-poohing the reality of global warming. None, however, may be more audacious than the Reverend Jerry Falwell, who issued his own Christianist Fatwa against the environmental movement yesterday:
LYNCHBURG, Va. The Reverend Jerry Falwell says global warming is “Satan’s attempt to redirect the church’s primary focus” from evangelism to environmentalism.
Falwell told his Baptist congregation in Lynchburg yesterday that “the jury is still out” on whether humans are causing — or could stop — global warming.
But he said some “naive Christian leaders” are being “duped” by arguments like those presented in former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth. Falwell says the documentary should have been titled “A Convenient Untruth.”
Falwell said the Bible teaches that God will maintain the Earth until Jesus returns, so Christians should be responsible environmentalists, but not what he calls … quote … “first-class nuts.”
Read those quotes from Falwell carefully. In effect, Falwell is saying that Al Gore is a “first class nut,” is in “league with Satan” to deflect the church from focusing on the rapture its evangelical mission, and is duping any Christian naive enough to believe the “snake oil” Al Gore (and, the overwhelming consensus of Satan worshippers climate scientists) is peddling on the global climate crisis.
This is first class propaganda folks. Al Gore last night at the Academy Awards said that global warming is not a Republican issue, or a Democratic issue, it’s a moral issue. Reverend Falwell is doing his damnedest to convince conservative Christians that Gore is wrong, and that even believing in the reality anyone with open eyes can see is blasphemy. It’s slick, it’s sick and it is an utterly unprincipled lie. In short, it’s classic right wing bullshit, from a one of the biggest holier than thou blowhards on the American scene today.
Falwell’s words, and the actions (or lack thereof) he demands from his flock are also profoundly immoral. But that’s par for the course from Falwell, a man who blamed America first for the 9/11 terror attacks, rather than the religious extremists who carried them out. A man who demonizes homosexuals and muslims every chance he gets. A man who is a well known racist and anti-semite.
We should have expected that he would issue such bigoted and irrational statements in an attempt to smear Al Gore and confuse his followers regarding the greatest moral crisis of this Century, global climate change. A crisis which threatens millions of species with extinction, and which also threatens to kill or displace hundreds of millions of people worldwide, especially those who live in the poorest countries on earth. However, the slaughter of innocents has never been much of a concern for Reverend Falwell, nor has the expression of Christian mercy or compassion ever been his primary mission in life. He regularly preaches a Gospel that ignores the teachings of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, as if they were The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, rather than some of the most beautiful and important spiritual messages ever communicated. No Falwell prefers his own gospel of hate, not the one Jesus proclaimed which made love it’s greatest commandment.
Ecce homo. Behold the man. This is what he does. This is who he is.
bumping yours above mine as yours posted as I was creating mine….
I just put yours back in the hopper. Post it again in an hour or so, ok.
Also posted at Daily Kos
I would suggest that we start using the term “radical cleric” to describe people like Falwell. There are a lot of conservative Christians – people we liberals will often disagree with – who avoid being the type of wretched asshole which Falwell has been for decades for fun and profit.
Suggested memes.
“Radical segregationist cleric Jerry Falwell today announced a sacroturf operation against global warming effortss by Christians, denouncing such efforts and their major prominent Al Gore as fulfilling the work of Satan.”
“Southern Christianity is often quite conservative in tone, but difference in degree must be noted between conservative Christianity and the revanchist sacroturf of radical cleric Jerry Falwell.”
“Reasonable minds may differ as to whether which radical cleric – Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson – is more offensive to the sensibilities of moderate, educated Christians outside the most rural and least educated segments of U.S. society.”
Under no circumstances adorn him with the title Reverend; a man who denounces good science and meritorious public citizens as the work of Satan is a fucking threat to our livelihood and is not to be revered (reverendus. We need not honor him the way we would honor decent, moderate and non-batshit conservative Christian leaders. Let his congregation stroke his ego, we need not.
If this be shrill and rude, rude and shrill it be.
Good point.
Radical Extremist Cleric Jerry Falwell. Has a nice ring to it.
I wonder if Falwell’s statements will earn him antoher big kiss from John McCain.
that as Christians we are called to be faithful stewards of the gifts that are given to us. To me, that means taking care of the earth — if the Landlord’s Son is truly coming to make a visit, the last thing we should want him to see is how badly we the tenants have trashed the place.
Falwell and his type are the ones that worry about the little things that shouldn’t affect them — what difference does it make to the state of their own soul if same-gender couples get married? — but ignore the major issues such as poverty and environmental ruin, to their (and our) eternal peril…
Doesn’t God communicate directly with the Decider? You’re doing a heckuva job, Georgie.
and others like him to PUBLICLY show an unnatural, almighty connection or power that they claim to have that gives them such control over the weak minded. Some objectively judged public unnatural event, maybe such as a levitation of a heavy object or turning lake Michigan into real beer, and then we CAN objectively listen to him or anyone else so proven endowed.
This personal power preaching in the name of an almighty, unscientific force has persisted for thousands of years unchallenged by so many! For the life of me, I can’t figure out why, but just as importantly since it is not provable what these guys say, why don’t they get challenged by talkers to other gods that say they are wrong. For the weak minded, this might place them in a very uncomfortable catch 22 position because you never really know who is talking to the true almighty now do you?????
There is no discoverable connection between Christianity and global-warming denial. Falwell tries to cover up his complete failure to make the case with psychotic rhetoric.
What his latest outburst proves beyond any further doubt: Falwell serves, not any god, not any “faith”, but those who bankroll him. Period. His followers, and the followers of the many wealthy charlatans like him, are notable for their propensity to rage. So how come they’re so meek when their heroes show beyond any doubt that they’re playing those followers for fools?
If I get this correctly, I guess the good Reverend Falwell figures that true Evangelicals really aren’t into multitasking??