Professor Plum took one look at your lowly mail room clerk and turned around at the mail room door. Ms. Scarlet dashed away behind him. (More)
They left to join the resident faculty in the wine cellar mail room, where they’ll spend the weekend drinking thinking on our motto of Magis vinum, magis verum (“More wine, more truth”). Chef, the Squirrel, and the Professor of Astrology Janitor moved the staff poker game into the kitchen. Your lowly mail room clerk has not asked what Chef will make for breakfast.
We. Have. Had. Enough.
This weekend Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) said he didn’t know if President Obama is a Christian, and RedState founder Erick Erickson went even further:
I don’t think Barack Obama is a Christian. He certainly is not one in any meaningful way.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) February 22, 2015
Reporters outraged by suggestion Obama isn’t a Christian are the same ones who won’t ask Obama if he thinks Jesus is the only way to Heaven.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) February 22, 2015
We think it’s worth noting that Erickson’s wife is a Southern Baptist – a religion that admitted it was founded to preserve black slavery – and Gov. Walker’s father is a retired Baptist minister. Of course this doesn’t prove that Erickson and Gov. Walker are bigots. Their words and actions do. Erickson claimed President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because the committee “had an affirmative action quota,” and Gov. Walker has a long history of playing on the politics of white resentment.
Doubting President Obama’s religion has a long history in the white wing. FactCheck.org first debunked emails “sliming Obama” in 2007. Since then, snopes.com has debunked several white wing conspiracy theories about the president’s religion:
- No, then-Sen. Obama did not ‘admit’ he was a Muslim in an ABC News interview.
- No, President Obama did not replace the Oval Office flags with a Muslim prayer curtain (indeed no such curtain exists).
- No, President Obama’s wedding ring is not inscribed with “There is no god but Allah.”
- No, Fox News was not forced to cancel a documentary exposing the president as a Muslim.
- No, President Obama did not declare a National Muslim Appreciation Month or propose a nationwide Muslim outreach program for children.
- No, President Obama did not flash a ‘Muslim solidarity gang sign’ at a White House meeting of African leaders.
- No, President Obama is not “secretly importing” 75,000 Muslims into the U.S.
As for Erickson’s hint that the media should ask President Obama if Christ is the only way to heaven, we suggest Erickson ask that question of Pope Francis:
Francis based his homily on the message of Christ to his disciples taken from the Gospel of Mark. Francis delivered his message by sharing a story of a Catholic who asked a priest if atheists were saved by Christ.
“They complain,” Francis said, “If he is not one of us, he cannot do good. If he is not of our party, he cannot do good.” He explained that Jesus corrected them, “Do not hinder him, he says, let him do good.”
The disciples, Pope Francis explained, “were a little intolerant,” closed off by the idea of possessing the truth, convinced that “those who do not have the truth, cannot do good.” “This was wrong… Jesus broadens the horizon.” Pope Francis said, “The root of this possibility of doing good – that we all have – is in creation.”
[…]
Francis explained himself, “The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart, do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can… “The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ, all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!” We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”
We conclude that Gov. Walker and Erickson illustrate a common joke about heaven, where St. Peter is giving a tour for new arrivals. As they walk down the famed gold-paved streets, they smell incense wafting from a huge cathedral. “Those are the Catholics,” Peter explains.
They next pass a building from which joyous music and unintelligible chants emerge. Peter smiles and says “And these are the Pentecostals.”
Peter then puts his fingertip to his lips and tiptoes past the next building. Once the newcomers are halfway down the next block, one asks: “Why did we have to tiptoe back there?”
“Ahh,” Peter says. “Those are the Baptists. They don’t think anyone else is here.”
+++++
Happy Sunday!
Great, GREAT takedown. Thank you so very much. May it go viral.
Here’s the historical thing that Erickson should look up: When the Reformation was going on, and various protestant sects were being founded, there was one thing that all of them agreed with the Catholic Church on: That the Baptists were heretics. Hence, “not real Christians,” and thus subject to all the penalties for that.
Interesting point, Norbrook. Hah!
You got me. I was going back to the National Council of Churches in the 1940s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Council_of_Churches
Apparently Universalists are not real Christians.
Look up Anabaptists. Most of the “Baptist” churches descend from this movement.
Mrs. Erickson, Erick’s mother, clearly failed to teach him basic manners.
MAIN point! WTG!