Monday, August 11, 2014

Shark Jumping With Ann Coulter

Just in time for Shark Week, Ann Coulter's  August 6, 2014 column  really jumped the shark. And that is an understatement.

Coulter did a double back-flip over the shark in a column titled "Ebola Doc's Condition Downgraded To Idiotic" You can read it here: http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-08-06.html#read_more.

I know Coulter isn't everyone's cup of tea. Here's a hot blonde Ivy League graduate that can go snark for snark with all of the opinion makers in the paper today.

I found her to be a great writer-funny and insightful. I always thought a lot of people got caught up with her brash persona and didn't want to deal with her arguments. They were more interested in pointing out that she has an Adam's apple.

Her books were always fun to read. I have read her column every Wednesday night for the past ten years.

However, last week's column was a total train wreck. It made no sense.  It definitely did not make any Evangelical theological sense.  There were not any Biblical quotations mainly because there aren't any to back up her point, which seems to be DON'T GO TO AFRICA IF YOU DON'T WANT EBOLA. Ok, we got it.

It wasn't mean spirited. It was just plain mean. I can't imagine what Dr. Kent Brantly's family and friends must have thought about it. All this column did was confirm what Coulter's critics have said all along: she is a non-caring, heartless bitch. It is hard to argue with that now.

This is a great time to point out that I do not want Coulter censored and/or removed from the newspaper. She has the right to say whatever she wants and make money at it at the same time. Just like Bill Maher. Just like Russel Brand. Just like Jon Stewart. If she can get a crowd cackling at a man in quarantine with a deadly disease, more power to her.

Coulter decries Brently's service as "Christian Narcissism". (On a side note, I wonder what she thinks of Mother Theresa?). It makes me wonder if this poor little Kennesaw State grad has the same definition of  "Narcissism" as the Cornell graduate has. I understood "Narcissism" to mean having an excessive interest in yourself. Generally this would exclude physicians seeing patients in West  Africa when they could be seeing patients in America. But on the plus side, they don't have to deal with Blue Cross in West Africa.

Ironically, Coulter was almost on to something.

There is "Christian Narcissism".  It is found in the form of church members and staff that try to be so dog gone cool.

Look at the past twenty years. It used to be you got dressed in you Sunday finest and you went to church. Now, and I'm real guilty of this, a lot of people dress for church like they do for Wal-Mart.  It is like we're doing God this big favor by dragging our lazy rear ends out of bed and coming to church.

You used to sing hymns from a hymnal. I would be surprised if any sixteen year old at my church knew what a hymnal was. Hymns are kind of slow and don't have much of a beat. We had to come up with new songs so our beautiful voices can rock the heavens with our righteous sound.

You used have bulletins in church. They gave you the Order of Worship. Now, more likely than not, you just get a sermon outline that looks like this:

1. ____ is Great

2. God is _________

3. Let us ________ ______ for our food

You are no longer supposed to listen to the sermon-you are supposed to take notes like there is going to be quiz afterwards.

The problem is that there is a lot of posturing, posing and egotism in our Christian life today. There's always a hot new pastor who has written a hot new book and everyone says this book makes radical points.  Then a few years later the pastor turns out to be a jerk (I 'm looking at you, Mark Driscoll) or a guy that may/may not even believe in God at all.

That's where the narcissism is-not in Africa where a person actually sacrificing is infected with Ebola.

Forgive Ann, Lord. She knows not what she says.












No comments:

Post a Comment