I almost spewed my Egyptian licorice tea all over myself when I read the following:
And, of course, who could forget Focus on the Family founder, conservative kingmaker, and unofficial Newt Gingrich shill James Dobson’s March pronouncement that actor, lobbyist, and former Senator Fred Thompson is not a real Christian? (Culturally conservative, yes. But on the road to hell nonetheless.)
This, in turn, spurred protestations by Thompson’s camp, who cited their man’s lifelong standing as a Church of Christer. But that only served to spark Web debate about whether Thompson is a member of the fundamentalist Churches of Christ (as he reportedly professed) or of the more liberal United Church of Christ, in which he and wife Jeri were married in 2002. One political science professor at a Church of Christ-affiliated college went so far as to issue an online challenge, offering $100 to anyone producing evidence that Thompson had attended an assembly of the conservative sect in the past 20 years.
Ms. Cottle just had to be referring to HU’s beloved Mark Elrod.
Now, I haven’t been reading his blog lately; in fact, I’ve barely been reading anyone’s blog lately, except Greg’s, which should no longer be named Hermits Rock, but instead Greg Shure Dus Write A Lot About A Little.
Being that this old news, from June of this year, the blog world has moved on. Moved on so much, in fact, that Elrod has taken the post and his response to the WorldNetDaily down.
If you didn’t know about this, but I’m sure that I’m the last to find out, you can pick up fragments of the story here.
Apparently, Ms. Cottle did not do her research… but, hey, TNR is just a liberal rag anyway, why would they fact check? Oh wait, it’s the other group that doesn’t check their facts, the fair and balanced people…
Anyway, I’m sure that if TNR wanted to get the story straight the Good Dr. Elrod would help them out.
Update: For an elightening reading/explication of the hermeneutical problems involved see…
It was $100 for leading singing; if you saw him there, it was just immortality.
(You can find anything on the Intertubes if you know where to look.)
by greg—Aug 3, 03:04 PM
(It did take me longer than usual to find it, though.)
by greg—Aug 3, 03:11 PM
Good thing the Way Back Machine exists, b/c ME was censored by HU and told to remove all references to Fred Thompson. That’s why the post is no longer there.
by Birdie—Aug 3, 03:19 PM
Oh, crap, really?
Anyway, G, the $100 was supposed to be for anyone who witnessed FT leading “My God, He Is Alive.” I’m glad you guys get this joke, so I don’t have to feel bad that I don’t.
I like how that one article assured us at the end that the CoC deny being a cult!
by kl—Aug 3, 03:29 PM
Censors who don’t understand the digital world are precious.
by greg—Aug 3, 03:49 PM
3: Wayback has its limits. For example, there’s no archive of the response post.
by greg—Aug 3, 04:00 PM
i’m sorry that was way hastily written and full of syntactical errors…
quite solecistic
by Jeremy—Aug 3, 04:47 PM
Re:4 DO YOU BELIEVE IT?
then post it again…
There is a blog, (there is a blog), it has gone live, (it has gone live),…
by Jeremy—Aug 3, 04:52 PM
Andrew Sullivan also referenced the controversey on his blog a few months back. He got it totally wrong as well, painting ME as a Christianist, inquisitor type enforcing purity on the ranks (Sullivan thankfully did not name him, or link to him). Both ME and I wrote him emails correcting him, but he neither responded, nor published a correction. The whole incident lowered my opinion of Sullivan considerably.
I’ll see if I can dig up the link tomorrow.
by JH—Aug 3, 05:22 PM
but it was censored (but it was censored)
and we don’t know why (and we don’t know why)
by Jeremy—Aug 3, 05:52 PM
In time the blog (in time the blog)
might lose it stain (would lose its stain)
of censorship (of censorship)
and minor fame (and minor fame)
by greg—Aug 3, 09:18 PM
Andrew Sullivan’s lazyass post. It’s three degrees of separation from the WorldNetDaily story, which was itself remarkable in the way it revealed that its
writerautocontent generator was apparently built without a sense of humor in the same way Pinocchio was built without an ounce of flesh.by greg—Aug 3, 09:35 PM
Thanks guys.
I’ve been fighting this insanity for about 3 months, one blog at a time. I did write to the author of the TNR piece but haven’t gotten a response.
But I want to clarify one thing: I was not censored by HU — I was censored by my department chair. At the time, I thought he was speaking for the HU admin and he was not.
Oddly enough, I canceled my subscription to TNR about 15 years ago because of sloppy writing like this. I feel vindicated.
by ME—Aug 4, 07:02 PM
wow. the first time i read through these comments i assumed that birdie meant “censured” instead of “censored.” either way, it is a bummer and scrubs the fun right out of fundamentalist.
by chris—Aug 4, 07:23 PM
13: It seems to me not coincidental that 15 years ago Andrew Sullivan was TNR’s managing editor.
by greg—Aug 4, 09:50 PM