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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Once again I am very grateful a Sovereign
all-knowing God does the choosing...knowing the heart.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com
href="mailto:donovanjarnold2005@yahoo.com">Donovan Arnold</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=nickgier@adelphia.net
href="mailto:nickgier@adelphia.net">nickgier@adelphia.net</A> ; <A
title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, May 27, 2007 9:05 PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Vision2020] The Passing of
an Ugly Giant of the Religious Right</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Lord knows that I have every reason not to like Jerry Falwell and I
certainly could not force myself to shed a tear for his
passing. However, I think that Nick Gier's posting is uncalled for,
distasteful, mean spirited and can be taken for nothing else than dancing
on the grave of person that he disagrees with. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I think it is unfortunate that liberals engage in this childish
behavior, laughing at the corpses of those they disagree with. To me it is a
tragedy that Mr. Falwell died believing as he did. It would have been more
meaningful for him to live to be able to more open-minded. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Best,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Donovan<BR><BR><B><I>nickgier@adelphia.net</I></B> wrote:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Greetings:<BR><BR>This
is my radio commentary on KRFP for next week, which has also been published
in "Sandpoint Reader," "New West Magazine (online)," and "The Los Cabos
Daily News." Two comments from "New West" are priceless and I have appended
them below.<BR><BR>Warning: Doug Wilson is mentioned in this post. Here is
one sentence of note: "Wilson is different from Falwell in at least one
respect: he has yet to apologize for any of his serial
serrations."<BR><BR>Nick Gier, Proud Intolerista<BR><BR>Intolerance is not a
vice if one is intolerant of bigotry, dishonesty, deception, ugly behavior,
and bad manners.<BR><BR><BR>New West Comments:<BR><BR>By Irwin Horowitz,
5-25-07<BR><BR>I was wondering if I could apply for the position of the
Anti-Christ? I am alive today, I'm male, and I'm of Jewish descent. Are
there any other qualifications?<BR><BR>By Sisyphus, 5-25-07<BR><BR>Best
eulogy I've seen yet. Thanks professor. So from this I gather he seems the
likely marketing progenitor for Ann Coulter.<BR><BR>Irwin, does your mom
walk on all fours? Got any odd 666 markings in the epidermal layer? No, I'm
sure Mr. Falwell meant all of you that fit that category. Oh my I just
realized you guys have control of Judea. That can't be good. Let me know if
you see four horseman cause I got some sacraments to get under my belt.
<BR><BR>Go to www.newwest.net, click politics, and read my response to the
Falwell apologist.<BR><BR>THE PASSING OF AN UGLY GIANT <BR>OF THE RELIGIOUS
RIGHT <BR><BR>Merciful Father, hear our prayer: Please let the death of your
wayward servant the Rev. Jerry Falwell be a sign that an era has ended, and
a new one has begun.<BR><BR>--Mary C. Schulken, Charlotte Observer
(5/17/07)<BR><BR>The closest I ever came to Jerry Falwell was a 1983 debate
I had with Cal Thomas, then the Vice-President of Moral Majority (1980-85)
and now a nationally syndicated columnist. <BR><BR>For the first time in my
debating career I actually experienced stage fright, but after 15 minutes I
recovered my confidence and made some good points. At the end of the
evening, Thomas came over to me, put his arm around me, and said: "Nick, I
would love to take a class from you sometime." <BR><BR>Falwell himself,
however, was rarely so gracious. Mel White, a speech writer who left
Falwell's employ after coming out as gay, said that Falwell was always nice
in person, but when he appeared in public he grew horns and a
tail.<BR><BR>In 1980 Falwell agreed with Bailey Smith, President of the
Southern Baptist Convention, that God does not answer the prayers of Jews.
Falwell always condemned secular humanists, but for someone to restrict the
actions of an omnipotent and free deity is the height of humanistic hubris.
<BR><BR>In a 1958 sermon Falwell proclaimed that the segregation of the
races was divinely ordained: "When God has drawn a line of distinction, we
should not attempt to cross that line." Here is yet another example of the
arrogance, usually attributed to humanists, of fundamentalist ministers
claiming to have the truth about texts written and transmitted by fallible
human beings who were not witness to the events about which they were
writing.<BR><BR>After the Holocaust, there is nothing uglier and more
reprehensible than anti-Semitism, but the Jewish prayer example was only one
of many. Falwell was always in legal and financial hot water, and he
objected to one ruling against him on the grounds that the judge was Jewish.
In January, 1999, Falwell proclaimed that the Anti-Christ was now alive
among us and that he was a Jewish male. <BR><BR>His most famous offense was
the linking of the 9/11attack to the ACLU, People for the American Way,
pagans, abortionists, gays, and lesbians. Addressing them directly, he said:
"You made this happen." Earlier Falwell had said that the sins of these same
groups had led God to use the AIDS epidemic as a divine judgment for a world
that had ignored the laws of God.<BR><BR>Speaking about his brash statements
to NPR on June 30, 2006, he said that "none of them [happened] by chance."
This makes all of his apologies for the statements above rather suspect.
They all appear to have been shrewd PR calculations. <BR><BR>For example, he
apologized for his 9/11 statements, but then essentially repeated them, not
once but twice, on NPR (6/30/06) and on CNN (5/8/07). He once said: "Thank
God for these gay demonstrators. If I didn't have them, I'd have to invent
them. They give me all the publicity I need." <BR><BR>When Larry King was
asked why he had Falwell on his show so many times, his response was: "He
gets people mad." Journalists such King are partially responsible for the
fissures that Falwell and other preachers like him have created in American
culture.<BR><BR>Sadly, there are many evangelists waiting in the wings to
take Falwell's place. Douglas Wilson, pastor of Moscow's second largest
church is one of them. One of Wilson's books is entitled The Serrated Edge,
in which he defends the use of cutting humor to advance the Gospel. Wilson
and Falwell are masters at applying their wicked blades to the body politic.
<BR><BR>Wilson, however, is different from Falwell in at least one respect:
he has yet to apologize for any of his serial serrations. He warns his flock
never to be embarrassed by what the Bible literally says, even if it means
ancient laws that allows slavery or mandates capital punishment for
homosexuality, adultery, child disobedience, and apostasy.<BR><BR>In 1987,
when Falwell dissolved the Moral Majority, he said: "I shudder to think
where the country would be right now if the Religious Right had not
evolved." Yes, Jerry, we are all shuddering, but for the opposite reason.
<BR><BR>David Kuo, an evangelical who once headed Bush's faith-based
initiative, said that "Jerry Falwell almost single handedly blurred the line
between Jesus and conservative politics to the detriment of both." Falwell's
former Vice-President Cal Thomas sums it up best: "Little was accomplished
in the political arena and much was lost in the spiritual realm."
<BR><BR>Mary Schulken finishes her prayer: "We commend to you, Lord, the
soul of your wayward servant. He had a profound influence on politics and
culture in the past two decades. But he led us by dividing us, and invoked
your name to do
it."<BR><BR><BR>=======================================================<BR>List
services made available by First Step Internet, <BR>serving the communities
of the Palouse since 1994. <BR>http://www.fsr.net
<BR>mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com<BR>=======================================================<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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