From my friend Vance, on Facebook, a link that announces an option for your Hallowe’en entertainment:
Halloween Book Burning

Burning Perversions of God’s Word

October 31, 2009
7:00 PM – Till
Great Preaching and Singing
Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan’s bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect. These are perversions of God’s Word the King James Bible.
We will also be burning Satan’s music such as country , rap , rock , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel , contempory Christian , jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.
We will also be burning Satan’s popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort , Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham , Rick Warren , Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll , John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn , Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa , The Pope , Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.
We are not burning Bibles written in other languages that are based on the TR. We are not burning the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva or other translations that are based on the TR.
We will be serving Bar-b-Que Chicken, fried chicken, and all the sides.
If you have any books or music to donate, please call us for pick-up. If you like you can drop them off at our church door anytime. Thanks.
My thoughts on reading this announcement, in no particular order:
- Is burning the most environmentally responsible way to dispose of Satan’s books? Wouldn’t some sort of satanic literature sequestration work just as well? Or will they also be selling carbon offsets at the event?
- Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris did not merit explicit mention on the list of Satan’s popular books. Not popular enough? Not satanic enough? Are the folks who did publicity for their books going to have to answer for this in meetings at their publishing houses?
- Klezmer is totally not an explicitly listed satanic music genre. Not something I would have guessed, but it is really catchy.
- I wonder if any of those side dishes (with the BBQ’d and fried chicken) are vegetarian.
- Will there also be bobbing for apples? Or does the soot from the book burning interfere with optimal conditions for apple-bobbing?
I think we’ll stick to trick-or-treating this year.
My first thoughts were, “Wow, that’s a really…interesting list of books” and then “These guys probably need to read more”. I also wondered whether “western” music meant “western classical music”. All in all, doesn’t seem the best way to spend one’s Halloween.
This is another bizarre manifestation of the King James Version only movement–hence the mention of “popular” books by textual critics Westcott, Hort, and Metzger. It should be an impressive event, especially if all fourteen members of the church show up.
Kinda generous that Bibles in other languages are not burnt.
I also noticed that Hector Avalos and Bart Ehrman were left off the list. These people are eating their own, and in a way I am disgusted by the environmental hazards of burning books and plastic; while at the same time chortling a bit about this. And, to their credit, they are not as crazy as the evil Nigerian churches who have taken to mutilating “witch” children.
“Western” is almost certainly the other half of “country and western”…
That’s fucking hilarious! My first thought was, “What *don’t* these people consider to be satanic? Stabbing your own eye out with a pencil?”
Richard Dawkins may not be satanic enough, but apparently the Pope and Mother Theresa are.
Mmm… fried chicken with a heavy reeking aftertaste of burnt plastic. It’s gonna be great.
I can see them cooking the food over the burning books and plastics, and having the local emergency room filled up later that evening.
What idiots.
Wow! That would be all my books (Bibles included) and all but three of my CDs. How crazy would my old women’s studies textbooks make them? Especially the feminist theology ones.
From the first paragraph of the front page of the church’s site:
Pastor Marc is right: you don’t have to look long to get the impression that he’s a dim bulb.
BBQ chicken and ALL the sides!!??!!?!?!??! I wonder if it is potluck styling…I used to LOVE me some church potlucks.
Although I suspect that sbh may be a estimating their membership a little high…At least I should hope that would be the case.