January 24, 2010 | 5:14 am

The devil’s greatest trick

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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I’ve referenced it before but the line at the end of this clip is one of my favorite in American film history. Just caught it again on Encore. Enjoy.

January 22, 2010 | 9:59 pm

Limbaugh: Jews own Wall St.

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

A year ago, I was blogging furiously—and pitching a book—about the classic anti-Semitic canards in the economic crash. Unlike Bill Donahue, it appears Rush Limbaugh, that old gasbag, doesn’t read The God Blog. Just listen what he had to say in the above clip, or read on:

Limbaugh told his listeners: “To some people, banker is a code word for Jewish; and guess who Obama is assaulting?  He’s assaulting bankers.  He’s assaulting money people.  And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there’s—if there’s starting to be some buyer’s remorse there.”

Either clueless or calculated.

This got Abe Foxman going; he referred to the comments as “borderline anti-Semitic.” At least, and Limbaugh responded today with an apology.

Personally, I preferred when Tommy Thompson made this misstep. It was more unexpected and a lot more naive.

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January 22, 2010 | 5:22 pm

Huckabee leads Obama in 2012 polls

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This can’t be happening. Huckabee is making a comeback?

New numbers from Public Policy Polling finds Mike Huckabee leading—LEADING—President Obama in the 2012 race for the White House:

Obama 44 - Huckabee 45 - Und 11

Obama 49 - Palin 41 - Und 9

Obama 44 - Petraeus 34 - Und 21

Obama 44 - Romney 42 - Und 15

Logic is failing me.

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January 21, 2010 | 11:45 pm

No ‘Legion’ of fans

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

“Legion,” another in a line of apocalyptic films, comes out tomorrow. Though I don’t expect anyone will see it. Nor should they. This movie, apparently about what happens when God gets angry with mankind in a post-Flood world, looks really, really, really, really, really, really ridiculous.

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January 21, 2010 | 7:01 pm

Scott Brown looks good naked

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Don’t trust me. Look for yourself.

Sarah Palin had her beauty pageant, but she was no centerfold. Scott Brown was.

Long before the Massachussets Republican won the race to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, Brown was a 22-year-old law student and the winner of Cosmo’s contest for America’s Sexiest Man. Part of the honor must have included reclining naked in the pages of the lady lad mag. This isn’t news, but it’s been getting a lot of play today; Cosmo rehashed the story in September:

“Here at Cosmo we’ve had bachelors go on to be actors, models, and reality show stars, so we’re thrilled that one has gone on to become a politician,” says Kate White, Cosmo’s editor in chief. Obviously we know how to pick ’em. This particular bachelor has always had political ambitions and even admitted to being “a bit of a patriot” when we interviewed him.

The Washington Post’s PostPartisan blog quipped that Brown has broken the centerfold barrier.

I’m not sure the Republican constituent base ever thought Playgirl’s Jackie Robinson would come from the Grand Ol’ Party. But we could always blame it on Massachusetts.

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January 20, 2010 | 9:41 pm

Gingers have souls

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I didn’t realize the prejudice against Gingers had risen to such a level. But, as this kid assures us in a video that appears fake, they do have souls. Warning: This kid drops a big f-bomb right in the middle of this rant.

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January 20, 2010 | 2:09 pm

The prosperity gospel and the economic crisis

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Whoops. I let this one slip by. Twice.

“Did Christianity Cause the Crash?” was the headline from the December issue of The Atlantic. The short answer is, no, Christianity did not cause the crash, though the prosperity gospel didn’t help. Yes, a case of bad headline writing but good reporting by Godbeat ace Hanna Rosin.

An excerpt:

THEOLOGICALLY, THE PROSPERITY GOSPEL has always infuriated many mainstream evangelical pastors. Rick Warren, whose book The Purpose Driven Life outsold Osteen’s, told Time, “This idea that God wants everybody to be wealthy? There is a word for that: baloney. It’s creating a false idol. You don’t measure your self-worth by your net worth. I can show you millions of faithful followers of Christ who live in poverty. Why isn’t everyone in the church a millionaire?” In 2005, a group of African American pastors met to denounce prosperity megapreachers for promoting a Jesus who is more like a “cosmic bellhop,” as one pastor put it, than the engaged Jesus of the civil-rights era who looked after the poor.

More recently, critics have begun to argue that the prosperity gospel, echoed in churches across the country, might have played a part in the economic collapse. In 2008, in the online magazine Religion Dispatches, Jonathan Walton, a professor of religious studies at the University of California at Riverside, warned:

Narratives of how “God blessed me with my first house despite my credit” were common … Sermons declaring “It’s your season of overflow” supplanted messages of economic sobriety and disinterested sacrifice. Yet as folks were testifying about “what God can do,” little attention was paid to a predatory subprime-mortgage industry, relaxed credit standards, or the dangers of using one’s home equity as an ATM.

In 2004, Walton was researching a book about black televangelists. “I would hear consistent testimonies about how ‘once I was renting and now God let me own my own home,’ or ‘I was afraid of the loan officer, but God directed him to ignore my bad credit and blessed me with my first home,’” he says. “This trope was so common in these churches that I just became immune to it. Only later did I connect it to this disaster.”

You already know that I’m no fan of the prosperity gospel. More of my discussion of this article at GetReligion.

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January 19, 2010 | 9:58 pm

British military using ‘Jesus guns’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

You’ve heard, more than once, “praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” but this report from the Daily Mail is on another level:

British soldiers in Afghanistan are to be issued with guns inscribed with references to passages from the Bible -  risking handing a propaganda victory to Muslim extremists.

The sights for the Sharpshooter assault rifle, bought this week to boost the fight against the Taliban, are etched with the characters JN8:12.

This is a reference to chapter 8 verse 12 in the book of John, which reads: ‘When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”.’

I think I’ve got to agree with the PR problem this poses. (At least for once it’s not an American-generated problem.) I mean, we’re not talking about In-N-Out cups here. Many in the Muslim world have long seen the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the broader, amorphous war on terror, as being part of a war on Islam. How will they reconcile this with our proclamations that it isn’t?

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January 19, 2010 | 12:45 am

Mike Greenberg’s little verbal mistake *

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’ve always wanted to claim some relation to Mike Greenberg—maybe there is some distant relation—because the guy’s pretty awesome. But boy did he have quite the slip of tongue today when referencing the MLK holiday on “Mike and Mike in the Morning.”

You can hear it in the above clip. Turn the volume up. As they came back from commercial, Greenberg welcomed viewers back on this “Martin Luthern Coon—King Jr. holiday.” It sounds like he accidentally combined “King” and “junior,” and the verbal misstep is being received as plainly that. Still, I’m reading on sports blogs that an explanation is in order:

Nothing in Greenberg’s history shows that he intentionally meant to do it, but an explanation and apology is needed and it is needed immediately. I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He appears to be a very nice guy and there has never been any hint of controversy surrounding him to my knowledge.

So an apology would be enough for me.

More at You Been Blinded.

*Updated: Here’s that clarification from Greeny:

I just came home from the Knicks game and found out about the mess that was created by my garbling a sentence on our show this morning;  I apologize for not addressing it sooner.

And I’m sorry that my talking too fast - and slurring my words - might have given people who don’t know our show the wrong impression about us, and about me.

I feel horrible about that, because nothing could be further away from who I am and what our show is about.

I would never say anything like that, not in public, or in private, or in the silence of my own mind, and neither would anyone associated with our show, and I’m very sorry that my stumble this morning gave so many people the opposite impression.

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January 19, 2010 | 12:08 am

Sending solar-powered Bibles to Haiti

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’ve heard of sending solar-powered cookers to Darfur. But this response to the crisis in Haiti, a response to what must be the anger many are feeling with God, is a new one. It’s a Bible:

Not any Bible. These are solar-powered audible Bibles that can broadcast the holy scriptures in Haitian Creole to 300 people at a time.

Called the “Proclaimer,” the audio Bible delivers “digital quality” and is designed for “poor and illiterate people,” the Faith Comes By Hearing group said. It added 600 of the devices were already on their way to Haiti.

The Albuquerque-based organisation said it was responding to the Haitian crisis by “providing faith, hope and love through God’s Word in audio.”

More from Reuters here. And you can hear a reading of John 3 in Creole here.

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January 18, 2010 | 6:55 pm

MLK’s prophetic legacy

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The third Monday of January is more than just a chance to stay home and watch a little NBA while it pours rain—yes, even in Southern California—outside. This is, of course, the day with which we honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. It’s a legacy that really can’t be understated, but it’s also one so casually appreciated that I can’t imagine many people stop to really appreciate it often. I know I don’t.

Reporters try to to remind us of why this day matters, but, much like any routine holiday coverage, it’s difficult to find an inspiring way to tell the same story each year.

This might help. It’s a collection of a few of MLK’s quotes, appearing on the blog of a college friend of mine who was reviewing them for the Fuller Theological Seminary student newspaper:

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

“Returning violence for violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars…Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Read the rest here.

My favorite MLK quote, which I hear whenever I listen to a good, old “Good Riddance” album, appears in the above video and after the jump:

Read more of this post

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January 17, 2010 | 11:08 pm

‘Jersey Shore’s’ Israeli stalker

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I haven’t brought myself to watch “Jersey Shore,” the MTV reality show about white trash life in the beautiful Garden State, but, as a classmate told me during finals, the show can be great for making you feel like you’re not such a disaster.

That being said, what follows is based on the viewing habits of the VideoJew, who passed on this tidbit to me this weekend. It seems that this week an Israeli woman made an appearance on two episodes. She “talked about no sex before marriage, kosher food, Israel ... then she turns into a stalker.”

Sounds like some anti-religious hate? Maybe. But I looked into this a bit more and found this report from Mediaite:

The Israeli girl Danielle keeps showing up on the boardwalk. Upon her second impromptu appearance, she presents Pauly D with a custom shirt that says “I Love Jewish Girls” with an Italian flag. It’s a nice, albeit slightly creepy, gesture. “Hell no I’m not wearing that shirt,” says Pauly D. “At this point I’m starting to think ’she’s mad weird that chick.’”

She continues randomly appearing, and now it’s on full stalker status. Pauly D leaves the phone off the hook so Danielle doesn’t call. In the morning, he has to talk to her. “I just met the girl, she already stalks my whole life,” he says in a post-interview. But on the phone, after she flips out on him, he counters. “If you weren’t such a f—-ing stalker I would have called you when I got home,” he says, and hangs up on her. Of course, she appears later in the episode, and they go home together.

I’m not sure about this, but based on the boardwalk’s history as a mecca for pitchmen and based on the Jewish history of peddling and operating mall kiosks, I have to wonder if Danielle was just looking to boost her business or her brand. Is there any other reason people go on these shows?

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