Posted on 10/28/2006 7:08:27 PM PDT by infoguy
An October 17, 2006, op-ed by Los Angeles Times columnist Joel "I Don't Support Our Troops" Stein condescendingly slams Christianity as a "death cult."
Writing a lippy account of a Presbyterian service he had recently attended, Stein belches,
"The first thing I noticed about church was how much like PBS it was. The lighting was dim, the speakers talked slowly, the songs were dated, there were a lot of references to reading material and every so often my eye line was interrupted by envelopes asking me to donate money. Also, I kept falling asleep."
And (bold added),
"I'd never realized how much of a death cult Christianity is. When we weren't fixating on how awesome Christ's murder was, we were singing about how terrific it was going to be when we bite it. Chipper up, Christians! There's a lot to live for. They're making more of those 'Narnia' movies."
Cute, eh? Ugh. There's more to Stein's column, but suffice it to say that it is a disrespectful and dismissive slap at Christianity.
A few days after Stein's arrogant column appeared, the Times, surprisingly, published two letters that were critical of the column.
Thank you, Richard Rorex of Apple Valley, California (bold mine):
Joel Stein's column would qualify as hate speech if the subject were anything other than Christianity. Making light of one of the two mandated ordinances of the Christian religion does not show any sense of decency. Considering the furor over the cartoons of Muhammad published in Europe, I do not understand why Christianity is fair game for ridicule.
And thank you, David Schwankle of Riverside, California, whose letter begins, "Even though I'm an atheist, I find myself offended by Stein's glib, juvenile ridicule of a church service."
As NewsBusters reported a couple weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times recently solicited readers for advice on how to improve their newspaper. My very first piece of advice, which I documented in the comments section and at the forum at the Times web site, was for the paper to hire a columnist with a genuine Christian worldview. At NewsBusters, we have documented several instances of anti-Christian and anti-Catholic bias at the Times. Stein's column simply adds to the pile of examples.
The Times seems to care very little about how often their columns offend Christians. If they did care, they would do something significant about it - right away.
When does his article on how Islam is also a death cult come out?
Another example of why the L.A. Times is going down the toliet readership wise.
That was a wasted effort. Just let him slide on into Oblivion.
Looking at its declining circulation, I venture to say the LA Times is a death cult.
I'd never realized how much of a death cult Islam is.
my second piece of advice to LA Times would be to FIRE Stien.
Jesus said the path to Hell is wide, and the path to Heaven is narrow, and few find it.
Christians don't celebrate Christ's suffering, they celebrate a God who loved sinners so much He Himself paid the price so that they could escape judgement and Hell.
"Saved?" Yes - literally. Saved from eternal suffering that we all deserved.
He should have gone to an evangelical church, not a liberal, politically correct, Presbyterian USA church.
That's because they know Christians won't call for any fatwas.
I'm sure he's been meaning to get around to it.
How does one go after their subscribers?
I'd suggest following their delivery people and seeing who gets a paper.
Two real death cults: Marxism (aka liberalism) and Islam. Cultural Marxists consider abortion a sacrament and promote homosexuality, a life style that leads to early death. They also support euthanasia. The late pope rightly called this a "culture of death."
Kudos to Stein for honesty (in this instance, at least). Most of his fellow leftists share his sentiments but don't have the guts to (publicly) admit it.
Stein is almost certainly too ignorant to understand this, but that death cult is in large part responsible for the survival of Greek and Roman learning through the Dark Ages.
>>>I'd never realized how much of a death cult Christianity is.<<<
No, Joel. Islam and Liberalism are death cults. Christianity is a pro-life religion.
Joel Stein is just a swell guy. I personally like how he lets it all hang out. Shows you exactly what these jackasses really think.
Give him points for not even trying to be politically correct. Heck he goes out of his way to show just how alienated he is from anything resembling goodness in America.
Get Joel's next column: Why I made an effort and decided to first condescend then spit on wounded veterans back from the gulf.
Heck, the ACLU might even give him a Christmas bonus for that one. :)
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