I’ve been getting a number of hits all year on an entry from our Britain trip that tells about visiting Westminster Abbey in London and about the tombs and monuments of various royals, literary figures, and scientists that are found there. In short, I was getting a hell of a lot of hits on the phrase “Isaac Newton Tomb” – famous scientist and historical honorary member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. An online chum who claims to be a dead mathematician and philosopher would also qualify if someone would only nominate him. Don’t be fooled by the current hairstyle on the Mindsay link, and don’t ask me to explain why it’s funny, because the answer involves whale-killing, pirates, and a lot of other wacky online ephemera.

Anyway, back to the frightening stuff if you dare.

Conspiracy Theory Theologies and the Strict Father Model

A comment from a visitor finally turned on the little light bulb: apparently there is some mention of Newton’s tomb in those very popular “Left Behind” books. It’s kind of like a scavenger hunt or puzzle quest, or at least some people go looking for places and locations mentioned in the books. I figured it was something vaguely like National Treasure – except with spiritual rewards rather than a huge trove of gold

I knew that was a vaguely unsettling fact given my status a progressive liberrrl in matters of faith and social justice. But this two-part essay at Faithful Progressive scares the living crap out of me.

It turns out the writers of those books actually have some extremely unsettling, retrograde, and even frightening views from my perspective. And they’re just part of what Faithful Progressive covers in their two-part essay discussing the troubling amount of influence the extreme Right now “enjoys.” I wonder if the readers of those books realize just where the writers get their ideas? Because their “truth” is far, far stranger than fiction.

Am I right to be frightened? Yes. So is anyone whose family or politics don’t fit the highly judgemental “strict father” model. There was a lot of this discussed last year on AAR, and in fact they had George Lakoff on, whose book, Moral Politics… is mentioned in the FP essay.

Faithful Progressive: Extremely Influential: The Christian Right in America 2005 (parts 1-3)

Faithful Progressive: Extremely Influential: The Christian Right in America 2005 (parts 4-6)