Last Supper Molehill

In case you haven't seen it, there's a poster out for the Folsom Street BDSM Fair in San Fran. It's a by now rather cliche'd attempt to scandalize by depicting leather daddies, dominatrices, and S&Mers--with a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence thrown in for good measure--in the classic DaVinci last supper pose. That this joke has by now run its course has apparently been lost on Bill Donohue, of the Catholic League, who has been making the "news" talk show rounds to harrumph about the injustice of it all--and to trot out the ol' what-Muslims-would-do-in-a-similary-situation cannard. Some amusing, and insightful commentary from Dan Savage (as well as the poster in question) at The Stranger:

http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/09/that_folsom_street_fair_poster

Values Voter 2008 Republican Presidential Debate

Commentary is neither necessary nor adequate:

http://www.afa.net/debate/

Requiem for the Religious Right?

An interesting analysis from AmericaBlog on a series of recent happenings in fundie-world:

http://www.americablog.com/2007/09/exposing-moral-bankruptcy-of-unraveling.html

Carlton Pearson, Universalist

"For the first time in all my life as a Christian, I really not only loved God, I started liking God..."

The story of Pentacostal preacher and Oral Roberts University graduate Carlton Pearson aired on Dateline NBC on August 14. A fourth-generation Pentacostal minister, he started a congregation in Tulsa, Oklahoma which quickly grew to a six-thousand parishoner megachurch.

Pearson was on top of his world when he began to preach a radically different message: That hell, as traditionally understood, was unbecoming of the God he had come to know.

The story that follows should give us hope for what the church in our day can do and can be. That this little bit of resurrection takes place within the Pentacostal tradition--a traditionally conservative branch of Christianity--should be all the more cause for optimism.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14337492/