This is the fifth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please leave the name the song in the comment section or send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Progressive Christmas Carols by Jon Cozart. You can follow Jon, AKA Paint, on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.
Ohio legislators continue to push bills that will make it hard or impossible for a woman to have and abortion. Currently, the right win Republican driven legislature are discussion no less than four bills that, if passed, will severely limit a woman’s right to abortion or outlaw it altogether.
Using a throw it and see if it sticks approach, Ohio Republicans are doing everything they can to make abortion illegal. One bill makes abortion illegal after 20 weeks. Another bill bans aborting a fetus with Down Syndrome, and yet another adds “a trigger clause to block abortions in Ohio should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe vs. Wade.”
Yesterday, Ohio legislators began debating HB 69, also known as the Heartbeat Bill. Marc Kovac, Capitol reporter for Dix Communications, had this to say about their deliberations (link no longer active):
State lawmakers began deliberations Tuesday on legislation that would ban abortions within weeks of conception.
This is the third session the Heartbeat Bill has been offered. Sponsors told the House’s Community and Family Advancement Community that the proposed law change is needed to address “the human rights issue of our generation.”
“Biology is crystal clear that at the moment of conception, a unique organism comes into existence,” said Rep. Christina Hagan (R-Alliance), who carried the Heartbeat Bill last session and who is a primary co-sponsor again this session. “Since this new life possesses human DNA and is the offspring of human parents, it can only be described as a human life.”
She added, “As far as observable science is concerned,human life begins at conception.”
Hagan and Rep. Ron Hood (R-Ashville) offered testimony and answered questions for a hour and a half Tuesday afternoon during the initial hearing on HB 69, which would “generally prohibit an abortion of an unborn human individual with a detectable heartbeat” and “create the Joint Legislative Committee on Adoption Promotion and Support.” Proponents believe the
legislation could serve as the vehicle to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
“… It’s been 42 years of abortion on demand which has destroyed the lives of 56 million human beings,” Hood said. “At some point we actually have to do more than regulate how and where we kill children. We actually have to protect them. “The Heartbeat Bill will finally recognize the universal indicator of life —the heartbeat, the human heartbeat of a human life.”
Opponents, however, think the Heartbeat Bill goes too far. Some abortion opponents say the resulting legal challenges could end up undoing other abortion-related restrictions in state law. Others call it an attempt by Statehouse Republicans to further restrict women’s access to health care…
Fetus at 28 days, HB 69 would make aborting this illegal
HB 69 is fifty pages long, filled with legalese meant to obfuscate and confuse, with the desired result being no Ohio doctor will be willing to perform ANY abortion procedure. The bill not only makes abortion illegal after a heartbeat is detected, it also adds layers of reporting and counseling requirements. The goal is simple…NO ABORTIONS.
Fetus at 56 days, 1/2 inch long
Ohio Republicans are hypocrites. The issue isn’t science. No matter how many big words they use in the bill in an attempt to give HB 69 respectability, the real reason for this bill is that its sponsors are Christians who believe God is the giver and taker of life. Their agenda is a religious one, and they will not stop until all abortion procedures are illegal. In their mind, abortion is murder, yet the HB 69 makes no provision for criminalizing the actions of those who are culpable in the death of the fetus. Shouldn’t everyone who played a part in the abortion be charged with murder? (Please read 25 Questions for Those Who Say Abortion is Murder)
These days, I wonder if I went to sleep one night in Ohio and woke up the next day in North Carolina. What happened to the progressive Ohio of my youth? Ohio has become a joke, a state-owned and operated by Jesus H Christ. The Heartbeat bill has failed twice, but I fear it might have a good chance of passing this time.
This is the graphic Isaac Latterell used in 2014 on a blog post about child dismemberment.
Like throwing red meat to a hungry lion, state and federal politicians regularly introduce bills sure to arouse the passion of those opposed to abortion. Recently, South Dakota State Representative Isaac Latterell introduced HB 1230, the Preborn Infant Beheading Ban of 2015 (Link no longer active). The bill states:
FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to prohibit the beheading of certain living unborn children and to provide penalties therefor.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:
Section 1. No licensed physician may knowingly behead a living unborn child with the intent of endangering the life or health of the child. A violation of this section is a Class 1 felony.
Section 2. For purposes of this Act, behead, means to separate the skull from the spine. The term, behead, may not be construed to include the curettage abortion procedure or the suction aspiration abortion procedure.
Section 3. The provisions of this Act do not apply to any medical treatment for a life-threatening condition provided to the mother by a physician licensed to practice medicine in the state which results in the accidental or unintentional injury or death of the unborn child.
Section 4. This Act shall be known, and may be cited, as the Preborn Infant Beheading Ban.
Recently, Latterell wrote a blog post that stated Plan Parenthood is worse than ISIS: (link no longer active)
Most states including South Dakota allow for the death penalty for murderers. There are certain revolting methods of execution, such as beheading, that no state would ever permit, even against murderers who use this method on their victims. It is this revulsion that leads us to rightly condemn the beheadings committed by unconscionably violent soldiers in the Middle East…
…Planned Parenthood abortionists in Sioux Falls are similarly beheading unborn children during dismemberment abortions. This method has been described by the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Carhart as a procedure that is: “laden with the power to devalue human life,” and is as brutal, if not more so, than Intact Dilation and Extraction (D&X or partial birth) abortions.”
Most people are unaware that this is happening, because Planned Parenthood of Sioux Falls denies that they behead or otherwise dismember unborn children…
…But South Dakota’s Department of Health’s website shows at least 7 such extreme and dangerous abortions have been done since 2008. There are probably many more where the method used was unstated or stated incorrectly. Considering Planned Parenthood is the only clinic that does abortions, it is clear that they are lying either to the media or to the department of health.
I am beyond angry at what Planned Parenthood is doing to us and to our children. In the words of David Brooks, their actions and their lies “show contempt for us and our morality”, “deny the slightest acknowledgment of our common humanity”, and “take the bully’s maximum relish in their power over the weak and innocent”.
This is why I have introduced House Bill 1230, the Preborn Infant Beheading Ban of 2015. It passed the House Health and Human Services Committee today with a vote of 11-2.
It simply states: “No licensed physician may knowingly behead a living unborn child with the intent of endangering the life or health of the child.”No state, no religion, and no organization should ever be allowed to use this unspeakably horrifying method. While we rightly take the speck out of our neighbor’s eye by holding ISIS accountable, let us be sure to take the plank out of our own eye by holding Planned Parenthood accountable.
There were 601 abortions performed in South Dakota in 2013. 73% of the women having an abortion were 29 years old and younger, 16% were ages 30-34, and 11% were 35 and older. Of the 601 women who had an abortion in 2013, 545 of them paid for the abortion out-of-pocket. Only 56 abortions were covered by some sort of insurance.
Some 99.8% of the abortions performed in 2013 in South Dakota would NOT be subject to Latterell’s HB 1230. That’s right, for all the noise he is making about ISIS and Planned Parenthood of South Dakota beheading babies, his bill would cover .2% of the abortions in 2013. How many abortions is .2%? Two. That’s right, two. (I rounded up to the next whole abortion)
I suspect that the seven ISIS-like abortions since 2008 Latterell mentions in his blog post were determined by a physician to be medically necessary. If they were, then these abortions would fall outside of the prohibitions in HB 1230. The bill states:
The provisions of this Act do not apply to any medical treatment for a life-threatening condition provided to the mother by a physician licensed to practice medicine in the state which results in the accidental or unintentional injury or death of the unborn child.
Latterell would likely argue that if his bill saves the life of one, just one baby, then it’s worth it. OK, let’s run with this logic. In 2013, over 500 times more South Dakota residents died from alcohol and smoking than from the abortion procedures outlawed by HB 1230. If Lattrell is serious about saving lives, then he should introduce the Alcohol and Tobacco Ban of 2015.
Lattrell’s bill is nothing more than political smoke and mirrors meant to convince pro-lifers that he is doing something about the evil abortion plague in South Dakota. Elizabeth Nash with the Guttmacher Institute summed up HB 1230 this way:
“What this bill is really about is the inflammatory language and riling up people to be opposed to abortion. This language is pretty gruesome. It’s inflammatory. It’s designed to get the political juices flowing. It is not really about what medical practice is like.”
The end game for people like Isaac Lattrell is the banning of ALL abortion procedures and some forms of birth control. The pro-life movement, realizing that they cannot overturn Roe v, Wade with a frontal attack, use incremental attacks meant to make it harder for a woman to get an abortion. Like the Koch brothers, the pro-life movement has become quite skilled at surreptitiously advancing their agenda with legislation like HB 1230. This is why those of us who support a woman’s right to choose must push back EVERY time someone such as Isaac Lattrell attempts to push his religiously driven anti-woman agenda on American women.
No, he didn’t write a post about my vast knowledge of science. That would have taken all of eight words: not much, but more than I knew yesterday. In the post, Why I Stopped Believing, I mentioned five of the books that played an instrumental part in my deconversion. Coyne’s book, Why Evolution is True, was one of the books I mentioned. The book was quite helpful when I was trying to hang on to some sort of God who created. One chapter in particular, Remnants: Vestiges, Embryos, and Bad Design, had a profound effect on how I viewed the natural world.
I’ve always said that the definition of “success” in mentoring graduate students is “producing a student who can replace you.” And though I’ve had very few students, I’ve replaced myself in that sense at least three times, so I’m quite happy.
And I consider the definition of “success” as an anti-theist to be “turning at least one person away from the delusions of faith and towards the virtues of reason.” After all, if theists can boast about bringing people to Jesus, why can’t atheists take pride in helping people go in the reverse direction?
Now I can’t claim full credit for doing that to any one person, but I claim partial credit for helping quite a few—or so they tell me. And I’ll add those partial successes up to assert that N > 1.
The latest partial convert is Bruce Gerencser [sic], a former Christian minister, who explains on his website what led to his leaving the church. As is nearly always true for the deconversion of ministers (or anyone else, for that matter), it is a long, tortuous, and complex process involving many inputs…
…But read Gerenser’s [sic] whole piece (it’s short), because he traces the roots of his apostasy back to the very virtues instilled in him by his religious parents, including a love of reading and having the courage of one’s convictions.
The other point this makes is that it’s better, if you want to advance reason, to write and publish (if you have that privilege) rather than to give lectures and have debates. That is because in the quietude of authorship, you can polish and fully express your views, and people can read them at leisure and compare them with contrary views. In a public talk, I often find that the audience comprises people who are already on my side, and have come out of curiosity or to seek affirmation. Those are both fine reasons, and, after all, we all need affirmation (except perhaps Christopher Hitchens!), but in truth I’d prefer a higher titer of opponents when I speak. But again, I prefer to write, and that’s why I wrote The Albatross (soon to be available in fine bookstores everywhere)…
Coyne has a new book coming out in May, Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible. You can pre order the book here. (I receive a few shekels if your order the book through this link)
Byron Paulus, is the executive director and president of Life Action Ministries, a fundamentalist Christian group that seeks to “ignite Christ-centered movements of revival among God’s people that display His glory and advance His kingdom throughout the world.”
It’s no secret. When black and white merge, they produce grey. Every time.
There is absolute white. There is absolute black. But there is no such thing as absolute grey. The color grey has an infinite number of shades. Not just 50. And that is exactly why this Friday could go down as one of the most morally destructive days in our nation’s history.
For us as Christians, the lightest shade of grey is destructive when we know it is a matter of disobeying the Word of God or the Spirit of God.
I heard one preacher say, “It could be the most destructive day globally since Eve took a bite of fruit in the Garden.” Eve allowed her curiosity to lead her to just one bite. Satan did not tempt her with the entire tree; just a bite.
One bite hidden and not resulting in brokenness and repentance will naturally lead to many bites. Don’t fall for it. The grey pathway is paved with increasing desensitization resulting in destructive behavior. This chart is the path David took regarding Bathsheba and Uriah in 2 Samuel 11.
Even a small amount of societal grey can be destructive. For us as Christians, the lightest shade of grey is destructive when we know it is a matter of disobeying the Word of God or the Spirit of God.
Even a seemingly small area of disobedience is sin. And the wages of sin is death, in some form or fashion. Therefore, this Friday will likely be remembered by godly people not as a “grey” day in history, but a “black” day.
When it comes to desensitization to moral perversion resulting in cultural disintegration, the release of the movie Fifty Shades may be more destructive than ISIS. Why? Because at least we are still on our guard fighting against ISIS at some level. But on many fronts, we quit fighting against sin in the sexual realm.
While we vigorously defend our geographical boundaries against physical aggression of evil designed to torture and kill the human body, we passively support and even promote soul aggression of evil that tortures and destroys the mind, emotions and human spirit.
Even a seemingly small area of disobedience is sin.
We must not forget that 50 of 52 major civilizations were destroyed because of inward moral decay … from allowing white to lead to grey and then to black…
…A nation of no black and white (absolutes) will become a nation where all shades of grey are acceptable. So this Friday is not only the opening of a movie but the opening of a desensitization like that could release unparalleled sexual immorality … UNLESS …
I believe using the name Christian Grey as the lead character in Fifty Shades is not coincidental. We must not allow “gray” to describe “Christian” and thus define our lifestyles as believers. We are Christians with absolutes, not Christians without absolutes…
…The church exists to glorify a holy God, a pure God who fully understands our temptations to invite gray in as a brief house guest. Regarding Fifty Shades of Grey, do not even go on a curious search. Not even one small “bite” of curious search…
The slide downward to a gray lifestyle can be countered by praying for supernatural protection from even innocent exposure, and taking steps to avoid temptation that is fostered by curiosity. Then biblical persuasion will be the tool to continue a pathway to avoid all shades of gray…
I ask you dear reader, what kind of mental gymnastics is required to convince yourselves that
is far more dangerous than
Does Paulus really believe Christian women reading mommy porn and going to see an R rated movie is going to bring Western civilization to its knees? Or is he just trying to gin up controversy and support for the Christian women who really, really want to go see the movie but can’t because their church/pastor forbids it?
Russell Wilson, quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks, got himself in a bit of trouble this week with Team Evangelical. Russell is an Evangelical, and during the week before the Super Bowl, countless Evangelical blogs, website, and news sites, featured stories about Russell Wilson, the great man of faith. They were as proud as a peacock over having one of their own on such a prominent stage.
My take? It’s just a lame movie that will be forgotten about like the Passion of the Christ was when it was hailed as the greatest movie ever made.
Unlike Paulus and the horde of whining, offended Christians, I know that a book/movie like Fifty Shades of Grey, will have little to no cultural impact. A far more real threat to our culture and the world is the Muslim extremism of ISIS. Surely, anyone capable of rationally looking at the two things will conclude:
ISIS=big problem that could result in American military action and increased violence and bloodshed
Fifty Shades of Grey=mental diversion into the seedier side of life that will likely have no lasting effect on those who dare to watch
Does that mean that erotica is a good outlet for your sexual frustration? Before I answer that, let me tell you how I define erotica.
Erotica is art, literature, or movies intended to arouse sexual desire. It doesn’t have to be a harlequin romance novel or an X-rated movie to count.
I can hear you protesting, But when I read a book or watch a movie, I’m not actually having sex myself. So isn’t that the lesser of two evils?
This Valentine’s Day, the world offers you a solution: You don’t have to have sex yourself; you can watch someone else have sex, or you can read all the steamy details through erotica like Fifty Shades of Grey.
While that might initially sound better than having sex yourself, don’t believe for a minute that erotica has any place in a genuinely born-again believer’s life…
…Here’s why Dannah Gresh shares that erotica is not the solution for your sexual desires:
While erotica might originally heighten sexual feelings, over the long haul it erodes something much more important—intimacy. Whether you are married or single, you are longing for more than sex. Your body, your mind, and your spirit were created to crave intimacy.
The Old Testament [word] for sex [is] yada—to know, to be known, to be deeply respected. Transcending the physical act, God’s language speaks of the deep emotional knowing you ultimately long to experience.
The physical aspect of sex is just one part of the equation, but our culture tends to hyperfocus on it with no attention to the ultimately more fulfilling aspect of yada—emotional intimacy. Sexual activity by itself is an empty substitute for true intimacy, and will never be enough. Erotica places undue emphasis on the physical and disables your ability to connect emotionally.
f you’re still skeptical, take it from a girl who’s been there. Dannah and Juli share this girl’s story in Pulling Back the Shades: Erotica, Intimacy, and the Longings of a Woman’s Heart,
I am single and erotica has ruined my life. I have been addicted for ten years, and I am only twenty-five. No one knows that I have lived an isolated life because I have found more solace in fantasies aroused in my mind by erotica than in real relationships.
Erotica seems harmless because it’s just words on a page but it brands your mind, creates false expectations for future relationships. I can’t even maintain real relationships because I feel like a shallow pretender hiding one of the biggest parts of my life.
Erotica perpetuated my “need” for meeting people online because I didn’t know how to develop or maintain relationships with people outside of the screen. Eventually, I decided to take my online relationships into reality. Many of the stories I read portrayed rape or power-struggle situations as exciting. A no didn’t always mean no because, in the end, the girl always seemed to end up just fine.
So when I met one of my first guys offline, I was thrust ever too quickly into a scenario I had read about but, unlike the stories, I didn’t end up fine. My no didn’t mean no, and I was sexually abused by a man who did the same things to me that I had read about in those erotic stories. But in my story, there wasn’t a happy ending.
Ever since then, I have carried the weight of shame and guilt from putting myself into that situation six years ago. Erotica makes it seem normal for us to be used and abused, but it’s not normal.
Dear single, erotica is not the answer to your longings for intimacy. Christ is.
He’s also provided community so you can experience emotional intimacy right now. And if and when He provides you with a godly spouse, the physical intimacy of sex will just be the icing on the cake of the friendship and emotional intimacy you already share together…
The Evangelical community is all hot and bothered over the book and movie, Fifty Shades of Grey. Evangelical preachers, bloggers, and websites are fearful that Christian women will be drawn into the dark world of eroticism and BDSM if they read the book or go see the movie. Instead of reading a trashy, filthy, sinful book like Fifty Shades of Gray, women are encouraged to read wholesome, uplifting Christian literature/romance novels, novels that rarely have any resemblance to real life.
Why is it that Evangelical churches and preachers are having such a hard time keeping church women in line? Instead of blaming erotica, how about taking a hard look at the root cause of the guilt and fear motivited sexual dysfunction in the Evangelical church? Literature and movies aren’t the problem. The constant harping on sexual sin, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, petting, and pornography leads not only to sexual frustration but to sexual acting out.
Why do we see sexual acting out in Evangelical churches? Humans are drawn to that which is forbidden. Don’t look don’t touch, don’t taste, don’t hear is what is heard from Evangelical pulpits. Sexually aware Evangelicals say to themselves, but I want to look, touch, taste, and hear. Result? Bizarre sexual acting out. Wouldn’t it be better to teach people sexual responsibility? Wouldn’t it be better to see looking at pornography or erotica as normal, perhaps a passing fad, and nothing that will harm a person?
Thanks to generations of Puritanical, sexually repressive preaching, Evangelical churches are filled with sexually frustrated people, people who have wants, needs, and desires that their pastor says is a sin. Even something as normal and healthy as masturbation is considered a sin.
On the extreme right fringe of Evangelicalism you will find preachers and churches that forbid any physical contact before marriage. No kissing, hand holding, no physical intimacy of any sort. Just today, I read a Jack Hyles sermon where Hyles bragged about his daughter Cindy not kissing her fiance until their wedding day Hyles was quite proud of his daughter and son-in-law for waiting until they were married. I wonder what his thought would be now that his son-in-law is in federal prison for committing a sex crime and his daughter is divorced.
Here’s what people like Paula Hendricks don’t or won’t understand; Evangelical church members, like everyone else, have normal, healthy sexual desires. No matter what is preached from the pulpit, they are going to find ways to act on these desires. They may have to do it in secret, beyond the prying eyes of the church, but they will act on their desires. The sex drive is too primal and strong to be stilted forever. All the preaching and Bible quoting in the world won’t change this fact.
A new study has revealed there is no difference between the percentage of Christians who have read Fifty Shades of Grey and the percentage of all Americans who have read the book, which has at times been described as “mommy porn.”
According to Barna Group researchers, nine percent of practicing Christians have read E.L. James’ erotic novel, and the same percentage of all American adults have done the same. Sixteen percent of women have read the bestseller, which was more popular among older readers – one out of ten of both Busters (ages 29-47) and Boomers (ages 48-66) say they have read the book. Among those adults who read Fifty Shades, one-in-five (19 percent) were practicing Christians.
I have no idea if Fifty Shades of Grey is good or bad literature. I haven’t read it and my wife hasn’t either. Since she is a fiction fan, I suspect she will some day read it. If she does, I have no fear of my wife turning into a slutty woman who loves bondage. It is just a book. I might be inclined to read it if has lots of pictures.
Note
Here’s a Catholic take on Fifty Shades of Grey: (link no longer active)
Why isn’t it okay to read books like this?
Because sex is more than use. Sex – and all the things that physically, emotionally, and mentally lead to sex – was created by God to be shared between a married man and woman. Sex is an expression of love that reflects the Divine Love of God – a Love that is free, total, fruitful, and faithful. Pornography and erotica are a mockery of the intimacy and beauty of Sacramental love. It reduces the mystery of sex to mere use, turning something sacred and Godly into something profane and dark. As Blessed John Paul II said, ‘The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is use.’ The lust that these books infect us with is all about self-gratification – it’s all about use.
Because the Church teaches us it’s not okay. Pope Benedict addressed the issue of pornography and erotic literature saying, “A relationship that does not take into account the fact that a man and a woman have the same dignity represents a serious lack of humanity . . . The moment has come to energetically halt the widespread distribution of material with an erotic and pornographic content, including through the internet in particular.”
Because lustful thoughts lead to lustful actions. Pope Benedict and Blessed John Paul II both understood that erotic words and images (like in Fifty Shades of Grey) create lustful thoughts in us. Those lustful thoughts don’t just end there; they cause in us physical reactions which end in lustful actions. Even St. Augustine struggled with this disordered and vicious pattern in his own life. After his conversion he wrote about his struggles with lust saying, ‘Lust indulged became habit, and habit unresisted became necessity.’
If you want to live a virtuous life, you have to be vigilant about it. Evil only needs to find a tiny little chink in your armor of holiness to begin to work. Don’t let these books crack open your virtue and start you down the vicious cycle of self-gratification and lust. Avoid these books, this author, and authors like her (V.C. Andrews comes to mind).
Fifty Shades of Grey is a 2011 erotic romance novel by British author E. L. James. It is the first installment in the Fifty Shades trilogy that traces the deepening relationship between a college graduate, Anastasia Steele, and a young business magnate, Christian Grey. It is notable for its explicitly erotic scenes featuring elements of sexual practices involving bondage/discipline, dominance/submission, and sadism/masochism (BDSM). Originally self-published as an ebook and a print-on-demand,publishing rights were acquired by Vintage Books in March 2012.
The second and third volumes, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, were published in 2012. Fifty Shades of Grey has topped best-seller lists around the world, including those of the United Kingdom and the United States. The series has sold over 100 million copies worldwide and been translated into 52 languages, and set a record in the United Kingdom as the fastest-selling paperback of all time.
A composite drawing from LSU FACES Laboratory shows what investigators believe a woman found dead on Jan. 28, 1981, may have looked like before she was stabbed to death four to six weeks before her body was located in a wooded area in east-central Bossier Parish.
Rebecca Catalanello writes:
Her stab-pocked body was found in the woods off a public logging trail in north Louisiana on Jan. 28, 1981. She was in her late teens or early 20s and had been dead for four to six weeks, a coroner determined. There were scribbles on her sneakers, including a name written on the inside: “D. Davies.” It looked like she had removed the braces from her teeth.
In 34 years, no one has identified the body of the 5-foot-6 blonde found off Louisiana Highway 157. But now Bossier Parish law enforcement officials are investigating a potential link between the woman they now call “Bossier Doe” and a notorious girls home 40 miles away.
Lt. Shannon Mack, lead detective in Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office cold case No. 81-018329, said she first learned of New Bethany Home for Girls in Arcadia, after creating a public Facebook profile for Bossier Doe on Friday (Feb. 6) in an attempt to generate more leads. She has since reached out to former New Bethany residents for help.
Open from 1971 to 2001, New Bethany marketed itself as a boarding school for troubled girls. Youth came from across the country, some court-ordered, others by request of parents or guardians. Bienville Parish law enforcement and nearby residents became accustomed to encountering runaways from the strict, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist home, located behind barbed wire fences in a rural area off of Louisiana Highway 9.
Simone Jones, 47, a former resident who herself scaled the fences and ran to law enforcement seeking an escape, said that when Mack reached out to her about the 1981 case Sunday, her mind started spinning.
Jones, who was at the home from 1981 to 1984, said that while she doesn’t remember anyone by this name or description, details about Bossier Doe’s case were reminiscent of New Bethany:
Girls were required to write their names in marker on the insides of their shoes and on all their clothes, as it appeared someone did inside the victim’s shoes. When Bossier Doe was found, she was wearing size 7 Evonne Goolagong brand, a washable canvas sneaker sold by Sears. Other names were scribbled in ink on the outside of the shoes, including “Resha,” “David” and “Dena & Michael Brisco.”
Bossier Doe was wearing white athletic socks with blue and yellow stripes, Mack said. The New Bethany uniform at the time included white athletic socks with stripes on them. Jones said the uniform required the stripes be red or blue. “But there were other colors around,” she said.
To date, law enforcement has found no indication anyone by this young woman’s description was ever reported missing. It’s well-established that many of the girls of New Bethany were often disconnected from their families — either by force of the school’s rules, by circumstance that led them there, or both. In 2013, for example, Bienville Parish Sheriff John Ballance told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune that after he encountered an 18-year-old runaway from New Bethany in 1975, he contacted her father by phone and was told the man wanted nothing to do with her.
Here’s another detail that raised interest of the former New Bethany residents.
Bossier Doe had bonding residue from braces on her teeth, Mack said, which led investigators to believe either she or someone else had removed her braces without the help of a professional.
Teresa Frye, 47, another former resident who Mack reached Sunday, said that detail stood out to her. When Frye arrived at New Bethany in 1982 from North Carolina, she was taken to have her braces professionally removed earlier than her orthodontist had instructed. Frye said she believes it was done so that she wouldn’t require additional medical care while at the home.
Many former New Bethany residents interviewed by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune since 2013 have described being denied medical care, a complaint that was also documented in a child welfare investigation in the 1980s. It would not be implausible, said Jones and Frye, for a resident to attempt to remove her own braces.
Mack said she is looking to speak with anyone whose memory might be jogged by the details of this girl’s death…
This is the fourth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please leave the name the song in the comment section or send me an email.
Today’s Song of Sacrilege is God Shuffled His Feet by Crash Test Dummies, folk rock/alternative rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
After seven days
He was quite tired so God said:
“Let there be a day
Just for picnics, with wine and bread”
He gathered up some people he had made
Created blankets and laid back in the shade
The people sipped their wine
And what with God there, they asked him questions
Like: do you have to eat
Or get your hair cut in heaven?
And if your eye got poked out in this life
Would it be waiting up in heaven with your wife?
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;
The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
So he said:”Once there was a boy
Who woke up with blue hair
To him it was a joy
Until he ran out into the warm air
He thought of how his friends would come to see;
And would they laugh, or had he got some strange disease?
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;
The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
The people sat waiting
Out on their blankets in the garden
But God said nothing
So someone asked him: “I beg your pardon:
I’m not quite clear about what you just spoke
Was that a parable, or a very subtle joke?”
God shuffled his feet and glanced around at them;
The people cleared their throats and stared right back at him
What follows is a brief excerpt of a story about Jonathan Nichols. Jonathan grew up in the Newark Baptist Temple, the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church (IFB) pastored, until recently, by my wife’s uncle, James Dennis. The Pastor (Jamie) Overton in this story is married to my wife’s cousin. He and his family are now missionaries. Polly’s parents have attended this church since the late 1970s. The Christian school in this story is the Licking County Christian Academy in Heath, Ohio. It is owned and operated by the Newark Baptist Temple.
The following story is excerpted from Part One and Part Two of Jonathan’s story:
My story is going to be slightly different than the others featured on this blog because I actually never attended Bob Jones University. However, before you stop reading, you should know that I would be finishing up my freshman year at BJU had I not been outed in high school, expelled, and ultimately forced to leave home. My parents are both BJU alumni, and the principal of my Christian school in Ohio was a BJU-pusher. In fact, while I was growing up, BJU was presented as the only viable choice of college by my family and a few teachers. Because of that, my story isn’t too different from the others here, I just went through the same things earlier, before I actually went to college.
I grew up in Newark, Ohio and attended an independent fundamental Baptist church since I was born. That church was more conservative than Bob Jones, and my parents were more conservative than the church. My mom, the church pianist and school music teacher, was forever busy taking the “sensual” triplets out of songs like “Some Trust in Chariots” and campaigning against songs like “As The Deer” and “Bow the Knee.” As you can probably deduce from that, practically no modern music was allowed in our household either. I grew up on classical music and only classical music and quickly learned that there was no such thing as likes and dislikes when it came to music. There was just good and bad. You are to listen to good music and not to listen to bad music. What music you “like” has nothing to do with anything.
That mentality was carried into every area of life.
I suppose being the music teacher’s son allowed me to be a little gay boy without thinking anything of it or being called out about it. I was totally into music and art and pretty things, and nothing was weird. I would play with scarves without feeling odd. Well, without feeling too odd. I knew that none of the other guys my age were playing with scarves. Fortunately, I didn’t think about it too much.
Ok, so I can’t really credit my discretion for keeping me in the closet for eighteen years… Like I said, I played with scarves and wasn’t careful about making it known that I was a musician and not like those “other” guys. The atmosphere was so anti-gay that no one even bothered to think that there could be a gay kid growing up there, regardless of how obvious I made it. Besides, I was still a kid. I didn’t even know what it meant to be gay. Heck, I didn’t even know that it meant anything besides “happy.” So in the minds of the church and my parents, there was no way I could have chosen to be gay yet. And since being gay is a choice, that meant that I was a good, straight little boy. Just like God intended. Right? Totally….
….wanted so much to be able to be honest with someone that I was actually in contact with. I hinted to my closest friend that my friendship with Ryan wasn’t just a friendship. She was, naturally for someone in our atmosphere, worried for me. So, despite her promises that she would trust me to do what I felt was right, she went to my youth pastor for help. He promptly told the senior pastor, who is superintendent of the school. The next day, I was called into Pastor Dennis’s office for questioning. Pastor Overton was also in the room, sitting to my left with a legal pad and a pen, taking notes. Dennis tried to start off nice enough, but it was obvious that they found out. I decided that a clean breast of the issue would be best, and went into my research on the matter, hoping at least to get an opposing rebuttal and at best to convince them. How naive I was. . . I don’t remember much of that conversation, but one thing rings vividly in my mind. I mentioned that the Greek word malakoi in I Cor. 6:9 was never elsewhere, in the whole of Greek literary writings, translated “effeminate.” It carried a whole different connotation. His response? He turned around, pulled his Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance off the shelf, looked up the word, and pointed to the definition. He never for one second imagined that Dr. James Strong was not infallible and that his concordance was not holy writ. In those several hours, my pastor beat me down. Hard. I was totally conquered, save in one regard. I would not tell him who I was “dating.” I did not see that it was my place to get someone else, especially someone I loved, in trouble like this. Dennis found out anyways. He had me break up with Ryan. I cried all night…
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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