A New Kind of Christian Book Burning

The website for Amazing Grace Baptist Church in North Carolina is down right now… but there’s a reason for that.

People are slamming the servers to learn about their upcoming Halloween book burning.

Pastor Marc Grizzard and his church’s members will be banning “Satanic” books… Like all non-King-James versions of the Bible (or is it Kings James? Help me, William Safire!).

They’re also burning books by Billy Graham, Rick Warren, and (really?) James Dobson, Bill Bright, and Tim LaHaye.

At least he got Mother Teresa on the list.

(Do you think he’d accept copies of my book if I sent them to him?)

I thought it was all a big joke until I saw this video:

I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to make Fred Phelps look good by comparison. It won’t work! I do fear, though, if the Phelps crew protested his church over this, the universe would explode or something.

On the up side, you have to appreciate this paragraph by Mark Whittington of Associated Content:

One also has to scratch ones head what is Christian, religious, or even sensible about burning Bibles and other books. Besides having the odor of Nazi era book burning, the idea of a Christian church burning Christian books smacks one as bizarre behavior. What the Amazing Grace Baptist Church proposes to do lends credence to the idea advanced by some secularists that people of faith have a tendency to do nutty things.

(Thanks to Ashley for the link!)

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Skeptical_Inquirer

Reginald Selkirk

the idea of a Christian church burning Christian books smacks one as bizarre behavior.

Ah, but they’re not true Christian books.
Reginald Selkirk

Ironically, textual scholars will tell you that the King James Version is a bad translation based on poor quality manuscripts.
Marsha in TN

We’ve had a church book burning here in east Tennessee too. But they were only burning books they didn’t want their children and grandchildren to see. Jeez. Where am I living? How can people really be this stupid?
Epistaxis

Help me, William Safire!

I suspect Zombie Safire would prefer “non-King James,” although he would probably find a different way to say in the first place.
Curran

I wonder if they think consider the gideons to be santanic. I knew I should have started collecting those hotel bibles.
Viggo the Carpathian

I am so not surprised by any of this. While being raised in a goofy-ass evangelical church I was constantly told that this Church and that preacher were wrong. I got into my teens believing that everyone outside of our congregation was going to hell and probably most of them too. My mother used to staple the pages of books together to hide passages that even contained the word ‘damn’… She couldn’t quite come to burning them thankfully…

“The weaker the assertion, the more unprovable the belief, the greater the vehemence and violence employed to defend it.” – Me
Claudia

I’m guessing that the point of all of this is to give an impression of purity. We’re talking about people who are so extremist that books usually considered “satanic” (Heather has two mommies, The God Delusion etc.) don’t actually represent a “threat” to the congregation since they’d never go anywhere near them. More likely to “corrupt” fundies is other, softer, fundies.

I suppose that to the biggest Christotalibans, things like the “Left Behind” series or milder Bibles must be false idols to be faught against.
Nonexixtentpuppies

There’s some serious pockets of humanity out there.

BTW is it customary for American pastors to wear blue denim dungerees? If it’s a new trend, then I applaud it heartedly. Christianity is surely in safe hands.
Shannon

The church has a whopping 14 members. I bet most of the locals think they’re nuts.

I don’t know, it mostly struck me as funny.
Siamang

What the Amazing Grace Baptist Church proposes to do lends credence to the idea advanced by some secularists that people of faith have a tendency to do nutty things.

Now the next question is… does the religion cause the nuttyness, or does nuttyness cause religion?

Personally, I think religion and nuttyness just push down hard on the fast-forward button based on whatever else you were.

It’s like the old Bill Cosby routine on doing cocaine. Cosby asks a guy “why would you do a drug like that”. And then he emulates a stuck up stuffed-shirt saying “it *intensifies* your personality.”

Cos’ takes a long look at the audience and then says “…. yes. But what if you’re an asshole?”
Tom

As long as it’s a carbon-neutral book burning, I don’t mind :).

This sort of thing is just so alien to me that it’s comical. I know it should piss me off, but I’m just far too amused by it.
Alec

Rofl, 14 members!

There growing too! It’ll be no time before they have 20 members and will plan on burning down courthouses that don’t have the ten commandments in them!!
Randy

I would like to see, but be scared of the results, a DNA test of that congregation. We could compare results with the Phelps clan!
alex

I wonder if this is the start of something more. Will the protestants be going after the catholics in the USA? Has religion become that strong politically that they are jockeying to become the official state religion?
Holytape

I don’t no why, but I have a desire for marshmallows now. If I show up, do I need to bring my own marshmallows, or will they be providing their own special Jesusmallows? Satan smoked smores…..yum, yum.
Siamang

I wonder if this is the start of something more.

With 14 members, I think the Catholics could take ’em.
alex

0:45 “contempory Christian…”? Looks like they have burned their dictionaries already. Not that I am too surprised.
medussa

Let the good times begin: Christians so busy bashing each other and arguing over whose version of the magic book is the better one, that they are too busy to interfere with my civil rights.
The Big Blue Frog

I read the announcement on another site, and I was puzzled by the references to the “TR.” Anybody know what that is?

“We are not burning Bibles written in other languages that are based on the TR. We are not burning the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva or other translations that are based on the TR.”
Danielle Gaither

I love that they’re serving BBQ at this thing. Really, what other choice is there?
Angie

Has religion become that strong politically that they are jockeying to become the official state religion?

Alex, fundamentalist Christians have been trying to make their interpretation of Christianity the state religion for YEARS. I wish I had a nickle for every time I’ve heard a fundie argue that this is a “Christian nation”.

I read the announcement on another site, and I was puzzled by the references to the “TR.” Anybody know what that is?

True Religion, perhaps?
Hazor

alex Said:
“I wonder if this is the start of something more. Will the protestants be going after the catholics in the USA? Has religion become that strong politically that they are jockeying to become the official state religion?”
A lot of Christians would love a theocracy, a lot of people in any religion would.

Fortunately, groups like this bunch are few and far between, and small. Unfortunately, however, they’re the ones who think birth control is even more sinful than a New King James bible, and think “be fruitful and multiply” means “be fruitful and multiply like freaking crazy and don’t worry about overpopulation.”

God save us all. ;.;
Jeff

What do you want to bet that none of those 14 people in the congregation even own any books…. All they probably read is the TV guide and tabloids.
Flah

TR = Textus Receptus, name used for the first published Greek text of the New Testament. Is it any wonder people are leaving their churches? Why would anyone want to be affiliated with this nuttiness?
Viggo the Carpathian

Jeff said: “What do you want to bet that none of those 14 people in the congregation even own any books…. All they probably read is the TV guide and tabloids.”

No, a church of this ilk and they probably don’t own televisions at all. Some of the fringe evangelicals think everything is evil. I grew up without TV and when we went where one did exist, my father covered up the screen when a commercial for toilet paper (god forbid it was for tampons) came on. Being aware of the world was a sure road to evil thoughts
martymankins

Some of these people think in pure black and white.

Seems a bit short sighted, but to each their own.

As Rev. Lovejoy from the Simpsons once said “Stand back to avoid inhaling the toxic fumes”
BeamStalk

I noticed Punk music was not on the burn list and is thus still God’s music. Just ask Bad Religion, NOFX, or Agnostic Front.
Stephen P

Want to bet that these people don’t even know what the King James bible is?

The bible that was authorised by King James included the Apocrypha. I understand that the bible used by all/most of the fanatical “King James only” brigade does not, and is thus not actually the King James bible!
billybee

“..not so hard daddy; yer crushin’ my smokes’…”
muggle

OMG, I’m laughing too hard to be worried about this. This is freaking hilarious.

Beyond that, here it comes. The sects fighting each other.

God, I couldn’t even say that with a straight face. With 14 members, that’s not enough to fight anyone.
Robert Madewell

I think the church’s web host suspended their account because the url sent me to a place holder page.

I’ll have to see if there’s a google cache.

Google Cache.
Arctic Ape

Book burning: A great way to make yourself an idiot by honoring historical thugs who actually destroyed literature and other people’s property.
hoverFrog

I still can’t bring myself to burn a book. Not the bible, not Mere Christianity, not even The Shack. I guess I’ve just got too much respect for books, even those that clearly demonstrate just how badly people can get things wrong.

Now a martyr I could burn.
The Big Blue Frog

Thanks, Flah. I learned something today! 🙂