In which the pond does a Sunday meditation which leads to a deep sense of UnReality ...

(Above: or why Jesus wept)

It would be wrong to think that the strong man, fascist mentality that appeals to the religious mindset is restricted to Islamic fundamentalists.

Of course some of the fundie Xian preachers doing the rounds are just shameless exhibitionists, relentless publicity seekers in constant search of a headline of the Pro-LGBT businesses are worse than ISIS kind ...

Robert Jeffress, a mega church Southern Baptist pastor, supreme in his lack of taste and sensitivity, who came out with that variant form of homophobia, also recently came out with this to explain his support for Donald Trump ...

... as far as his worldview, Trump’s worldview,” he (Jeffress) continued, “you know, I was debating an evangelical professor on NPR and this professor said, ‘Pastor, don’t you want a candidate who embodies the teaching of Jesus and would govern this country according to the principles found in the Sermon on the Mount?’ I said, ‘Heck no.’ I would run from that candidate as far as possible, because the Sermon on the Mount was not given as a governing principle for this nation. 
“Nowhere is government told to forgive those who wrong it, nowhere is government told to turn the other cheek. Government is to be a strongman to protect its citizens against evildoers. When I’m looking for somebody who’s going to deal with ISIS and exterminate ISIS, I don’t care about that candidate’s tone or vocabulary, I want the meanest, toughest, son of a you-know-what I can find, and I believe that’s biblical.”

Uh huh, of course nowhere in the bible does Jesus talk about gay marriage or homosexuality, but that's the whole point of what's biblical.

You pick and chose what suits you, and Jeffress loves a man who is reported to have kept a book of Hitler's speeches in his bedside table as a source of inspiration.

That Jeffress' yarn about ISIS - and never mind that Jeffress has a mindset about gays that Daesh might find extreme - came from Rightwingwatch here, where you can listen to the tape ...

It's truly a dazzling site, with a rotating front page that shows just how bizarre the United States is in its infinite variety.

It leaves the pond humble in its wake.

Take this effort by David Whitney post-Dallas,which manages to conflate as many barking mad fundamentalist talking points in as few pars as possible.

After raising the possibility that the government orchestrated the shooting in order to establish the New World Order, aka the kingdom of Satan, Whitney saw evolution in the mix ...

By they way. If the narrative presented by the media and government were actually true, and I doubt that it is, what should be done? So we have an irate black man with a gun killing police officers. What should be done? Take away everyone’s guns? That begs the question, what brought this man to this point where he considers murdering others a good thing? How was he educated? 
In a school house where the Bible was forbidden, prayer illegal, the Ten Commandments could never be seen by him or any student … 
Add to that his school taught him evolution – that he was just a compilation of mutations and mistakes, just an overgrow ape. Add to that the notion of relativism, that there are no absolutes, nothing absolutely right or wrong. Compound that with the preaching from the school house that each individual is entitled to make up their own moral value system. Then top it of by showing the student for more that forty years murdering is not only valued as a social good, it has such an exalted status that the government will pay you to murder, provided you are female and it is your own child in the womb you are choosing to murder. … 
Given all these facts, that the government indoctrination centers have raised a generation of barbarians, what surprises me is that we don’t see more wholesale murder taking place in our already blood soaked land. In spite of the relentless Satanic propaganda drilled in by the government run schools, some survivors of those indoctrination camps still have a semblance of a conscience remaining. (And that's at Rightwingwatch in full here).

And that's just a sampling of two of the ratbags celebrated on the site.

There's also Rick Wiles talking of the demons in Pokémon here.

“Churches are the number one sites on the app that are containing these Pokémon demons that people are trying to find,” Wiles said. “The number one site on the app are churches. So, if they are creating a technology that could be used for the elimination of Christians, here are the churches, here are the homes of the pastor, the elders, the Sunday school teachers.”

By way of contrast, all the pond has got to offer is Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens rabbiting on about Pokémon in Pokémon Go: Revolution, Fad or Omen?

But this wasn't paranoid blather about demons persecuting Christians, this was just a couple of hardcore wankers wanking on in a way that was admittedly astonishing and irritating, but not so much barking mad as portentous and pretentious and singularly unenlightening.

The pond had the profound misfortune to be on the road and catch the episode and hear the two sophomores produce inanely childish and soporific arguments about nothing ... and was transported back to the days when similarly inane moral philosophers darkly warned of the dangers of television and comic books.

As if the capacity for people to be distracted by trivia had only recently been invented, and as if the fad wouldn't fade in time, leaving devotees clutching memories and wondering where the passion went (what did happen to Coleco?) ...

The only meaningful question arising was who sounded like the biggest wanker. The pond was inclined to give Scott Stephens the nod, but it was a close run thing.

In this context, even the angry Sydney Anglicans can't match it with their United States counterparts.

Ever since the Jensenists have departed, the official site has dropped away, and we're left with intermittent postings, such as Judy Adamson getting agitated about reality television in Reality bites.

Now as a branch of the church that celebrates the mythical nonsense of Adam and Eve as a guide for the devising of 'complimentary' women, it makes rich reading to see an angry Anglican complaining about soft porn:

Take Adam Looking For Eve on SBS (pictured above). 

Pictured above? What's in the picture?

Oh come on, don't be totally wet, we all know it's just soft porn, because all SBS has got is soft porn and food these days ... a tragic remnant, a relic destroyed by the Liberal party...

En francais s'il vous plait ...

There, that's better, actual naked chests and breasts for the repressed ... now do go on ...

It’s a European show that puts a man and a woman together on a tropical island, naked. After a night together a third person arrives. Will the original person or interloper be selected? And will the chosen lover decide this is worth pursuing once the cameras switch off, or will they take the centrefold route and choose cash instead?

Indeed, indeed, much better if the woman settled down to being a complimentary woman, and all would be well ...

And then comes the Mother Grundy, tut tutting and clucking flourish at the end which is about on a par with the cluck clucking and tut tutting offered by Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens in relation to video games...

If Christians are getting hooked into these shows ...

So that's the demographic. The pond wondered about the demographic, and why anybody would waste their time, and it seems that angry Sydney Anglicans might just constitute a core demographic for a bit of flashing of the flesh ...

... we need to ask ourselves why. Is it simply vicarious interest in other people’s experiences (however forced they may be through the presence of cameras), or are we buying into the premise that this might be a way to true love? 
We need to challenge each other, and ourselves, about the false hope and attitudes held out on television for the sake of our faith as well as the God in whom we trust. If he graciously provides us with someone to share our lives he will do it in his timing, and for his glory, not ours. It certainly won’t be for the glory of the TV network!

It was all the more touching, as Adamson decided to offer a final reflection:

There may also be a need for us to reflect on why our idea of what constitutes good viewing has been reduced to an endless navel-gazing critique of other people’s relationships, looks and talents rather than working on our own.

Working on our looks? That sounds dangerously heretical. After all, as Peter observed, and so pleased the angry Anglicans mightily with his observation...

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; while they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands ...

But hang on, hang on, when you read the bible, it often comes across like the worst sort of reality TV:

And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. And David sent and inquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house. And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, I am with child.

Talk about a plot complication and a turning point, and David supposed to be in big with the long absent lord! And there he is rutting and doing the 'with child' routine ...

Never mind, the real reason that reality television should exist is so that spin-offs like UnReal can be made.

The second series is well under way, and only a fleeting knowledge of actual reality television is required in order to enjoy the general hideousness. (Oh of course they do the 'David, with child' angle, but the pond's not going into spoiler territory).

For those who have come in late to the story, The New Yorker did a profile of Sarah Gertrude Shapiro which for the moment is outside the paywall here.

And in turn that show helps understand just why the United States is so demented:

“Unreal” may be most unsparing in its depiction of the unstable modern workplace. The employees at “Everlasting” fantasize about quitting their awful jobs, but can’t let go of the money and the power. In Season 1, the pressures on the producers lead to a contestant’s suicide; in Season 2, even worse will occur. All alliances are provisional; the more talk there is of work as a family, the more the characters have to watch their backs. Gateley notes, “The set of a reality show is clearly relatable to what everyone else deals with in corporate America. The person who’s your friend today is willing to jump over you to get a promotion the next.” Working on “Everlasting” is the only life most of the characters have; it is where they form the tight bonds that, in earlier times, they would have formed in their personal lives. Whenever Rachel threatens to quit, Quinn asks the same question as the viewer: “Where to?”

You won't find any answers from fundamentalist Christians whose hero is a man who made his name with a reality television show in which the punchline was "You're fired!"

And so it all comes together in a perfect storm, barking mad fundamentalist Christians, rampant sex, casual employment, corporate greed, and reality TV ...

Well that's enough Sunday meditating for a month or three ... but it surely puts Pokémon and a little harmless soft porn into a wider diabolical, demonic context ...