is jesus in your mailbox?
For god's sake let him out!
I recently ordered some supplements from the Vitamin Shoppe. When my order arrived, it included a free "gift": a religious diet book. Double whammy!! Why do you assume I am dieting, and get your god the fuck outta my house. I wrote to the company to voice my displeasure and to note how stupid they were to send anything with religious overtones. It's sure to offend many customers, and best kept out of any business, I would think. Naturally I told them I'm no longer shopping with them. Along with their apology and explanation, they sent a $25 gift certificate - which I promptly used, making that my last Vitamin Shoppe order. Call me a hypocrite, but I'm not throwing $25 worth of vitamins away.
Back to Jesus In Your Mailbox.
Of course the organizers of this stupid project say the video is "simply a gift that the recipients can choose to view or not" - just as evangelicals say they're not trying to convince you, they're just "talking about their faith".
To that I say, what do you take me for? If you were not trying to convince anyone of anything, you'd go about your worship without ever talking about it. But you are talking about it, because you believe your faith is better than mine. That is, you believe you are better than me, and I should become more like you! Can you even for one minute imagine how galling that is?
The arrogance of evangelism astounds me. I cannot imagine trying to convince anyone that their religious beliefs are wrong. What right do I have? What business is it of mine? But these people believe it is their right (their duty?) to do the same to me.
Grrrr.
Oh yeah, New York Times story here.
. . . "Jesus" has come to be viewed by many evangelical Christians as a singularly modern tool for spreading the Gospel. It speaks, though without special effects or quick editing, to a populace fluent in Hollywood. It comes in multiple languages on one disc. It concludes with a "salvation prayer" the viewer can recite with the narrator. Its local distributors consider it so effective that millions of dollars have already been spent toward the goal of delivering a copy to every household in the United States, as if it were free trial software from America Online. [Emphasis mine.]If I found a copy of this video in my mailbox, I would go ballistic. Fucking ballistic. I detest proselytizing. And in this case, I wouldn't even have the chance to make a snarky comment and shut the door in someone's face!
The ministry overseeing this operation, the Jesus Video Project America, calls the mass mailings "saturation evangelism." Since 1992, 20 million copies have been sent out on DVD and videotape, blanketing Alabama, Hawaii and South Carolina and large swaths of Ohio and Texas, with smatterings in the rest of the states. County-by-county distribution in North Carolina is well under way. If the current rate continues, it might take until 2040 or beyond to reach every home.
I recently ordered some supplements from the Vitamin Shoppe. When my order arrived, it included a free "gift": a religious diet book. Double whammy!! Why do you assume I am dieting, and get your god the fuck outta my house. I wrote to the company to voice my displeasure and to note how stupid they were to send anything with religious overtones. It's sure to offend many customers, and best kept out of any business, I would think. Naturally I told them I'm no longer shopping with them. Along with their apology and explanation, they sent a $25 gift certificate - which I promptly used, making that my last Vitamin Shoppe order. Call me a hypocrite, but I'm not throwing $25 worth of vitamins away.
Back to Jesus In Your Mailbox.
A turning point came when a doctor in Birmingham, Ala., Robert Cosby, bought 1.7 million copies and mailed them in 1998 to every household in Alabama, although he "wasn't very impressed" when he saw the film.Cool!
"I mean, it was a nice film," Mr. Cosby recalled the other day, speaking by telephone from his home. "I would say it was moderately good."
The mailing included Mr. Cosby's home address and telephone number. One day, he said, he found a copy of the video in his front yard with a note that said, "Jesus has returned."
That has not been the only rejection. Over the years, the effort, which began using direct mail after Alabama, has been criticized by people who objected to Jesus' being played by a white actor, or who said the money could be better spent on the poor, or who felt that the mailings were unwelcome proselytizing. Perhaps the most vigorous objections came in 2000, when a mailing was done in Palm Beach County, Fla. Thousands of videos in heavily Jewish West Palm Beach were returned, some taped to bricks in hopes that the sender would have to pay the postage, according to news reports.
Of course the organizers of this stupid project say the video is "simply a gift that the recipients can choose to view or not" - just as evangelicals say they're not trying to convince you, they're just "talking about their faith".
To that I say, what do you take me for? If you were not trying to convince anyone of anything, you'd go about your worship without ever talking about it. But you are talking about it, because you believe your faith is better than mine. That is, you believe you are better than me, and I should become more like you! Can you even for one minute imagine how galling that is?
The arrogance of evangelism astounds me. I cannot imagine trying to convince anyone that their religious beliefs are wrong. What right do I have? What business is it of mine? But these people believe it is their right (their duty?) to do the same to me.
Grrrr.
Oh yeah, New York Times story here.
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