"This is a little different of a rebellion."

September 21, 2009 10:30 AM

Max Blumenthal writes about Matthew Murrayin the Nation article 'The Nightmare of Christianity'.

The article summarizes his upbringing and goes into detail about his life leading up to December 8th, 2007 when he shot four people (two at a Christian organization and two at New Life Church, formerly led by Ted Haggard) in Colorado Springs before killing himself. A woman who was authorized to carry a concealed weapon shot him in the leg and then he shot himself, Previously.

The article goes on to describe how the Christian community explained Murray's violent act to itself and the outside world. From the article: "By failing to explore the roots of Murray's violence, the mainstream media allowed the far right to seize the narrative."

posted by soelo (30 comments total)

.

For Matthew Murray and his victims.

The final paragraph seems jarringly out of place when compared to the rest of this excerpt. I realize it is an excerpt, and perhaps the author includes a smoother segue to his thesis in other sections, but it's a weird jump from Murray's tragic story to McCain's veer to the political far right after receiving the nomination.

It's hard to determine from the article if Gothard's homeschooling seminars are commonly practiced by Pentecostals. Does anyone know? I ask because Sarah Palin used to be one.
posted by zarq at 10:52 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]

The article page comes up blank for me. I went to the Nation website and clicked on the hyperlink there ... and still comes up blank.
posted by ericb at 11:04 AM on September 21

ericb, It's now blank for me as well. When I was first reading it, I got an error on only the third page, but at least it was a real error page and not blank.
posted by soelo at 11:07 AM on September 21

That's very weird. I read it as a single page and that's also coming up blank.
posted by zarq at 11:10 AM on September 21

Down from here too, dammit.
posted by valkyryn at 11:10 AM on September 21

Since I never saw the original link (& I let my subscription to The Nation lapse), I cannot assess the quality of these mirrors:

Religious News Blog
Alternet
Dick Dawkins
posted by coachfortner at 11:18 AM on September 21

The Alternet link contains the complete article. Thank you, coachfortner.
posted by zarq at 11:26 AM on September 21

To quote the bard, “This is my surprised face.”

In my life I knew a number of kids whose parents were a bit authoritarian (say twice to three times as much as mine). Later, when we were off on our own, they did about twice to three times as much “get you into trouble with the man” kind of stuff.

This story is where that phenomenon runs into that powers of ten video.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:36 AM on September 21

It's hard to determine from the article if Gothard's homeschooling seminars are commonly practiced by Pentecostals

Gothard's "Basic Youth Conflicts" teachings have been around for at least the last three decades. His advanced teaching has been around quite a long time as well. They have been fairly popular with conservative type Christians...

I'm not a fan. There is some good solid Bible teaching in some of that stuff but I have really basic disagreements with how it is presented. And some of the material is in my humble opinion pretty wacked out. (Only those who have gone to the conferences are supposed to use the homeschooling materials but a former employer of mine had a pile that I managed to peruse.)

I hate to say it but I can see how this material, misused, could cause difficulties.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 11:37 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]

It's a bad recipe to take someone destined for paranoia and mental disturbance and add legitimate reasons for paranoia, exclusion, and mistreatment. I wouldn't go so far as the author does to say that they made him the way he was, but I could imagine that predisposition plus mistreatment gets you a murderous rampage every now and then.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 11:48 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]

You know, there's nothing like telling a kid over and over again that they are evil and will amount to no good to make someone grow up to embrace evil and amount to no good.
posted by teleri025 at 12:05 PM on September 21

Gothard's "Basic Youth Conflicts" teachings have been around for at least the last three decades. His advanced teaching has been around quite a long time as well. They have been fairly popular with conservative type Christians...

Ah. Thank you. I appreciate the insights.
posted by zarq at 12:08 PM on September 21

What an awful article. I thought it was going to segue nicely into a bit more analysis of the situation, and show how this was different than Eric Harris and Cho Seung-Hui. But he didn't. He read way too much into Murray's mindset. He sourced anonymous WorldNetDaily comments for evidence of a whitewash?

How is this any different that what the Christians did to video games after Columbine?
posted by FuManchu at 12:10 PM on September 21

Oh. Is this an excerpt of his Republican Gommorrah book? Makes more sense that he's trying to shoehorn the subject into that thesis, then. Still, way to tease with a good intro with a lame follow-up analysis.
posted by FuManchu at 12:18 PM on September 21

Well color me disappointed, but not entirely surprised.

I was hoping for a serious, even-handed examination of this character, his experience, and his actions.

What I got was an article which assumes that Pentecostals and conservative Christians are evil.

This is just sloppy. There is plenty in this subculture to criticize, and the criticism needs to happen. But seriously, starting with the assumption that Murray's analysis of his own experience is to be taken at face value--"psychotropic drugs"? You mean Ritalin? Since when is this confined to Pentecostalism?--in an article which simultaneously attempts to argue that Murray was brainwashed and unhinged makes this all very hard to take seriously.

The reason this is unsurprising is that it's coming from The Nation. I had hoped they'd do better, but didn't really expect them to.

Yawn.
posted by valkyryn at 12:25 PM on September 21 [1 favorite]

Is it just me, but do the "single page," "print," and pages "2," "3," and the "next" link all return the same damn first page of the article? Horrible.

Thanks for the Alternet link, but I'm not sure I want to even bother now ...
posted by mrgrimm at 12:54 PM on September 21 [1 favorite]

After the trauma-inducing raids, in which Murray estimated his mother and her friends destroyed $900 worth of his property, he concluded, "Christianity is one big lie."

Christianity is a lie b/c my mom stole my video games. How the hell did he get $900 worth of video games and secular music anyway?

Oh, I guess he was 24. Was he still living with his parents? Why?

Haggard's replacement, Brady Boyd, had authorized as many as thirty parishioners to carry concealed weapons into his spiritual sanctuary

!

Meanwhile, Murray's parents, who were adept at ferreting secular media material from his desk drawers, had no idea his stockpile even existed.

How ironic and sad.
posted by mrgrimm at 1:01 PM on September 21

Is it just me, but do the "single page," "print," and pages "2," "3," and the "next" link all return the same damn first page of the article? Horrible.

I'm getting the same behavior...
posted by knave at 1:26 PM on September 21

Alternet mirror worked, though. Thanks coach.
posted by knave at 1:32 PM on September 21

…was first practiced in English boarding schools, where homosexual experimentation was practically de rigueur.

True, or hyperbole?
posted by five fresh fish at 1:44 PM on September 21

That article was really disappointing. The first page was so promising and then I spent an infuriating 15 minutes trying to navigate to the subsequent pages only to find a bucket of tripe at the end of the rainbow.

But Bill Gothard's group are a little freaky. Trust me, I know.
posted by treyka at 1:54 PM on September 21

"They admitted that I hadn't done anything wrong, just that they had prayed and felt I wasn't popular/'connected' and talkative enough," he recalled.

Ouch. Way to make him "love the lord."
posted by mdpatrick at 3:29 PM on September 21 [1 favorite]

The article page comes up blank for me. I went to the Nation website and clicked on the hyperlink there ... and still comes up blank.

The hyperlink works for me now. I'm onto reading the article now.
posted by ericb at 4:06 PM on September 21

…was first practiced in English boarding schools, where homosexual experimentation was practically de rigueur.

True, or hyperbole?
posted by five fresh fish at 4:44 PM on September 21 [+] [!]

I think Stephen Fry once said that British boarding schools were like gay training camps (lots of adolescent boys kept segregated from girls, but still horny), but I think that this was also hyperbole.
posted by jb at 5:47 PM on September 21

Oh, and having had one of my daughters go to YWAM DTS, I think perhaps they thought he should leave because it was probably pretty obvious he had mental problems. Folks are supposed to be screened to go to these things particularly since usually part of the experience is to go to a foreign country for a period of time. I don't blame them one iota for sending him home.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:43 PM on September 21

jb: "…was first practiced in English boarding schools, where homosexual experimentation was practically de rigueur.

True, or hyperbole?
posted by five fresh fish at 4:44 PM on September 21 [+] [!]

I think Stephen Fry once said that British boarding schools were like gay training camps (lots of adolescent boys kept segregated from girls, but still horny), but I think that this was also hyperbole."

If Stephen Fry's autobiography is to believed then English boarding schools are nothing but tea, hazing rituals, and homosexual experimentation.
posted by minifigs at 6:02 AM on September 22

If Stephen Fry's autobiography is to believed then English boarding schools are nothing but tea, hazing rituals, and homosexual experimentation.
posted by minifigs at 6:02 AM on September 22 [+] [!]

Where do I sign?
posted by luftmensch at 9:18 AM on September 22

I was going to say something to defend this piece, but on second reading, I agree with the consensus here that it's a pretty awful piece of writing that does very little to advance the cause that Max Blumenthal seems to want to advance. I hope the book's better.
posted by blucevalo at 10:54 AM on September 22

Max Blumenthal goes toe-to-toe with Morning Joe about the spread of far-right wingnuttery
posted by homunculus at 1:18 PM on September 23

Thanks for the video, homunculus. It shows to me how much of a partisan douchebag Blumenthal is. Completely avoids answering any questions in favor of quoting more tidbits from his book. Seriously. I don't even think he is able to analyze the problems he sees beyond "Republicans are dumb."

After seeing the crazy protesters, host asks, "Well weren't there a lot during the Bush administration, too?" Max doesn't really answer the question, and goes on to talk about the Republican legislators being hyperbolic about the health care bill. Host asks, "Well, the Democrats did go back and tighten the legislation for the abortion and illegal immigrant sections, so it's not like there weren't possible loopholes, right?" Max ignores him to give a quote about birther polling. Host asks, "But doesn't 33% of the country also believe that Bush caused 9/11?" Max ignores him to give some other stat that is in his book. He was also wrong about Jim DeMint "introducing legislation" to prevent single mothers and gays from being teachers, as opposed to voicing his personal views, but doesn't admit to that in his post.

He's clearly just selling his book to Democrats. Finding serious issues that need to be solved in the Republican party, and doing the most superficial of research into it. His only goal is to collect the anti-Republican talking points together and sell them. He has no real interest in actually analyzing anything.

Republicans are hyperbolic crazy people. So are a lot of people. So are a lot of lefties. So are a lot of mass murderers, like Matthew Murray. He doesn't seem to be able or willing to answer the question, "Why is Matthew Murray different? Why are Republicans different?"

It's like reading political posts on MetaFilter. zing!
posted by FuManchu at 3:59 PM on September 23