Lefty Side of the Dial

So last night I ran across this bit of news, from the Associated Press:

Church sign links Obama with Osama bin Laden

19 hours ago

JONESVILLE, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina pastor says he wasn't trying to be political when he posted a sign in front of his church linking Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Pastor Roger Byrd said he just wanted to make people think when he put up a sign reading "Obama, Osama — humm, are they brothers" in front of the Jonesville Church of God on Thursday.

Obama, a Christian, attends Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Fifteen percent of respondents to a recent Associated Press-Yahoo News poll said they thought the Illinois senator was a Muslim.

WYFF-TV reported Monday on its Web site that Byrd said he won't take the sign down. He said his congregation voted unanimously Sunday to keep it up.

The church is part of the Church of God, a Pentecostal denomination based in Cleveland, Tenn., according to the organization's Web site.

Jonesville is a town of about 1,000 people in northwestern South Carolina.

This pastor and his congregation would rather believe an outright lie than acknowledge the truth. It reminds me of a quote by Stanley Hauerwas in which he says that the American Christian church is good at making Americans but not so good at making Christians. Actually in Pastor Byrd congregations that not actually good at making Americans, because I always believed that it was very American to take someone at His or Hers word.

In any event, I can't understand why folks like this do this. I get more chain-emails from Christians than I get from any other demographic. It is my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who have an uncanny knack of passing around whatever mistruth, mispeak, demagogue, or myth as if it came from Saint Paul himself.

I just don't understand it, and honestly between you and me I think it pisses Jesus off too.