Devil Devil Go Away!

Devil Devil Go Away!

Jesus is a friend of mine

John Hagee's Ideal woman

Reverend Bruce Gets the Last Laugh

The psychedelic secrets of Santa Claus

Then of course there are the contentions that Santa is a shaman, inspired by ancestral memories of Amanita Muscaria use...

via

All I Want For Christmas...

Aborted Fetus Found in Gift Box Under Christmas Tree

SAN JUAN, Texas -- A south Texas couple put an aborted 7-month-old fetus in a gift box under a Christmas tree after they were unable to flush the remains down a toilet, authorities alleged Monday.

Ruby Lee Medina, 31, and Javier Gonzalez, 37, of Mission, have been charged with abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.

Bond was set Monday at $20,000 each.

San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez said police found the fetus inside the woman's trailer home Thursday after getting an anonymous tip.

Autopsy results are pending, but Gonzalez said police believe the woman used pills to induce an abortion Thursday, then called an ambulance after she began bleeding and told doctors she didn't know where the fetus was.

The abortion drug, mifepristone, was made to be used at approximately seven weeks into pregnancy to kill an unborn child, but the second part of the two-drug process, misoprostol, can be used to cause contractions.

It is an anti-ulcer drug that is not meant for pregnancy or abortion purposes.

Gonzalez said Medina called for an ambulance after she began bleeding and told paramedics she did not know the location of the unborn child.

He indicated the couple attempted to flush the body of the baby down the toilet but were unable to do so.

The couple said they eventually had planned to bury the baby's body in their backyard but police found them out first.

They voluntarily surrendered to officials.

"Apparently they cleaned up the fetus and they placed it inside a gift box under the Christmas tree," the police chief said.

sent in by Brother Ben

oh, and you can get your fetus cookie cutter here!

Know Thy Enemy

Rep. Michele Bachmann and Lou Engle of The Call participate in the Family Research Council's anti-healthcare reform "prayercast."



via <------ lots of good stuff there

thanks to Brother T Tex

Teabagger Worried His Prayers Made God Kill Sen. Inhofe

A panicked teabagger called up C-SPAN in tears today, worried that he accidentally killed Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe by praying for Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd to die.



via GAWKER

The Condemned Man's Prayer wall clock

just in time to be too late for Christmas. Time is running out in more ways than one.

"Dear God, this is my last prayer on earth..."



first offering from the Snake Oil Cafe Press Shoppe

(Here's a tip about Cafe Press: If you sign up for an account and don't mind getting their spam, they do offer free postage several times a year. Otherwise it's a pretty harsh toke.)


Here is the text of the prayer:

Baboons Observed Praying

Read about it here

Thanks to Sister Lori for the tip.

Meet the Republican Party's new spiritual guru, Lou Engle

"My son Jesse, he's nineteen years old. God has given him dreams, to go to San Francisco to launch a house of prayer, one block from the Castro District - where the homosexuals boast the dominion of darkness. He's going there with weeping in his heart. With the dream that prayer is stronger than the dominion of that spirit.

...He said to me, "dad," he said, "as long as I'm there I don't think the Lord will judge San Francisco." [boos, angry murmur from Engle's audience]...

He's nineteen years old. He's starting to cast out homosexual spirits out of our new converts. It's scary*. The whole thing's scary. But fathers are to send their sons into the darkest places."

Good rundown here

Our 100th Post Celebration: Screaming Boy

Upstart TV preachers flock to Dallas like young starlets drawn to Hollywood. So began the story of Jonathan Bell who arrived in Dallas from Kingston, Ontario in early 1992 with a vision from God to start a television ministry.

Accompanying Jonathan were Carrie Hart, a 71-year-old invalid, and her 35-year-old retarded son. With the $1400 per month that the Harts received in government checks, the three got set up in a one bedroom apartment in the predominately gay Oak Lawn section of Dallas, and Jonathan Bell Ministries was on its way.

That first Texas summer, however, took its toll on the trio of transplanted Canadians. Their living arrangement had deteriorated to the point that on the night of July 28th, police were called to the scene of a domestic disturbance at the ministry apartment, whereupon Jonathan was hauled in on aggravated assault of an invalid.

The police incident report reveals a sorry state of affairs: Jonathan typically sent the Harts out early each morning on ministry errands, and they were expected back promptly at 9 PM. Being late, or not following instructions exactly resulted in a beating. Neighbors told police that they had seen the Harts with bruises and black eyes. The Harts were given just a few dollars a month, and Jonathan got the only bed while they slept on the floor with no bedding.
In what may have been a water baptism gone horribly awry, Harry Hart, the son, claimed that earlier in the summer Jonathan had tried to drown him at an area lake by holding him underwater by his hair.

Within a few days of Jonathan's arrest, the Harts returned to Canada, and all charges were dropped.

This sordid little tale would not be worth telling if shortly thereafter Jonathan had not gone on to produce two of the most psychotic, disturbing religious programs ever made.

Flanked by a potted plant, Screaming Boy was born in the studios of Dallas Cable Access. Religious fury in a rented tux. The petulant, porcine pentecostal launched into a hellfire and brimstone sermon at max volume which didn't subside for a solid hour.

But much more than the message itself was the delivery, complete with nervous tics, bulging veins, and a childish, bullying demeanor. An implicit "n'yah-n'yah n'yah n'yah-n'yah" was almost audible at the end of every sentence. His main message concerned those smug, self-satisfied, so-called Christians in "their fancy churches" who "weren't gonna make it in."

"I've been looking for a church here in Dallas where they don't just preach the Word on Sunday and live like the DEVIL the rest of the week! Last Friday I went to a singles get together at the Church of Christ, and they were going to show Terminator 2...to people who weren't even saved! I mean, COME ON!" [note that the singles group was going to show Terminator 2. I guess Jonathan took care of THAT!] "If you don't realize you're a filthy, rotten sinner, you're going to hell, Buck-o."

So don't you blame Screaming Boy when, on Judgement Day, you're on the wrong side of the gate. And, hey, you might be in a car crash tonight. You'll see. Jonathan's making it in, and you're not. N'yah-n'yah n'yah n'yah-n'yah.

"I"M NOT AN EXTREMIST!!!"

Speweth Jonathan: "I study the Bible five to eight hours a day!! And because I have faith as a child, Jesus Christ shows me visions all the time. He talks with me all the time, whether YOU believe it or not!" [So THERE!]


"Two years ago God gave me a vision where I saw young people, men and women - no children there - no clothes on...They had their hands up in the air and they were screaming and yelling in Hell!"

Also perversely compelling were the little tidbits he threw in about his own life. Abandoned by his mother at age eleven, Jonathan was put in a foster home with a man who sexually abused him. He suffered from depression until age twenty-seven, but managed to build a successful career as a hairdresser making, he claimed, $100,000 a year. He led a singles group at a church in Kingston, Ontario, but then God told him to go to Dallas and start his own ministry, and to build a Christian Boy's Ranch for abused youngsters.

Hmmmmmm... Good thing that in that vision of Hell that God gave Jonathan, none of the naked people were under eighteen.

My writing skills at conveying the viewing experience of watching Screaming Boy are woefully inadequate. If I said he was a cross between Porky Pig and Sam Kinison, would that help? If I noted that for no reason little subtitles would appear on the screen with slogans like "Satan Wants Your Mind and Soul," would you start to understand how mind-numbingly weird these shows were? Or that, in the finest cable access tradition, Jonathan spent half the time looking into the wrong camera?

Sadly, after producing just two one hour programs on Dallas Cable Access, Jonathan Bell vanished. Calls to Dallas Cable Access yeilded no information. Letters sent to his Dallas PO Box went unanswered.

While reviewing the two Screaming Boy episodes in preparation of this story, I decided to call the church in Kingston where Jonathan said he had led the singles group.

"We are in no way associated with Jonathan Bell. If you're writing something about him, please don't mention the name of this church. We don't know any more than what's been in the papers."

click



The papers?? Surely they weren't concerned about a little blurb in the Dallas paper almost three years ago about the assault on the Harts..

With much excitement and a healthy dose of foreboding, I dialed the number for the Kingston Whig-Standard. The worst was confirmed.

"A Kingston hairstylist and former host of a self-help cable TV show, who is facing a number of sexual charges involving children, will remain in jail until a bail hearing Monday.

"Jonathan Bell, the 35-year-old owner of the Jonathan Bell Salon at 477 Macdonnell St., appeared briefly at a bail hearing yesterday in provincial court on Wellington Street.
"He faces 11 sexual molestation charges, some of them stretching back almost two decades...

"Besides running his own salon, Bell was known to many people in the Kingston area through his short-lived Cablenet TV program, called Success In Life.

"Rob Heeney, program manager at Kingston Cablenet, said the show ran monthly from September 1993 to December 1993. 'It was a self-help show,' said Heeney. Part of the show involved Bell giving people make-overs."

--excerpted from The Kingston Whig-Standard, November 4, 1994.

Subsequent articles revealed that Jonathan pleaded not guilty, was denied bail, and that still more charges were filed.

It is interesting and somewhat telling that upon his return to Canada he choose to name his new television program so similarly to Robert Tilton's "Success N Life," even though he expressed nothing but sneering contempt for "so-called preachers here in Dallas who live in their big, fancy houses."

It occurs to me now that what was played out on Dallas Cable Access was more than a tormented individual ranting and raving about Jesus. What we had witnessed was no less than Jonathan Bell in an all out battle with his personal demons, the title match for his very soul.

Chalk this one up for the Devil.



(The above originally appeared in the print version of Snake Oil # 4, Fall 1995)

Brother T Tex helps us get in the Christmas Spirit!

Check out all the crazy Christmas images at T Tex's Hexes

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Santa Claus versus The Devil



I first saw K. Gordon Murray's Santa Claus at the 25th Street Theatre in Waco, TX in 1966. It's impossible to overstate the profound effect this film had on my life. Of course, it was the English dubbed version I saw, but nowadays I'm partial to the original spanish. Here is the classic scene where the Devil tempts Lupe to steal the doll:

Name It and Claim It Christians Contributed to the Financial Crash

I love it! An article in the new Atlantic makes the case that Prosperity Gospel is a contributing factor in today's economic ills. Right on! Here's the summary:

America’s mainstream religious denominations used to teach the faithful that they would be rewarded in the afterlife. But over the past generation, a different strain of Christian faith has proliferated—one that promises to make believers rich in the here and now. Known as the prosperity gospel, and claiming tens of millions of adherents, it fosters risk-taking and intense material optimism. It pumped air into the housing bubble. And one year into the worst downturn since the Depression, it’s still going strong.

Dallas is so overrun by these morons. It's nice to see them called out. Read the full article HERE

Called Home

Oral Roberts has exited the tent

The Rebel Jesus

Temple of Schlock has a nice tribute to Dallas' own Larry "Zontar" Buchanan's 1973 insane "The Rebel Jesus"
This groundbreaking film uncovered lots of important stuff they left out of the Bible!

Family Circus

Raising the Dead with Todd Bentley

from the Lakeland, Florida revival



this is kinda old news, but if you want to take a trip down the Todd Bentley / Joel's Army rabbit hole, here are a couple of good places to jump off:

'Arming' for Armageddon

Joel's Army and The Call

UPDATE: if you're so inclined, a good round up on the Roots of Dominionism

A message from Scientology: There's an Org in Your Neighborhood!

(includes Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson)

via

Dinner with the Abortionists

via

Robert Tilton Flashback

While we're waiting for a new post, why not go back through the archives and catch up on all the Robert Tilton related posts from days gone by?

Robert Tilton: A History in Flatulence

So.... What's Bob Been Up To?

Robert Tilton Fan Club on Channel 8

Mrs. Bob Tilton # 2

Jesus Junk!

Somebody has taken it upon themselves to keep track of the tacky Christian-themed apparel, doodads, and knickknacks that are proliferating out there. Pictures are posted on this blog: The Museum of Idolatry. Sometimes they link to the seller, other times, sadly, not. But it's oh so worth a click!

Thank you, Brother Russell for sharing!

Passing the collection plate

If you are doing any Christmas shopping at Amazon, please consider going to Amazon via the Snake Oil Amazon page. <----Click that link, then click on "powered by Amazon" and it'll take you to the main Amazon page. If you initiate your Amazon session this way, I get a small piece of the action. So go to Amazon now and buy a big TV or something!

Old Time Religion

This is an absolutely incredible site - religious ephemera from the collection of Jim Linderman. Your faith will be stirred up! Once again we are indebted to Brother Tex Edwards. Click here!

Especially wonderful is the post on Rev. Charles Jessup

Derelict HOLY LAND USA roadside attraction from the 1950s

In the early 1950s John Baptist Greco, a staunch Roman Catholic, had a vision of a roadside theme park devoted to God. By the end of the decade, he had created exactly that: a theme park built to replicate a miniature Bethlehem. By the 1960s, the park was visited by some 50,000 people a year. One could come and see a recreation of the Garden of Eden, biblical-themed dioramas and various tributes to the life and work of Jesus Christ.

The park was perhaps best known for its Hollywood-style sign reading "Holy Land USA" and its 56-foot steel cross that can be seen for miles, especially when lit up at night. It is said that there is a town joke that citizens grow up thinking Jesus was electrocuted on the cross. In 1984, the park was closed for renovation. Greco had hopes of expanding the site to attract more visitors; however, this was never achieved as he died in 1986.

Responsibility for the park passed to a group of nuns. For a while, they tried to keep the park clean and neat looking but never opened to the public. Regardless of their efforts, the park became seedy and vandalised since Greco's death. To this day, the nuns still own the property, however, it is the local teenagers and foragers who have made their mark. Statues have been beheaded, dioramas destroyed, and tunnels blocked. Occasionally tourists still stop to look, and even explore, but they make sure they are gone before dark.

via

this article was also sent in by Brother Ben, who is obviously on a spiritual roll this week

OUR FOUR EVIL ENEMIES OF THE END TIMES

Brother Ben thought that this should be brought to your attention:

Bob Larson vs Foul Demon Spirit of Homosexuality!

Adam Gorightly heps us to this wonderful Bob Larson segment

more Bob Larson here

Yet another holiday gift idea

War on Christmas button