A fascinating and disturbing television documentary last night dealt with infant evangelical preachers and focused particularly on seven year old Samuel who, according to his parents, has been preaching since he was three. Poor little bugger must have been born again in Jesus before he had even cleared his mother's birth canal.
Young Sam had a message from God telling him to go top New York and preach the "good news," heal the sick and lead the blind. Ever eager to obey the Lord's command Sam's parents loaded their prodigy and his young siblings in the family's Biblebago and headed north from their home in Jesusville, Biblebelt, Jesusland so the boy wonder could preach to the sinners of New York and warn them of God's terrible wrath.
In the Big Apple things did not go well. Sam preached to the sinners, some people laughed, some called his parents bigots and child abusers, some asked w.t.f. a seven year old knew about fornication, abortion, drug abuse and hypocrisy. Some unkind people even made fun of Sam's deep south accent. Now that is deplorable, making fun of a child's rustic accent is jut not acceptable behaviour in and circumstances. I would never stoop so low to get cheap laughs.
Well Rev. Sam was deeply hurt by the mockery, but he followed Jesus' example and carried on with his mission to preach to the sinners.
He went to the tourist sinners and preached;
he went to Wall Street and preached to the financial sinners;
he preached in the retail and administrative sinners;
he even preached in the Rockefeller sinner.
And still those cruel New Yorkers mocked his southern accent.
Eventually the family had to return to their home in Jesusland, but they promised to return when New Yorkers were ready to "accept Jesus." They had learned nothing of reality and still feel it is their task to convince us all that the day of judgement it near and it will be too late to repent for the wrath of the Lord will come down upon the sinners.
Perhaps they had heard stories of the "wrath of the Lord coming down upon the World Trade Sinner and thought it was a sign. They are crazy enough to believe such ideas.
Links for Baby Bible Bashers (documentary on UK tv network, Channel 4
Online version at the Channe4 website
Online discussion at Channel 4 forums
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Comments: 39
I can vouch for that (and it's opposite) having grown up in the South.
Great job, Ian. Do you think Quiverful might bring a flood of these mini arrows in our future?
That's exactly right. He's just parroting off what he has learned from listening to the religious people around him. Children are good at imitation; it's how we learn and survive. It's unfortunate that instead of learning the value of human existence, he's being taught to despise it.
Thanks for this, Ian. I haven't seen the program, but I've seen similar on youtube.
"meaning" they seem to hold for the flock ...
Good stuff, as usual. My Gather's been down for three days -- I'm trying to catch up
Child abuse - gross manipulation by parents - I couldn't watch it to the end.
http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/cutting_edge/baby_bible_bashers/index.html?cntsrc=ppc_CE_google_child+preachers
I posted some links in the main body now. They were not online when I made the original post.
Sam would be better employed saving the South I think.
I know how you feel. I had to watch it as a professional blogger. Just one of the sacrifices we must make for our art :-)
Well bless ma soul, I never thoughht of you as a Southern Belle, I do declare.
Arrows? As in suffering the slings and arrows.....?
Thanks for reading.
I have provided some links to the online archive for the program in the main post now. It was not available online when I made the original post.
The puzzle is they let a British TV company film them. Are they so unaware of how the outside world views fundamentalism they did not realise a sympathetic treatment of the topic was very unlikely?
I have provided some links in the main post now the show is online.
The satire bit is the bit I did not quite make up but distorted wildly. I deplored the way New Yorkers made fun of the kids accent then make fun of the kids accent by telling how he preached to the various commercial sinners (centres.)
After all, isn't doing the very thing you preach against the fundie way? Like Ted Haggard calling for the death penalty for gays while he was getting a regular chew off a rent boy?
Its very British comedy.
I'm working hard right now so you will just have to run faster.
St. Ignatius Loyola was right:
Give me a child to the age of seven and I will give you the person for life.
That point came up in a thread of mine at Authorsden not so long ago. Then someone posted information that Oral Roberts was a kiddie fiddler.
So an examlpe of many a true word spoken in jest here. Good comment.
Maybe they need to see THIS
Arrows
People from New York say every Detroiter they've met sounds southern.
"It was a real documentary, shown here on Channel 4 - about this kiddie, another African American child preacher and a young girl from a south American country.". What ethnicity was the young girl?
Ian, you are having great fun!
British documentaries are always ethnically balanced. The girl preacher was a latina. Now the Portugese were enthusiastic slavers all around the world (it wasn't just us but we get all the blame: "Yeah the Bitish, they did the slave trade, caused the war of independance, they got us into WW1 and WW2 and they all talk like Alan Rickman; you just can't trust them.) so the mix could have been very cosmopolitan.
I'd trust you with........... my gather points ;-)
I should think the show will air on cable on your side of the pond soon. BBC America probably.