Osama bin Jones.

September 11, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Jones deserves the title because he is the latest extremist of the “Christian” faith who is trying to incite global conflict in the same way that Osama bin Laden has done with his plotting.

ObJ wants to make a name for himself. How else to explain his arrogance to think he can lay down an ultimatum for the imam of New York City, ten states away, with an “or else” condition that he will start burning the Muslim holy scriptures?

And it seems ObJ wants to compete for a place in the pantheon of arrogance, hubris and wacko Christianity with people like Fred Phelps—who wasn’t outrageous enough with his God Hates Fags routine and escalated his own rhetoric to God Hates America (for tolerating fags).

So ObJ is milking his 15 seconds of fame for all its worth. It’s also possible that the feeble-minded wants to become a martyr to his own imaginary god. Meanwhile, local Gainsville Muslims are praying for Jones’ safety. According to this Gainsville Sun article, “‘I pray that nothing happens to him,’ Rizwan Mansoor said at the Hoda Center on Monday.”

This is classic Fundamentalism, of course. Fundamentalism is more than comfortable with religious grand-standing, and in fact seeks it. The fundamentalist Christian movement for more than a century has been trying to draw lines in the sand for what it considers orthodox. Unfortunately for all Christians, the lines they continue to draw are the least defensible lines one could draw—things such as the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, etc.

It isn’t enough to say very strongly that ObJ and I would disagree profoundly on many things. As far as I am concerned, his version of Christian truth has virtually nothing in it that resembles the faith I live by. If he can find chapter and verse from the Christian bible to support the idea of inciting riot, stoking the fires of interreligious and inter-ethnic violence, endangering U.S. troops abroad, I am certain he would have to twist such verses entirely out of reality.

But the underlying issue here deserves to be mentioned. ObJ’s “World Outreach” flock is a charismatic independent non-denominational thing. I call them “Indy-Nondies” for short. While being “non-denominational” is touted as important in this era when mainstream (at least Protestant) denominations seems to be in decline, Indy-Nondies are in fact accountable to no one. Any partly-educated wack job can start his or her own “ministry” and claim some particular trait to emphasize in order to grab “market share” from other churches. People are gullible, and with the media’s help, will be drawn to the latest craze, even in the world of religion.

In the Dove World Outreach case, according to Wikipedia, it was founded in 1985 by Donald O. Northrup of the now-defunct Maranatha Campus Ministries. “Maranatha came under considerable fire during the 1970s and 1980s, largely due to its highly authoritarian structure. There were accusations of MCM being a cult with some former members reporting behavior similar to cults that frequently recruited college students during that time.”

The real cult here is the cult of personality. ObJ’s picture that keeps cropping up on the internet seems to indicate that he doesn’t have any personality, but looks can be deceiving. The fact that ObJ’ name is plastered all over the media but you have to dig to find out anything about his church (it’s web site is simply “under construction”) confirms that ObJ is trying to cultivate his own importance over the mission of his flock.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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