Customer Reviews

Book Burning

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Okay, so this is an old book, an old Christian book from the Reagan era.where the Far Right thought they were in unquestioned power. However, this book is ironically interesting, even when you understand Cal Thomas's Christian bias.

Thomas is a newspaper columnist with a conservative " family values" Christian slant. One of the immediate ironies is that Thomas in the book lambasts " liberal media" while nowadays his column is put on the same "liberal media" op-ed pages.

Basically the book claims that all the "book burning" ( IOW any censorship of HIS religion) comes from the liberals, while his fellow Christians are OC only interested in high moral values and not being excluded from the bookstore shelves and whatnot. Yup, that line of crap.

Usual attacks on liberal biases and how his religion is supposedly being supressed. He mentions the Arkansas Creation Science law, which was rightly overturned, but does not mention the scientific invalidity of creationism. He attacks the critical of fundamentalist Christianity books of that time, particularly " Holy Terror" and even calls some of the claims of the two authors slanderous ( interestingly, if they did commit slander, they were never sued).. And there is the claim of no Christian book on the weekly besteller list. Usual accusations against the press, the library boards and civil rights groups that support causes Thomas and his ilk do not approve of.

Note the title. None of what he claims about the "secular humanist liberal letf" includes BURNING books. Those of you who are old enough may remember reading about various Christian groups BURNING records, books and so forth, up to the earliy eighties. I remember a number of stories, including an Assembly of God Minister and his flock burning Elvis records in my home town. Also there are some Christians who so dislike the Harry Potter books they burn them. Caryl Matrisciana in a public rally had to satisfy herself by tearing up her copy, not burning it. The ironic title is that the actual book burners are Thomas' ilk, not the liberals.

That's not to say that Thomas doesn't make some good points. One of the more relevant points he makes is that when certian Christians are guilty of crimes, their religion is mentioned immediately and prominetly. Thomas doesn't concede that those accused of abuse and so forth may have done so BECAUSE of their extreme Christian beliefs ( IOW he wants to whitewash the direct link to his religion angle)

Thomas' intent is to make it look like ALL Christians are " innocent victims" of exclusion and censorship-- and that liberal " filth" is running control of the media. Even then it was bull and now its even more male bovine excrement posturing.

Irony: He complains that in many secular bookstores Christian books are in the "religion and cults" sections hiding in back, sharing space with books on Buddhism. In actual fact most bookstores have a whole section, sometimes almost a third of the book space, for Christian books alone.

Irony: Thomas calls the "inattention" that Christian books and writers got from the secular world as the " Black Ghettoization"., " separate but equal". Didn't the Klu Klux Klan start from Baptists ( IOW a part of Christianity)? The simple fact is that if any publication not religious-oriented covers religion at all, they reserve it for their religion section of their publication, where it rightfully should go, unless it's a shocking news du jour bit. One of the many ironies in this statement is that Thomas ( as usual for his type of Christianity) thinks "religion" means Christianity and everyone else's beliefs are cults, not religions. And yet its a suckers bet if a NON-Christian religion is shown in any section of a paper, Thomas's folks would raise a stink. Fort Hood incident, Halloween and Wicca, teen "witches".... All legitimate freedom of religion issues yet fundies rally and show their dislike.

The biggest enemy of Christianity is the devout fanatical Christian. Its not the sincerity of belief, its the ignorance and prejudice and even hatred of other views that damages the Christian religion far more than any " Christ-hater" could do. This is something Cal Thomas doesn't see.

So Cal Thomas, while you are standing there by the bonfire watching your fellow Christians tossing books in, tell me more about how YOU are being discriminated against and how you Christians are so disliked.

This book is way out of date. The good thing about it is that we can read it and look back at how much things have changed since 1983 when it was published. Another good thing about it is that we can look back and see how much things stay the same. The same battles are happening today, but it does seem that, all in all, Cal's Moral Majority is more on the defensive now, whereas the so-called secular humanists seem to have gained ground in 20 years. Diximus.