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From: tim@unc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: suspicious singles questionnaire
Message-ID: <5641@unc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Aug-83 03:27:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: unc.5641
Posted: Mon Aug  1 03:27:48 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Aug-83 02:31:36 EDT
References: watarts.1980
Lines: 35


    The ever-cordial Geo Swan has posted some misgivings about the
Maranatha organization.  As it happens, they were here at UNC a little
while ago.  They are very kind, very polite people who want to run the
country themselves and drive out all the non-Christians who are
dragging it down.  They also lose their politeness when they preach,
doing the usual you-are-evil-and-going-to-hell bit.

    This sort of group frightens me, not because they are horrible
ogres, but because they are normal, nice people who back one of the
most oppressive platforms of social reforms you can imagine.  Remember
that the Nazi party was composed mostly of good German citizens, not
monsters.  Pam (if you've been hiding for a while, she's my lady)
talked with some Maranathas on the street and tried to pin one down
about exactly what it was that he meant when he talked about making
America a Christian nation, and what would happen to those who didn't
convert.  He wouldn't (or couldn't) answer the first in any sort of
direct or otherwise informative fashion, and his only answer to the
second was that he didn't care, that it would be doing them a favor to
make them convert.  That sounds pleasant for those, like me, who would
only profess Christianity at gunpoint, or after involuntary brain
surgery to keep my "head knowledge" from blocking out the Lord.

    I would like to supply some quotes from their newsletter, which
consists mostly of pseudo-scholarly articles about how freedom of
religion was put in the Constitution only to keep Christian sects from
attacking each other and other pap.  Unfortunately, I damaged the
paper throwing it down in disgust, and I haven't seen it in a few weeks.

______________________________________
The overworked keyboard of Tim Maroney

duke!unc!tim (USENET)
tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA)
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill