Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!whuxlb!pyuxll!eisx!npoiv!npois!hogpc!houxm!hocda!spanky!burl!duke!unc!tim 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