When I got back to the Deep South from spending a year in the Tucson desert, four things really struck me –
- the humidity
- how green everything is
- southern accents
- and the overabundance of radio evangelists.
Upon my return I was driving around and scanning the radio stations when I came upon this jewel…
"If it’s got two legs and a crotch in my house, it’s mine!"
I had to listen further. I wasn’t sure if I had stumbled upon radio porn or something weirder. It turned out to be the latter. A radio evangelist was railing against women wearing pants. I tuned in to WTBI at 91.7 FM off and on over the next 15 years, sometimes stifling a laugh, and sometimes having to watch my blood pressure.
The station takes an extreme fundamentalist view, promoting only the King James (Authorized, 1611) Version of the Bible, preferably in the Scoffield edition. The station featured show after show of preaching. Even though the shows had the name "hour" in them, such as "The Mount Sinai Hour", or the "Calvary Hour", each was only fifteen minutes long. This led me to believe that if their sense of time is so screwed up, then it’s no wonder they don’t have a grasp of geological time and fall for a six-day creation story. The shows were so far right that they often criticized Bob Jones University for being too liberal. I even heard one goofball tell his listeners that they should go burn down the house of a local Baptist minister. I’ve often heard the phrase "infidel who’s bound for Hell" (complete with lilting rhyme) used on various shows to refer to anyone who doesn’t agree with their positions. So much for Christian compassion.
Well now the oddballs at TBI have company. Courtesy of the Times Examiner, a new station is in town. The ironically named "Tyranny Response Network" has started spewing their own unique brand of right-wing politics and religion on 97.7 FM. On my first encounter I heard a rebroadcast of a speech from the late 1960’s decrying the anti-war movement and the Civil Rights movement. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that it was a historical broadcast. This morning I heard an apparently modern broadcast, although the content would lead one to think otherwise. The speaker postulated that the biblical concept of a "nation" actually referred to a race or ethnic group, and that some "nations" were chosen. Hmmmm. Wonder what this is leading up to. I couldn’t stand any more and had to switch to XM for the rest of the ride to work.
Actually, I think these guys need even more competition, and I’ve found the perfect tool to help. The Evangelist Name Generator is the perfect thing for folks with a common moniker such as mine. According to their site…
So you want to be an evangelist!
The first thing to realize is that an evangelist is a performer, and as such his name is his calling card. Consider Billy Sunday. Where would he be today if he’d gone by his real name – John Davis? Probably dead and in his grave. And what of Estus Pirkle, Rod Parsley, Creflo Dollar, and Benny Hinn? Where would they be today if they’d kept their respective given names: Ed Clark, Tom Johnson, Mike Smith, and Jeff Hill?
Watch out world! Here comes Reverend Ike M. Miracle, ready to take on those Godless heathens and Commies.