Toys for tots, tits, tatts

With Christmas within arm's reach, all kinds of marketers are trying to get a piece of the spirit. It sometimes leads to odd couplings.

Chicago's Admiral Theater, which despite the classy name is actually a strip club, is offering to exchange one free lap dance for a donation of a toy for charity.

Aren't all lap dances for the "needy"?

In Memphis, Tattoo artist Jay Guzman is offering free tatts for a toy donation to his favourite Christian cause.

Huffington Post says that when customers bring in a toy worth $25 or more, Monday through Wednesday, they can get a tattoo or piercing of comparable price in exchange. Guzman said in an interview, "Everybody associates tattoo artists with being criminals, bikers, degenerates — and I'm a believing Christian and I believe what better way to be Christ-like than by giving back."

It's a good point. Strip clubs, tattoo parlours... if Jesus the man were here right now, that's exactly where he would do his ministry: among the very people his more hypocritical followers despise.

NZ church keeps up its irreverent Christian holiday ad tradition

St Matthews in the City Church in Auckland, NZ, is known for its controversial billboards. This Christmas, they did not disappoint:

Via stuff.co.nz and Copyranter

Here's a clearer image:

Via The Daily Mail

Well, how would you react if you were an engaged homeless virgin who just found out she was pregnant?


Vicar Glynn Cardy says the irreverent ad has a serious Christmas message:

"It's real. Christmas is real. It's about a real pregnancy, a real mother and a real child. It's about real anxiety, courage and hope. This billboard portrays Mary, Jesus' mother, looking at a home pregnancy test kit revealing that she is pregnant.   Regardless of any premonition, that discovery would have been shocking.  Mary was unmarried, young, and poor.  This pregnancy would shape her future.  She was certainly not the first woman in this situation or the last."

Screw the haters. I love these guys.

Other great St. Mathews billboards:

• This billboard will rise again
• God is an All-Blacks fan
• God is a hard act to follow
• Beware of God
• "Hell no, we're giving up pizza for Lent"
• Same-sex couples on Noah's Ark

Florida Family Association wishes American Muslims a Hateful Christmas

OMG TERRURISTS!

Jezebel writes that American home-improvement chain Lowes has pulled its advertising from TLC's reality show All-American Muslim after complaints from the Florida Family Association.

According to TLC's online preview:

"All-American Muslim follows the daily lives of five American Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan, one of the most established and largest concentrations of American Muslims in the country. Each episode offers an intimate look at customs and celebrations, as well as misconceptions, conflicts, and differences these families face outside and within their own community."

 In other words, it is offering a peek beyond the xenophobia, to portray the diverse people behind the faith.

This infuriates the Florida Family Association, who sent out an alert to all their members to e-mail TLC with complaints:

"The Learning Channel's new show All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law.  The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish."

My. Oh. My. Can't you just feel the love of Jesus Christ throbbing in their veins? The FFA's mission statement is to "educate people on what they can do to defend, protect and promote traditional, biblical values." (Apparently, "love thy neighbour" ain't one of these.)

Lowe's gave the lamest excuse ever for giving in to fundamentalist pressure:

"Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance."

Way to go, asshats. Spineless and callous is no way for a brand to go through life.

Predictably, some public figures are calling for a boycott of the cowardly brand, including Democratic Senator Ted Lieu, who is calling for a Christmas boycott of Lowe's. He says, "The show is about what it's like to be a Muslim in America, and it touches on the discrimination they sometimes face. And that kind of discrimination is exactly what's happening here with Lowe's."

LOTS of room for improvement in this brand.

Related: Buzzfeed's 25 Dumbest Comments On Lowe's Facebook Page About “All-American Muslim”

American Atheist ads fight one myth with another

What a strange strategy. American Humanist is launching this Christmas campaign in Kearny, NJ, Washington, DC, Cranston, RI, Bastrop, LA, Oregon City, OR, Bryan/College Station, TX and Rochester Hill, MI, this month.

The odd assortment of target markets is based on AH's list of places where self-identified atheists have experienced discrimination in their communities.

Here's the example from Cranston:

Jessica Ahlquist, a student at Cranston High School West, filed a federal lawsuit asking that a prayer banner be removed from the public school. The banner, which violates the First and Fourteenth amendments of the U.S. Constitution, includes the phrases “Our Heavenly Father” and “Amen.” Local authorities are asking that the banner remain.  

According to a story in The Providence Journal, “students and adults have called [Ahlquist] a ‘stupid atheist,’ an ACLU tool, a witch and a ‘media whore.’ They’ve also threatened her through e-mails or at school, she says. A former classmate told her that, if she knew what he really thought of her, she would kill herself, she says.”

These bullying incidents, by peers and institutions, shouldn't be tolerated in any case. The implication is that in very "Christian" areas of the US, Atheist-bashing is tolerated by the public.

But is this any way to address the issue? I don't think so. Because various atheist causes have been running anti-belief campaigns like the one below, they continue to brand themselves as "anti-God" instead of just free-thinkers. While the message that there are other atheists out there is not specifically anti-religion, it will be taken as such by the very people who hate them. And so on. And so on. It's a very American "us versus them" approach.

My solution? Lose the whole "atheism" label. It makes the lack of religion sound like a religion itself. If you want to get through to people, don't attack a deeply-entrenched belief that they have not come upon through rational discovery. You cannot argue them out of it.

You need to show them that you are really so "good without God" that you feel no need for comparison. Just be the individual thinker who you say you are. Lead by example in showing the true Christian values of compassion, humility and charity — as opposed to the false Christian vices of xenophobia, pride and social coercion.

Fundamentalist book reviews: Walmart Edition

A YouTube user calling himself "GodGunsGutsGlory4KJV" has taken it on himself to expose Walmart's secret plot to turn America's children over to witchcraft, satanism, and possibly even liberalism with morals-destroying books DISPLAYED IN PLAIN VIEW while the Bibles are on the bottom shelf.



In case you aren't sufficiently impressed by his righteousness, he liberally (sorry, "conservatively") peppers Bible verse art cards throughout the video.

The other issues he tackles in his online video series are "chem trail" conspiracies, vaccination (he's against), television the literal truth of the King James Bible and "those who are giving their child over to the filthy lucre of modeling or hollywood!"

It's really good to see this guy doing so much work to protect our children. (Except for his, who he seems to keep ignoring and losing track of at Walmart.)

Christian church ditches "Christmas", goes with pagan holiday instead

It's Halloween, sure, but The Bay put up their Christmas decorations in September. And when I was out for a walk near my office, I saw this banner on the side of Dominion-Chalmers United Church:

I belong to the United Church of Canada, even though I no longer attend. And I had never heard of anyone being afraid of calling "Christmas" by name.

Sure, there are places where name-checking a religious holiday is considered inconsiderate to those who do not follow the same gods and/or prophets. But I would have thought a Christian church, even a very liberal one, would be okay with putting the "Christ" in the whole thing.

Even stranger is the use of "Yule". I like the term, but it's a religious holiday too. It just happens to be a pagan German one that few today observe.

I'm not at all offended that a church I sort-of belong to (and Canada's largest Protestant denomination) decided to go this way. All I can figure is that they are trying to be welcoming to the diverse community of Centretown Ottawa. The UCC, after all, is the affirming church that welcomes people of all sexual orientations, and often holds religious weddings for people from other churches and religions that are no longer accepted in their own places of worship. It is also the church responsible for this ad:

But it still made me go "hmmmmm..." You?

F'd Ad Fridays: Unfortunate condom ad copy

Brisbane Times reports that this condom ad is drawing complaints from parents who don't like seeing pictures of sexy body-painted models so close to their kids' schools.

The complaint came via the Australian Christian Lobby's Wendy Francis. The uptight Ms. Francis has previously lobbied (unsuccessfully) to get a gay-positive safe sex PSA poster banned.

This time, however, she hit on an actually point. She insisted that the bus shelter ad is sexually offensive and contained no positive message about safe sex.

While I see nothing offensive about the imagery (condom ads should promote pleasure and fun) the headline is not very responsible. "Zero or Nothing" may be a clever play on words that implies it is the only acceptable way to cap the Jimmy, but the implication of barebacking as the alternative is not exactly public health friendly. Not a great move for this category.

F'd Ad Fridays: Scary JesusWeen ad

I told you about JesusWeen earlier this week.

Photoshop Disasters recently featured one of their ads:

She's got the whole wo-rld, in her bum!

I thought I understood contemporary Christian symbolism. But I am baffled by this one. Any ideas?

JesusWeen is coming...

This is no joke. There really is a Christian religious group calling for believers to put the Christ back in Halloween.

From jesusween.com:

Every year, the world and its system have a day set aside (October 31st) to celebrate ungodly images and evil characters while Christians all over the world participate, hide or just stay quiet on Halloween day. Being a day that is widely acceptable to solicit and knock on doors, God inspired us to encourage Christians to use this day as an opportunity to spread the gospel. The days of hiding are over and we choose to take a stand for Jesus. “Evil prevails when good people do nothing”. JesusWeen is expected to become the most effective Christian outreach day ever and that is why we also call it” World Evangelism Day”.

Started in 2002, it's basically a more organized hybrid of the "harvest party" alternative celebration — promoted by some fundamentalist groups to keep their kids away from trick-or-treating — and controversial religious cartoonist Jack Chick's appeal to witness to children by giving his religious tracks at the door instead of candy.

(via chick.com)

In the case of JesusWeen, participants are encouraged to dress all in white and distribute bibles and tracts. And the movement has spread into Canada.

Metro reports that a 40-year-old Calgary pastor named Paul Ade, who says "I don’t believe Halloween represents anything close to God or close to Christianity". They are currently recruiting through direct outreach to likeminded congregations, as well as through Twitter and Facebook.

Again from the JesusWeen site:

"While we hope to impact more nations from next year, our focus for this year is to make major impact in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton in Canada; focus on Maryland, Houston and Dallas in the USA; and London in the UK. In reality JesusWeen will be held by small groups, individuals or by churches in thousands of public locations and from home, therefore it’s not restricted to any particular city. The goal is to have JesusWeen groups (Jesus Winners) in every city and every nation spreading the love of Christ on October 31st."

They point out that "The dictionary meaning of Ween is to expect, believe or think."

Unfortunately, that is not what "ween" means in the parlance of our times. (Warning: Urban Dictionary is mostly written by teenage boys, and therefore highly offensive to everyone else.)

Holy unfortunate branding.

PETA's confused Biblical symbolism

Angela Simmons is an MTV reality TV "star" and a self-professed Christian, as well as a vegetarian. She is also PETA's newest spokesmodel:

Now, here's where they lose me. The apple, I thought, was the symbol of sin. (The sin of knowing too much, that is.) So if eating meat is a sin, why is she trying to tempt me into sinning? Or is she trying to tempt me into eating fruits and vegetables instead? But isn't vegetarianism, in that context, the sin?

Furthermore, the punishment for giving in to temptation was being kicked out of the garden, being ashamed of our nudity, and having to kill animals to survive (and to appease Yaweh). If you've ever actually read the damn Bible, you'd know that the OT God hates veggies—only blood will slake his thirst. And Adam and Eve only covered up with leaves after they felt shame.

I am so confused by this ad. And I only went to Sunday School. Imagine how confusing this must have been for poor Angela, who PETA describes as a "devout Christian".

Ah, there. They got rid of the confusing leaves. That's a little better. At least it puts us in a pre-sin context where there is nothing shameful about being as God made us (give or take a few hair extensions). But that apple is still confusing me. Are you trying to tempt me to sin? (I mean, beyond the hazard of committing Onanism.) Or is she trying to tempt me away from sin... with sin? And is the apple meaty sin, or fruity salvation? Help!

All images via Global Grind

Oh, OK. That's better. No leaves, no apple, no logo, no confusing copy.

Now what were we talking about again?

Maybe the video wil explain.

Toledo billboards wage holy war over whether God makes people gay

First there was this one, by an affirming church in Toledo:

Via The Advocate

Nice, isn't it? A very Christian message of inclusivity and unconditional love. But it didn't sit well with the entire Christian community in Toledo, particularly with Rev. Tony Scott of the Church on Strayer. He was moved by some unknown force to respond with another billboard:

Via AdFreak

Rev. Scott has some very strong feelings about Biblical orthodoxy. He told the Toledo Blade:

"I love everyone. There's nothing on that billboard about hate. I'm getting hate mail from lesbian and gay people, but my point is that I love them too much to let someone believe a lie. I love this city too much to let a lie be sown." [...] "What the gay organizations have done is they have misused the biblical passages, according to the experts."

He then gives his own interpretation of the Genesis creation myth:

"God's definition of marriage is that he plumbed [Adam] and he plumbed [Eve] so that the two of them could procreate. Anything relationally between the sexes that does not have that potential, and that opportunity, does not come from God."

But thge real question is, "What Would Jesus Do?"

Thanks to AdFreak for the tip.