Welcome to Jesusland! (Formerly the United States of America)
Chris Harper, Andrew Bradley, and Eric Walker
Warner Books
Fiction, Humor
Themes: Religious Themes
****+
Description
Love thy neighbor... Thou shalt not kill... Jesus, Joseph, and that unclean interloper Mary... Many people call themselves "Christians" in America, but how many know the real meaning of the word? Oh, sure, they wear the “WWJD” bracelets (believing, erroneously, it stands for What Would Jesus Do rather than Who Would Jesus Damn), and they recite their meaningless Bible quotes taken way out of context, but those aren’t the sort of Christians that a loving and ragingly vengeful God will let into Heaven come Judgment Day. Our nation’s coins say "In God We Trust," yet our laws callously abolish the Biblically-condoned rights of Christians to own slaves and publicly stone to death unruly children. The True Christians (TM) of Landover Baptist Church, God's favorite church and tax shelter, expose the horrific sins of "science", "free will", and "tolerance" that run rampant in our demon-corrupted world as they zealously convert and exclude heathen folk, colored people, anyone who talks funny, and the handicapped... all backed by verses found in God's own Holy Bible. Take quizzes to test your knowledge of the one true faith, and learn useful methods for detecting and averting the Devil’s works. Whose god is the most violent – the Muslim Allah or the Christian God? What’s God’s favorite way to slaughter those who irritate Him? How do you recognize the homosexual secret handshake? How can an innocent child use the Department of Homeland Security to free themselves from nonbelieving parents (and win a Playstation 3) by converting to Christianity? Read and learn… but not too much, lest you be tempted to question that which can only be understood with closed eyes and open pocketbooks.
Review
Landover Baptist Church's famous website is a deadpan parody site taking on the ultraconservative Christian minority which seems to dominate the majority these days; it's telling that, more than once, their antics were mistaken for reality. Just as hilarious as the site, this book skewers the hypocrisies and hateful tactics of America's so-called Religious Right. It takes on fresh meaning in the current regime, which makes the hypocricy of the old Bush-era Right look downright harmless and quaint. (Incidentally, quote versus quote in the Koran versus the Bible, the Christian God comes out as the most violent.)