Queerty reader Bill sent us this bizarre clip of a Southern preacher holding forth on the importance of the word “therefore” in the New Testament. Taken from the 1981 Errol Morris documentary Vernon, Florida, it typifies both the stupidity and outright anti-intellectualism that’s still pervasive in the anti-gay Evangelical movement.
Notice how proud this guy is to tell his flock he doesn’t know what the word “conjunction” means? He ain’t no namby-pamby limp-wristed smarty pants, that’s fer shure!
And we guess he’s so caught up postulatin’ and theorizin’ he didn’t realize the Bible wasn’t written in English, so Paul never actually said “therefore.”
But seriously, didn’t this guy watch Schoolhouse Rock?
How about we take this to the next level?
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http://youtu.be/eZqI5b5wGA4
Shannon1981
I am so glad I don’t go to church anymore.People should be embarrassed to be so stupid.
Belize
@Shannon1981: Hey! There is nothing wrong with going to church. Everyone has the right to cheap comedy.
Belize
I love how he basically told the people “keep bein’ stupid. It’s the only way I can keep this gig.”
Shannon1981
@Belize: LOL true. That is comedic gold. And they are the gift that keeps on giving. Anytime I am feeling down, I just head to YouTube and watch stupid responses to Atheist videos from religious nuts.
dan
Hold on just a second here. Queerty, what point are you deriving from this? This one clip, of one man, preaching a poorly written sermon, suddenly clarifies your point that ALL evangelical pastors are uneducated and stupid?
I’m not for the church, but using outdated footage to make a point so strongly against a group seems like something that they’d do, not you, Queerty.
Hard facts, not wild conjecture with flimsy evidence, will win our rights to equality.
Mud flinging will not.
Ogre Magi
@dan: It is just a bit of fun
B
Re No 5 – nobody is throwing any mud unless the preacher is throwing it at himself! It’s not like an out-of-context quote – the video clip is over 3 minutes long with no editing to make the preacher seem to say something he didn’t.
I think the interesting question is whether the preacher is that dumb or whether its an act for the benefit of an uneducated audience. Either way, it is funny as hell!
Rosada Delano
This preacher talks like a stupid ass, THEREFORE he must be an ignoranus!
Jesse
This is a clip from the hilarious documentary “Vernon, Florida” by Errol Morris.
James
Dang!
Chad
I’m curious, how many of you when you heard him say conjuction did you start singing “conjuction junction whats your function?” (from school house rock)
Chad
Dang, should have read the whole article before commenting, I just watched the video then scrolled down and saw the school house rock video…
pedro
Umm…Paul never used the word “therefore”…He wrote in Greek…When Paul was writing scripture, Therefore which came into use in Middle English (more than a millennium later), didn’t exist…Get a clue!!
dvlaries
Purgatory on Earth would be having to look at that sickly green suit and Conway Twitty-pompadour at 8 in the morning, any morning.
dan
@B: I’m not saying this pastor doesn’t look like a fool, I just didn’t like the assumption that because one is, all must be.
Will
“And we guess he’s so caught up postulatin’ and theorizin’ he didn’t realize the Bible wasn’t written in English, so Paul never actually said “therefore.””
I guess Queerty got so caught up thinking of ways to make a cheap joke out of a group of people’s religion on the basis of one dude’s badly written sermon from the 80’s that they didn’t bother to notice at 2:20 he makes reference to the Greek, the language in which Paul would have written this letter (to the Romans, who spoke Greek as the common tongue).
Look, I’m not saying that Evangelicals are the brightest bulbs in the box or that fundamentalists aren’t guilty of some pretty serious anti-intellectualism, but how about we avoid the using the same tactics that hate groups have used on us to demonize people for no reason? I come to this site to read up on who’s being douche-y to gays, not to read preemptive douchebaggery against a man for a badly written sermon. Save that sort of thing for the people who actually deserve it.
Dirty Ole Man
@Will: I’m glad somebody is payin’ attention!
B
No. 16 · Will wrote, “I guess Queerty got so caught up thinking of ways to make a cheap joke out of a group of people’s religion on the basis of one dude’s badly written sermon from the 80?s that they didn’t bother to notice at 2:20 he makes reference to the Greek, the language in which Paul would have written this letter (to the Romans, who spoke Greek as the common tongue).”
Well, claiming to have to look up the definition of “therefore” when he knew that Romans was originally written in Greek is a bit odd. Whether it was him or his audience, someone was obviously clueless or assumed to be clueless.
BTW, while many, if not a majority of Romans, knew Greek as a second language, it was only a “common tongue” among Roman Christians: http://www.salomoni.it/davide/theology/blog/2006/09/why-paul-wrote-in-greek-to-romans.html
Also, nobody was being “demonized” – the video clip simply shows how backwards some parts of the U.S. are (as does the whole film – if this preacher seems wacky, wait until you see the turkey hunters).
Elion
No, I’m with @Dan on this one. There’s no point to this than laughing at a guy who didn’t know what some words meant, and trying to extrapolate that to a wider movement. We don’t know this fellow’s history, so why are we linking him to a movement that’s harmful to all of us? Trolling religion does nothing but make us seem like immature children, when we need to attack these bigots from a logical and emotional standpoint. Throwing mud has no purpose on a site that even HOPES to be pushing the queer community forward on ANY front. I hope that this doesn’t become what Queerty is about, because there needs to be more information in our community, not so much bitchy insulting.
hello?!
@B : It may, at least partly so, seem backwards because the youtube video is 30 years old…
Chris
I’ve seen the whole movie also, and there’s no indication that the kid is homophobic–or even technically a fundamentalist or evangelical. Those are terms that have fairly specific meanings in religion. His theology is pretty unsophisticated (he thinks Jesus got him a deal on a used van) and his sermon is ludicrous, and religion ranges from extremely stupid to acceptable, but this reveals nothing about anything except Queerty.
Merv
The Christian apologists get so tiresome after a while. I’ll put it in terms even they can understand: Christians are the enemies of gay people. They always have been and always will be. It’s time for you to choose sides. When Christians use their religion as the entire basis of their argument against gay people, to expect us to not attack that basis is absurd.
The thing is, their argument is logically sound, if you accept their vile, hateful religion as incontrovertibly true. Well, I don’t accept it as true, and when they try to push it on me I’m going to say eff you, your religion is BS. Do you have a problem with that? Or are you advocating we just concede they are right but we have just decided to defy the all-knowing, all-seeing, perfect in every way creator god?
Larry
the weird thing is he goes back to the (assumed) original greek word and finds it has three meanings…this is the big big problem with the bible…translation. not to mention that every copy was handwritten and almost for sure re-edited with every copy…PLUS this dude is an idiot
Great Point
“how about we avoid the using the same tactics that hate groups have used on us to demonize people for no reason”
Yeah, because Queerty was demanding that evangelicals not be able to teach in schools, get married, serve in the military, or rent apartments, right?
/snark
Shannon1981
@Merv: You are my new friend! I have tried and tried to let people see this simple fact, but they refuse. One or the other, my friends. Can’t be both, no matter what gaychurch.org tells you.
B
No. 20 · hello?! wrote, “@B : It may, at least partly so, seem backwards because the youtube video is 30 years old…”
Is your conjecture that, 30 years ago, people in general did not understand the use of the word “therefore”? Rest assured that it seemed as backwards 30 years ago as it does today.
B
No. 19 · Elion wrote, “There’s no point to this than laughing at a guy who didn’t know what some words meant, and trying to extrapolate that to a wider movement. We don’t know this fellow’s history, so why are we linking him to a movement that’s harmful to all of us?”
Compare the clip of the “therefore” preacher to that Worley guy ( http://www.queerty.com/nc-pastor-put-all-the-gays-inside-an-electrified-fence-20120522/ ) and you’ll notice that both have flowers in front of a pulpit of similar, but not identical, design. Both preachers are wearing suits, not robes, and their manner of speaking is similar in style (not content), and both come across as appallingly ignorant (whether that is true in fact versus just being a theatrical performance). One might argue that the root cause of what you see in both cases is ignorance.
Hephaestion
Imbecile.
nhf7170
@Great Point: There is a case for not allowing them to teach in schools on the merits, though. Just sayin’…