American Family Association - To Russia With Love

Russia's Anti-Gay Law 'Expresses Values We've Been Advocating For Years,' Says Bryan Fischer, Spokesperson for the Hate Group known as the American Family Association

from The Huffington Post - 8/27/13:

The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer is once again taking to the airwaves in defense of Russia's controversial anti-gay legislation, Right Wing Watch is reporting.

Describing the "gay propaganda" laws as part of an overall effort to "scramble their way back to some approximation of Christian morality," Fischer said, "They understand that homosexual behavior is a moral evil among teenagers."

"What Russia's done here with this law is they have expressed the values that we have been advocating for years and years and years," he added. Pointing to the fact that many conservative Americans have been "largely silent" on the issue, he then noted, "In my mind, we ought to be celebrating this ... this is public policy we've been advocating, and here's a nation in the world that's actually putting it into practice."

He re-iterated many of the same viewpoints in an Aug. 23 blog post. "There are catastrophic pathologies associated with homosexual behavior among teenagers, and any society that cares about its youth will do everything in its power to steer them away from this self-destructive lifestyle," he wrote. "We spend billions urging teens not to take up cigarette smoking. Let’s start spending billions to urge them not to take up gay sex."

He then concluded, "I say it’s time for us to be more like Russia."

Fischer, whose anti-gay declarations have become a near-weekly staple of his "Focal Point" radio show, has previously defended Russia's anti-gay law.

"We've got plenty of room in our multicultural world for all sorts of different cultural values and trends," he said in a earlier broadcast this month, Right Wing Watch first reported. "Isn't this wonderful what Russia is doing? Let's celebrate diversity and let's support this tradition in the nation of Russia."

Gay Marriage in the Year 100 AD

by Annalee Newitz:

Gay marriage sounds like an ultra-contemporary idea. But almost twenty years ago, a Catholic scholar at Yale shocked the world by publishing a book packed with evidence that same-sex marriages were sanctioned by the early Christian Church during an era commonly called the Dark Ages.

Illustration of Serge and Bacchus, in a same-sex union.

John Boswell (below) was a historian and religious Catholic who dedicated much of his scholarly life to studying the late Roman Empire and early Christian Church. Poring over legal and church documents from this era, he discovered something incredible. There were dozens of records of church ceremonies where two men were joined in unions that used the same rituals as heterosexual marriages. (He found almost no records of lesbian unions, which is probably an artifact of a culture which kept more records about the lives of men generally.)

Bolstered by this evidence, Boswell published a book in 1994, the year before his death from AIDS, called Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe. The book comes out next month for the first time in a digital edition. It was an instant lightening rod for controversy, drawing criticism from both the Catholic Church and sex pundit Camille Paglia. Given the Church's present-day views on gay marriage, these detractors argued, Boswell's history seemed like wishful thinking.

But it wasn't. Boswell had actually begun his research back in the 1970s, and published an equally controversial work in 1980 called Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. His Same-Sex Unions book refined and expanded a lot of what he'd learned over a lifetime of research into primary sources in scattered libraries and archives.

How could these marriages have been forgotten by history? One easy answer is that — as Boswell argues — the Church reframed the idea of marriage in the 13th century to be for the purposes of procreation. And this slammed the door on gay marriage. Church scholars and officials worked hard to suppress the history of these marriages in order to justify their new definition.

Of course, history is more complicated than that. Boswell claims that part of the problem is that we define marriage so differently today that it's almost impossible for historians to recognize 1800-year-old gay marriage documents when they see them. Often, these documents refer to uniting "brothers," which at the time would have been a way of describing same-sex partners whose lifestyles were tolerated in Rome. Also, marriages over a millennium ago were not based on procreation, but wealth-sharing. So "marriage" sometimes meant a non-sexual union of two people's or families' wealth. Boswell admits that some of the documents he found may refer simply to non-sexual joining of two men's fortunes — but many also referred to what today we would call gay marriage.

Legal scholar Richard Ante wrote a law journal article explaining that Boswell's book could even be used as evidence for the legality of gay marriage, since it shows evidence that definitions of marriage have changed over time. He describes some of Boswell's evidence of these same-sex rites in the early first millennium:

The burial rite given for Achilles and Patroclus, both men, was the burial rite for a man and his wife. The relationships of Hadrian and Antinous, of Polyeuct and Nearchos, of Perpetua and Felicitas, and of Saints Serge and Bacchus, all bore resemblance to heterosexual marriages of their times. The iconography of Serge and Bacchus was even used in same-sex nuptial ceremonies by the early Christian Church.

The main piece of evidence that these same-sex unions were marriages is that they so closely resembled heterosexual ceremonies. Literary scholar Bruce Holsinger describes Boswell's detailed stories of same-sex ceremonies:

[Boswell] cleverly posits the development of heterosexual and same-sex nuptial offices as a single phenomenon, tracking the growth of the latter from "merely a set of prayers " in the earlier Middle Ages to its flowering as a "full office" by the twelfth century that involved "the burning of candles, the placing of the two parties' hands on the Gospel, the joining of their right hands, the binding of their hands . . . with the priest's stole, an introductory litany crowning, the Lord's Prayer, Communion, a kiss, and sometimes circling around the altar." Boswell devotes a full chapter to comparing these rituals with their heterosexual counterparts, revealing a number of extraordinary similarities between the two; in several appendixes totaling almost 100 pages, he has compiled numerous examples of the documents themselves (including heterosexual matrimony ceremonies and adoption rituals for comparison) to let "readers . . . judge for themselves," as he puts it. (Boswell translates most of the ceremonies, so general readers won't have to worry about brushing up on their Old Church Slavonic.)

Were these same-sex unions in the middle ages the same thing as today's gay marriages? Probably not. People at the time may not have viewed two men forming a union as anything out of the ordinary. Marriage itself meant something different thousands of years ago, and social taboos against homosexuality had not yet solidified. Still, in Boswell's work, we find records of institutions where same-sex couples were honored with the same ceremonies that opposite-sex couples enjoyed. Two men could live as "brothers," sharing wealth, home, and family. And yes, they could love each other, too.

Though Boswell died before his country began to allow similar kinds of unions, he could draw hope from knowing something that most people did not. Even the most fundamental kinds of human relationships change over time. Those who have been banished today may be blessed tomorrow — just as they were over a thousand years ago.

David Barton's Crusade: Faith & Values Based On Lies

The Most Influential Evangelist You've Never Heard Of

Listen to the story on National Public Radio:

David Barton, friend & ally of the Venango County-based hate group the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, says Americans have been misled about their history. And he aims to change that.

"It's what I would call historical reclamation," Barton explains, in his soft but rapid-fire voice. "We're just trying to get history back to where it's accurate. If you're going to use history, get it right."

Barton has collected 100,000 documents from before 1812 — original or certified copies of letters, sermons, newspaper articles and official documents of the Founding Fathers. He says they prove that the Founding Fathers were deeply religious men who built America on Christian ideas — something you never learn in school.

For example, you've been taught the Constitution is a secular document. Not so, says Barton: The Constitution is laced with biblical quotations.

"You look at Article 3, Section 1, the treason clause," he told James Robison on Trinity Broadcast Network. "Direct quote out of the Bible. You look at Article 2, the quote on the president has to be a native born? That is Deuteronomy 17:15, verbatim. I mean, it drives the secularists nuts because the Bible's all over it! Now we as Christians don't tend to recognize that. We think it's a secular document; we've bought into their lies. It's not."

We looked up every citation Barton said was from the Bible, but not one of them checked out. Moreover, the Constitution as written in 1787 has no mention of God or religion except to prohibit a religious test for office. The First Amendment does address religion.

What about the idea that the founders did not want government entangled in religion? Wrong again, says Barton. On his tours of the U.S. Capitol, for example, he claims that Congress not only published the first American Bible in 1782, but it also intended the Bible to be used in public schools.

"And we're going to be told they don't want any kind of religion in education, they don't want voluntary prayer?" Barton asks his audience rhetorically? "No, it doesn't make sense."

But historians say Barton is flat-out wrong in his facts and conclusion. Congress never published or paid a dime for the 1782 Bible. It was printed and paid for by Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken. At Aitken's request, Congress agreed to have its chaplains check the Bible for accuracy. It was not, historians say, a government promotion of religion.

Vision For A Religion-Infused America

David Barton is not a historian. He has a bachelor's degree in Christian education from Oral Roberts University and runs a company called WallBuilders in Aledo, Texas. But his vision of a religion-infused America is wildly popular with churches, schools and the GOP, and that makes him a power. He was named one of Time magazine's most influential evangelicals. He was a long-time vice chairman for the Texas Republican Party. He says that he consults for the federal government and state school boards, that he testifies in court as an expert witness, that he gives a breathtaking 400 speeches a year.

Seeking his endorsement are politicians including Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz of Texas and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who's mentioned as a possible running mate for Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich is a fan. So is Mike Huckabee.

"I almost wish that there would be like a simultaneous telecast," Huckabee said at a conference last year, "and all Americans will be forced, forced — at gunpoint, no less — to listen to every David Barton message. And I think our country will be better for it."

John Fea, chairman of the history department at evangelical Messiah College, doubts that. He says that Barton is peddling a distorted history that appeals to conservative believers.

"David Barton is offering an alternative vision of American history which places God, the providence of God, Christianity, at the center," he says.

Barton On Thomas Jefferson 'Lies'

Most recently, Barton has focused on Thomas Jefferson. His new book, The Jefferson Lies, made The New York Times best-seller list. Barton's aim is to bust the "myths" about Jefferson. One of them, he told Huckabee on Fox News, is that Jefferson was a religious skeptic. Barton argues that for the first 70 or so years of his life, Jefferson was a "conventional Christian," although he did express doubts in his final 15 years. As evidence of the third president's religiosity, Barton showed Huckabee an original document signed by Jefferson.

"Jefferson, unlike the other presidents, closes his documents: 'In the year of our Lord Christ,' " Barton said, not mentioning that this was a pre-printed form that was required by law.

"But we're always told he was such a secularist and didn't believe in religion," Huckabee protested.

"Exactly," Barton said. He goes on to say that Jefferson started church services at the Capitol, that he ordered the Marine Corps band to play at the services and that he funded a treaty to evangelize the Kaskaskia Indians — three claims that experts say are demonstrably false.

"That's why I say he's the least religious founder," Barton concluded, "but he's way out there further than most religious right today would be."

"Mr. Barton is presenting a Jefferson that modern-day evangelicals could love and identify with," says Warren Throckmorton, a professor at the evangelical Grove City College. "The problem with that is, it's not a whole Jefferson; it's not getting him right."

Throckmorton co-authored Getting Jefferson Right, a book detailing what he says are Barton's distortions. As to Jefferson's faith, Throckmorton says there is no dispute among historians: Jefferson questioned the most basic tenets of Christianity.

"He didn't see Jesus as God," Throckmorton says. He didn't believe that Jesus performed miracles, he dismissed the Trinity. Throckmorton notes that when Jefferson decided to write his own version of the Gospels, now called the Jefferson Bible, "he said he was taking 'diamonds as if from a dunghill.' So he picked out the Sermon on the Mount and the golden rule — those were the 'diamonds.' But the 'dunghill' was the virgin birth, the resurrection of Christ, the Great Commission."

There's another "lie" about Jefferson that Barton sets out to debunk. He says Jefferson — who owned nearly 200 slaves — was a civil rights visionary.

"Had his plans been followed, Virginia would've ended slavery really early on," Barton says. "They would have gone much more toward civil rights. He was not as advanced in his views of slavery as say, John Adams in New England, but he certainly was no racist in that sense."

Barton quotes Virginia law that he says prohibited Jefferson from freeing his slaves during his lifetime — but Barton omits the section of the law that says Virginians could free slaves. Confronted by this, Barton says that Jefferson could not afford to free his slaves.

Yearning For The Past?

The idea that Jefferson was a civil rights visionary appalls the Rev. Ray McMillian, pastor of Oasis Church in Cincinnati.

"Thomas Jefferson hated African-Americans," McMillian says. "He hated the color of our skin. He talked about how inferior we are, in both mind and body."

McMillian is president of Cincinnati Area Pastors, which is boycotting the publisher of Barton's book, Thomas Nelson Publishers. He says by "whitewashing" Jefferson — and all the other slaveholding founders, for that matter — Barton is rewriting history to make it palatable for Christians today.

"All in their hearts they're saying, 'If we could just go back there, America would be right,' " McMillian says. "Right for who?"

Not for blacks, not for women, not for Native Americans, he says — only for white men.

Besides, historians say, this golden age never existed.

"None of the founders were necessarily interested in promoting a specifically Christian nation," says Fea at Messiah College. "Many of the founders believed in something akin to separating church and state even though they didn't use those terms. And in fact, most of the people in America were not regular churchgoers. So what is that great culture that we're returning to?"

"I'm not trying to throw the nation back 200 years," Barton responds. "I don't want the technology to go backward, I love the health [care] stuff we got now. What I try to use is principles that are timeless." And surprisingly relevant. On The Daily Show last year, Barton told Jon Stewart that he's amazed that the founders' insights apply to today's problems.

"I got a call from three congressmen off the floor and they said, 'Hey! Anything in history about bailout and stimulus plans in Congress?'" Barton recalled. "It turns out in 1792 there was a big debate in Congress about bailout and stimulus plans."

Barton says the founders didn't like them. He says they had insights on other modern issues as well. They would oppose abortion because the first inalienable right is the right to life. They even opposed the theory of evolution.

"You go back to the Founding Fathers, as far as they're concerned, they already had the entire debate on creation-evolution," he said on Daystar Television Network. "And you get Thomas Paine, who's the least religious Founding Father saying, 'You've GOT to teach creation science in the classroom. Scientific method demands that.'"

Of course, that was years before Charles Darwin was born.

'A Corrective To Historians'

Still, Barton has many supporters, though few of them are historians. One is Mat Staver, dean of Liberty University's Law School.

"I think he's a corrective to historians," Staver says. "In fact, I would put him against any historian and would have no question who would win in a debate."

Barton says he has a policy of not debating anyone. He adds that he doesn't care if historians disagree with him: He believes his trove of documents proves his points — although historians have seen the same documents and draw different conclusions. Barton also believes his critics might be envious, since his books — and world view — sell so well.

"I don't know if it's jealousy or liberalism," he says. "I certainly know the guys who come after me have made it very clear usually in the introductions of their stuff that they disagree with me, and my religious faith, and my view on America."

Fea, who is an evangelical himself, says he believes Barton is a danger because he's using a skewed version of the past to shape the future.

"He's in this for activism," he says. "He's in this for policy. He's in this to make changes to our culture."

Rewriting Texas Textbooks

Nowhere is that more visible than in the Texas textbook controversy. In 2010, the Texas Board of Education voted to rewrite the history textbooks to make them more conservative and Christian-friendly. One of the advisers was David Barton.

Barton later said on the cable talk show Chapter and Verse that it would take another 16 or 18 years before kids go through the entire curriculum, "then another 10 years after that before those kids get elected to office and start doing things. So we're talking 30 years from now. But, it's in the pipe coming down."

Asked about this 30-year plan, Barton says of course he wants to shape future leaders, any educator does. But he says he doesn't see himself as a particularly influential person.

"I'm going to be an active citizen and be involved and do everything I can to help move these principles forward," he says.

Barton's next stop: the Republican National Convention, where as a Texas representative to the GOP Platform Committee, he will lay out his vision of America.

The Christian Thing To Do

Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church

by Derek Penwell for Provoketive Magazine:

The church where I serve made a decision this past year to support its ministers in refusing to sign marriage licenses until the rights of marriage could be conferred upon LGTBQ couples. The decision brought national attention–the overwhelming majority of which was positive.


One group in particular who responded to the decision surprised me. I never saw it coming. Some of the most gratifying reactions came from the adult children of some of the older members of our congregation, which is to say, from young people who had dropped out of church a long time ago. From across the U.S. I got word from these displaced folks. They emailed, called, messaged me through social media, and, the ones who still live close by, button-holed me on the street. Their comments shared one thing in common: “I’m so proud to tell my friends that the church that did this cool thing is the church I grew up in.”

Then, a couple of them proceeded to say something that was hard to hear: “I never thought I’d see a church do something so Christian.”

Embedded in that response, I think, is something worth hearing about the way an increasing number of young people experience the church. According to a recent article on Sojourners Blog, Millennials are headed for the exits–even among Evangelicals. Why? According to the article, which cites research by the Barna Group, “Research indicates younger people are not only departing from their elders on ‘social issues,’ such as same-sex marriage and abortion, but on wealth distribution and care for the environment, as well.”

One way to look at the difference Millennials represent on these kinds of social issues is that they’ve been seduced by an increasingly secular society. From the time they were young, this thinking goes, the culture has offered Millennials a vision of human life that is often at odds with the vision claimed by churches, one focused less and less on God. Politically, “liberals” have successfully appealed to youthful passion and idealism, rendering them dewey-eyed woolgatherers who know little, either about God or about how the world “really” works. As a consequence, Millennials come to their convictions about the purpose of human life and its just embodiment either as a result of theological ignorance or theological rebellion. The implication is that if they really new about Christianity, they wouldn’t believe such outrageous things about marriage and economic equality and environmental responsibility.

There are a couple of different responses that come to mind, if this is the way you frame the problem of the disappearance of young adults. On the one hand, you could just tell young people they’re wrong, and they need to get right. In many cases, this was the strategy employed by the Greatest Generation when Baby Boomers started questioning organized religion in the 1960s and 70s. For those who think this kind of “unvarnished truth” strategy is the way to go, it might be helpful to contemplate its success when used on an earlier generation–take a look at The Big Chill, for instance.

On the other hand, you might look at the exodus of Millennials as a failure of relevance. Churches got sidetracked, started focusing on stuff Millennials found pointless–stuff like bigger buildings, keeping up social appearances for the country club set, right wing politics, etc. If you interpret irrelevance to be the reason young people don’t want anything to do with the church, you have an easy way to address the issue … be more relevant. Find cool looking people to play cool sounding music. Say “dude” a lot. Make sure you know the difference between a cappuccino and a latte. Easy.

There are couple of different branches of über relevance available, too. If you’re sympathetic to the whole mega-church movement, sprinkle some Jesus over the top of ordinary stuff young people like, and voilà, instant relevance. Christian rock climbing. Christian aerobics. Christian skateboarding. Christian Screamo bands. The possibilities are endless.

If you find an emergent emphasis more to your liking, you’ll need another set of accoutrements. Tattoos are good. Piercings and ear gauges add a nice touch. Make sure to do some outings in a pub, with lots of locally micro-brewed fare. Relevance isn’t too far off.

And while I happen to think the emergent movement is much more theologically interesting for a whole host of reasons other than just those things that accessorize it, like the mega-church stuff, if it’s just a marketing strategy for obtaining relevance, I think it’s doomed to drive Millennials away. Millennials have been socialized to be amazingly aware of being marketed to, and they react poorly to such poses adopted solely for the purpose of “winning” their spiritual “business.”

I find all of these ways of reading the departure of young adults from the church dismissive, sharing a common misconception that what’s wrong, what’s driving Millennials away from the church, resides somewhere outside the church (either with Millennials themselves or with the culture that produced them)–or that if it is the church’s fault, the problems are merely cosmetic, easily remedied by superficial tweaks here or there.

There’s another way of reading the generational tea leaves, however, one that places responsibility on the church not for failing to be relevant, but for failing to be faithful to the Jesus found in the Gospels. Maybe the problem is that Millennials hear about Jesus and then take him at his word. Maybe they really believe that stuff Jesus says st the beginning of his ministry in Luke:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Then, they go to church, and instead of hearing about how to live with those who’ve been kicked to the curb, how to be Christ to a world caving in on itself, they hear about how the church’s job is to maneuver itself into positions of power, respectability, relevance, etc. They hear about committee meetings and deficit budgets and why it is imperative that we “keep Christ in Christmas.” They hear a baptized politics that exhorts them to be good moral “individuals” who seek a “personal relationship with Jesus,” but their relationship to the poor and the powerless, their relationship to an economic system designed to serve the interests of those already on top at the expense of those on the bottom, their relationship to a government that starts preemptive wars based on a conceit, their relationship to God’s creation–these are largely matters of indifference to the church. These young people go to church and hear why (if they happen to be at a conservative church) gay people are going to hell, or (if they happen to be at a more “progressive” church) why it might upset the ecclesiastical apple cart if we were to say that gay people are created in the image of God–exactly the way God wanted them.


All of which is to say: Maybe it’s not Millennials who’ve left the church, so much as that the church has left Jesus–and Millennials are the only ones brave enough to recognize that the emperor has been parading about without the benefit of clothes. If that’s the case, the church would do well to quit worrying so much about whether Millennials are leaving the church, and start investing time and effort and resources into looking more like Jesus. Then Millennials might finally see something for which it would be worth sticking around.

“I’m so proud to tell my friends that the church that did this cool thing is the church I grew up in” isn’t the same as, “How do I sign up to get back into church?” For any number of really important reasons, though, it’s a step in the right direction.

The Gospel According to Hypocrisy

by Domenick Scudera, Professor of Theater and Chair of the Theater and Dance department, Ursinus College, for The Huffington Post:


And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him,

And maketh no mistake, these single male followers were not homosexuals,

And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,


"Blessed are the negative in spirit: for they shall find fault with just about everyone and everything.

"Blessed are they who judge others: for they are entitled and superior.

"Blessed are the intolerant: for they most rightfully deny the humanity of others.

"Blessed are the ignorant: for they shall equate homosexuality with pedophilia and shall promote other equally specious arguments.

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall tell everyone else what to do with their lives.

"Ye are the light of the world and ye shall shine brightly over all those who do not live by your code or standards.

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law. I want you to do that. Change all the laws of the land through ballot measures so that people will only live the way that ye think is right.

"Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

"But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman or an intern lustfully shall make sure that any activity is well hidden and not documented:

"Be warned that the wide web of the world, and liberal news media, will exploit your personal deviant behavior against you.

"It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:

"But I say unto you, That whosoever shall divorce his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry a divorced woman committeth adultery.

"And I also say unto you, That you may ignore this last piece of advice if it is not convenient for you. Marry and divorceth whomsoever you wish, as many times as you wish, and do not worry about it. Just make sure that the homosexuals do not ruineth everything by taking husbands.

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy:

"And I say unto you, That sounds pretty good. Some of those enemies are horrible. Blessed are you who curseth them whenever you can. Do evil unto them who hate you.

"For if ye love them which love you, you may be perceived as homosexual. Make not this mistake.

"Salute your brethren only. Why do something for others?

"Be ye therefore perfect. And everyone else is not.

"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. Masturbation must be denied.

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

"No, I take that back. Ignore that last one. Pray and preach as loudly as you can. Let everyone see and hear you. I realizeth now that hypocrisy is a good way to be respected and still allow you to do whatever you want.

"Use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do:

"Unless your words are 'talking points.' Repeat these as often as you can, so that ye may drill your opinions into the minds of the masses.

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.

"But lay up for yourselves treasures in righteous politicians and causes.

"For wherever your treasure is, there will lieth your political power.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged [LOL!]

"Enter ye in at the strait gate. Strait meaning straight.

"Therefore whosoever interpreteth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock."


And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:

For he did not seem very Christian.