Our boy Fred's been away for a while - the temporary John McIntire's had been filling in for The Honz for a little more than a week. It was great fun to hear scintillating commentary during the day. But as they say, all good things must come to an end and so Fred Honsberger returned to the airwaves today.
It was un-be-leeve-able.
I had just turned on the radio when I heard a guy calling in with a complaint about some he'd heard a few minutes before - Fred's bit of rhetorical warfare vis a vis Iraq: "Kill them before they kill us."
The Caller (whose name I've forgotten) quoted The Bible at The Honz: "Do unto others as we would want them to do unto us" not "do unto them before they do it to us."
Fred, of course, was unmoved.
After a little bit of theological back and forth - Fred reminded the guy that God did indeed command his people into war many times, at which the caller reminded Fred that those stories are from the Old Testement after which Fred followed up with the question wondering whether that means that the Old Testement doesn't count any more. The caller finished by pointing out to Fred that Jesus "fulfilled" that part of the Old Testement and so on.
I shouldn't have to say that I was way out of my league - not being at all among the Biblically Literate.
Neither Fred nor the caller faltered. But since, as we all know, Fred has the "hang up" button in the studio, the caller was more or less quickly dispatched after that. Fred ended up saying goodbye to the caller with not a small amount of snarkiness - the biggest snark was having that 70s hit "Feelings" playing in the background as Fred continued his on-air "commentary."
"Feelings, nothing more than feelings..."
Fred's whole point was to establish the caller (who, let's remember, was sincerely speaking from a Christian perspective) as a wimp who'd allow his own children to be killed by the enemy in order to "make nice" with them.
Who knew that Fred Honsberger could be so disrespectful of Christianity???
1 comment:
i've noticed fred's brand of christianity many times. my opinion, he is a very bad example of the salvation army as a whole. he uses his membership in that faith as some sort of an exculsive claim to Christ.
the caller was right. at least i was taught in catholic school that Christ brought about a new testament, a testament of love and peace and inclusion. there are many christians that NEED the old testament to justify their prejudices and their hate.
you can find passages to justify most anything in the old testament. it contradicts itself many times. it requires a reader to use good judgement and perspective. the new testament is way too gentle in it's messages for the most part,and requires far too much self-improvement. removing the beam in one's own eye before pointing out the speck of dust in another's. if i remember it right.
fred would much rather hate and discriminate and like a lot of the right wing,like a lot of people, he denies that he is, a moment before he says it and PROVES that he is.
he's entitled to his opinion, but he shouldn't hide behing his faith to express it.
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