I have heard very similar things said by Texas preachers here and it is an easy mistake to make attributing it to James Watt. He had a similar attitude toward the environment. Tracing back the original of the remark attributed to Watt it has only been shown he did not make that statement before Congress, not that he didn't make that statement.
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/ Rather than use the opportunity to attack Bill Moyers it might be more useful to reflect that a 2002 Time/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the Book of Revelation are going to come true and nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Secretary Watt actually said before Congress: "I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations." He did not say before Congress "Christ will return when the last tree falls." The quote attributed to Watt was from Austin Miles (who did not say Watt said it before Congress.) Austin Miles was a famous young faith-healer and regular on Christian TV until he got sick of the hypocrisy and wrote a tell-all book. Miles had been a circus ringmaster before being told there was a lot of similarities and much more money to be made by being a traveling revivalist preacher and faith-healer. He tried that and became quite famous and well-off in pentecostal circles and wrote a book "The Real Ringmaster." It was a shock and scandal in the same circles when a number of years later he wrote "Don't Call Me Brother: A Ringmasters Escape from Pentecostal Church" and the sequel consisting mainly of of peoples letters to him of the hypocrisy in the pentecostal movement. This quote he has of Watt's, or by whoever, has been pretty well known. I have been redistricted into Tom "I AM the government" DeLay's district and I know that he thinks, and says, that environmentalists are a bunch of tree-hugging socialists and it is his godly mission to remove secular humanists from "control" of America and institute America as a God-centered Kingdom before the coming Last Days. I think DeLay's and Watt's attitudes are common among the new GOP. Many Democrats also seem to be entering this theological debate - after all it seems to be working for Republicans, just using as their vision the more compassionate parts of the Bible and asking if their opponents rhetoric matches their deeds. Not played up or mentioned in the media Kerry did go after Bush on the religious angle - "What good is it, my brothers," Kerry asks audiences, quoting James 2:14, "if a man claims to have faith, but has no deeds?" It's a short leap from that jab to an evaluation of how Bush's rhetoric matches up against his accomplishments on issues from the environment to faith-based initiatives to anti-poverty efforts. In a September address to the National Baptist Convention, Kerry used the parable of the Good Samaritan to highlight Bush's abandonment of social policy programs, casting Bush as the Levite who avoided helping the man who lay by the side of the road. For four years, charged Kerry, Bush has "seen people in need, but he's crossed over to the other side of the street." One of the biggest crowd-pleasing lines in Kerry's acceptance speech was the retelling of a story about Abraham Lincoln in which some ministers asked him to pray with them that God was on their side. "As Abraham Lincoln told us," Kerry said, "I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side." The "pray humbly" part was an addition by Kerry that underscored the frustration many voters feel with Bush's solid confidence that he is doing God's will. (From Sojourners - registration required.) http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0411&article=041111 I think when politicians start talking about how much they can help you should watch your wallet, when they start talking about how they are doing God's work you should watch who's filling their wallets. Gary Denton On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 21:56:42 -0600, Steve Sloan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > maru wrote: > > > "Since you must have known such a statement would not have > > been made and you refused or failed to do any primary research > > on this supposed quote, what was your motive in printing sSince > > you must have known such a statement would not have been made > > and you refused or failed to do any primary research on this > > supposed quote, what was your motive in printing such a > > damnable lie?" > > -from the first article. > > > You know what they say about lies, damnable lies, and > > statistics. We've had entirely too much of the latter, so > > it seems rather appropriate now to get some of the former. > > And knowing the story is false is a little heartening. > > Even though it wasn't true, it did spread pretty far. I remember > hearing about that exact fictional Watt speech back in high > school, when I dubbed that thinking "Jesus Christ, Garbageman." > Looking back, Janitor makes more sense. I believed it at the > time, because around then, I heard that actual thinking from one > of my sister's friends, who was quoting her preacher. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
