Jim Rutz Tuesday!
It’s Tuesday, which means it’s time for another wacky column from Jim Rutz, WorldNetDaily’s resident expert on people being raised from the dead. This week, Jim writes about a Guatemalan town that was cursed by demons until it converted to Christianity:
City transformation on a scale not seen before
First, let me wave my tiny set of conservative credentials: I stand somewhere between Joan of Arc and Wyatt Earp, I support any conspiracy theory that can be explained in basic English with a straight face, and I will enter any contest in which first prize is dinner with Ann Coulter.
In other words, Jim sees himself as a schizophrenic French girl who lives in the Wild West, believes in UFO’s, and gets turned on by women with large Adam’s apples.
Sadly, that sounds pretty accurate.
That said, I feel that no array of think tanks, PACs, programs, and Fox News commentators is going to bring about the redeemed world we’re looking for. Not by itself.
I had no idea Fox News was trying to convert people to Christianity, but I guess that makes sense- we all remember that Bible story where three lepers ask Jesus to cure them and He replies, “Shut up! Shut! Up!”
Our problems are far deeper than politics. Psychotic-grade liberalism poisons politics, culture and economics, yes, but the real trouble lies in the human spirit.
I love being called “psychotic” by the guy who spends his time writing books about people coming back from the dead.
The long tides of history have produced many slow shifts toward the good. For instance, the four waves of the Great Awakening, starting with the Moravians and the Wesleys, awoke the West from its 1,500-year Big Sleep, stopped the hate-driven surge of the French Revolution, and launched the modern missionary movement.
I find it hard to believe that the Renaissance and the Enlightenment were periods of “sleep” for Western Civilization, but I guess that’s why Jim gets paid money to write WorldNetDaily, while I’m stuck making fun of WorldNetDaily for free.
But now God is sending changes like lightning bolts. Since the late 1980s, total changes have begun to rapidly reverse the decline of towns, cities and even whole regions.
A prime example is the once-hopeless village of Almolonga, Guatemala. This town of 20,000 had been a drought-plagued pit of poverty, demon worship and alcoholism for 400 years.
What, were they attending Pastor Swank’s church?
When the Spanish conquistadores arrived, they announced they were going to build a nice church for the villagers. But the stubborn natives insisted they weren’t giving up worship of their local demon-god, Mashimon.
Yes, those stupid villagers refused to worship the God who was being forced on them by the people who brutally conquered their country. What a bunch of peons.
So a deal was cut. The Spaniards put Mashimon’s statue in the church, but his name was altered to San Sim?n (Saint Simon). Spiritually, this sealed the fate of the hapless village until our time.
Because we all know how well they’d been doing when they were being slaughtered by the Spanish.
Next, Jim tells us how Almolonga was a screwed-up hell-hole for years before miraculously converting to Christianity:
When the town repented and surrendered to Christ, underground springs broke open and drenched the parched soil ? right up to the city limits. As you approach and drive through Almolonga, the foliage changes from brown to green to brown again at the town’s borders. The weather hasn’t changed, but the farmers have gotten serious. They’re producing up to three crops a year. The gourmet vegetables are large to huge. A highly respected researcher, George Otis, has produced a stunning video that has footage of him with produce, including carrots bigger than his forearm.
When you hear that someone is a “highly respected researcher,” you usually assume that they’re a member of the academic or scientific community and that their work is regularly published in peer-reviewed journals. However, Jim’s “highly respected researcher” is actually the CEO of the Sentinel Group, which is “a Christian research and information agency dedicated to helping the Church pray knowledgably for end-time evangelization.”
In other words, when Jim calls someone a “highly respected researcher,” you can be pretty sure he really means “another wingnut.”
Orders are pouring in, even from outside Guatemala. Literacy has shot up as people struggle to cope with the paperwork and money. Some farmers have paid cash for big new Mercedes-Benz trucks. Almolonga is now famous as the garden spot of Guatemala. God does things in style.
Of course, what Jim doesn’t tell you is that much of the improved growth in vegetation is due to improved farming techniques and the increased use of pesticides. According to the American Geographical Society:
Large amounts of synthetic pesticides are used in Guatemala to increase the production on nontraditional crops. Almolonga, a township in the western highlands, produces vegetables for markets in Mexico and Central America. Almolongue?os make intensive use of limited cultivable land and abundant water resources, as well as sizable amounts of synthetic pesticides. Among Almolongue?os, congenital malformations, cancer, anemia, and respiratory infections await substantiated links to exposure to pesticides. The prevalence of infectious and parasitic diseases and nutritional deficiencies–the dominant health concerns–may be heightened by excessive use of pesticides.
So if Jim’s willing to give God credit for Almolonga’s improved crop yields, he should also blame God for their increased cancer rate.
It should also be noted that until 1996, Guatemala was engaged in a civil war. And as any Southerner alive during the time of General Sherman will tell you, civil wars aren’t exactly beneficial to agriculture. According to Barbara Boeck, an Amnesty International specialist on Guatemala:
150,000 civilians were killed and another 50,000 “disappeared” during the internal armed conflict. More than 400 villages were erased from the landscape as homes were burned, crops destroyed and the inhabitants cruelly massacred. The victims, for the most part, were Mayan peasant farmers from poor and isolated villages throughout the western highlands.
“Hey, isn’t Almolonga located in the western highlands?” you ask.
Why, yes it is! In fact, God apparently loved Almolonga so much that He decided to put it right in the middle of a bunch of volcanoes:
But anyway, I’m sure the change in Almolonga’s fortunes had nothing to do with the end of the civil war- it obviously got better because its villagers stopped worshipping a 15th Century demon statue.
And now, back to Jim:
Otis’ ministry ? the Sentinel Group ? now distributes “Transformations I,” the video that documents Almolonga and three other citywide dramas. Get your hands on it right away. I guarantee you’ll never see the world in the same way again. In fact, because of your tears, you probably won’t see the final scenes at all.
Yes, you’ll cry because you wasted $20.
When Otis filmed “Transformations,” we knew of just those four miraculously transformed towns. Now we’re tracking 300 worldwide. Be encouraged. Be very encouraged.
“And don’t forget to buy my book! And Otis’ video!!”
I bow down before the wonderful snarky goodness that is Brad R. You rock.
Sounds suspiciously like Pastor Swank’s Grandma Carolyn “miracle”. Don’t mind the birth defects….just LOOK at that carrot!
Jim started out his column waving his tiny set of what now?? After that I couldn’t get the image out of my mind and had to stop reading. Too bad, it was probably brilliant.
After that I couldn’t get the image out of my mind and had to stop reading.
Bah! Come on! I had to do some research on Guatemala for this one! That took actual work!!!
Brad, I, for one, salute you for the extra effort you put forth, in the name of proving what an idiot this guy is. I’d give you a cookie right now, if I could dispense them through a computer screen, and if I had any cookies.
Bill, you’d have all the cookies you could ever want if you stopped praying to that demon statue. And they’d be gi-normous.
Brad, I was kidding before about not being able to finish it. I was (unsuccessfully) attempting the persona of a reader of Rutz’s original column, not your take on it. Coraggio!
Lucy
Isn’t it great how Jim can take one small, distant, nigh-on-unverifiable town and not only shovel a bunch of crap about how its inhabitants’ “surrender to Christ” brought about untold prosperity (Mercedes-Benzeses! Hoo-EE!) but extrapolate from it the principle that converting to Christianity brings about prosperity for any who do the same? I wonder why it is, then, that some of the most desperately poor countries on Earth are predominantly Christian, and some of the most wealthy are what would be in his estimation gay-mongering cesspits? I guess Jesus only pours out the goodie bag occasionally, to make a point. George Otis? Isn’t he the elevator guy? And “the gourmet vegetables are large to huge”? I wonder if Dean and Deluca are buying them for their premium Large to Huge Vegetable Terrines?
Well, Jim’s argument is that there’s a “new kind” of Christianity that’s spreading all over the world that doesn’t require any centralized power structure. Ironically, he’s taking a lot from couter-culture anarchism- the idea that hierarchies are essentially destructive and should be abolished, and that people left to their own devices, without coercion from authority figures, will make wiser decisions.
Of course, the only way to learn about this new hippie Jesus chruch is by buying Jim’s book, so that let’s you know how serious he is…
The Spaniards put Mashimon’s statue in the church, but his name was altered to San Sim?n (Saint Simon). Spiritually, this sealed the fate of the hapless village until our time.
I’m too lazy to look anything up right now, but I’m pretty sure turing local gods into saints had been done before, at least in Britan. Is Rutz going to claim that England is demon-plagued?
I wonder why it is, then, that some of the most desperately poor countries on Earth are predominantly Christian, and some of the most wealthy are what would be in his estimation gay-mongering cesspits?It sounds like the doubtless hell-bound Lucy is going all empirical on Rutz’ ass. Everyone knows that if a Christian gets rich, God’s rewarding him/her for his/her piety. If a Christian is dirt-poor, God’s testing him/her, a la Job. It’s all good! Not to worry — sure the godly may get fucked over on Earth, but they’ll get pie in the sky when they die.
Oh, yeah, I loves me that psychotic-grade liberalism! It’s a way better trip than the delusional grade or the hallucinatory grade.
And the reality grade? Hell, that liberalism just makes your hair smell like an ashtray and get all fat like Michael Moore.
First, let me wave my […] conservative credentials: I stand somewhere [blah blah blah …]
So basically what Jim is saying here is that conservative credentials are the same thing as what us regular folks call “the crazy.” I already kind of knew that, but it’s nice to hear in his own words.
Maxim?n is actually the prehistoric ancestor of the Marlboro man. Why does Jim hate cowboys!?!
Wait, he seriously says “I support any conspiracy theory that can be explained in basic English with a straight face” as one of his “conservative credentials”? ANY conspiracy theory (with a straight face, of course). Wow – that’s conservatism nowadays huh? I remember when conservatism was something like “don’t spend so much on programs, and stop raising my taxes”.
I wonder if this is all some kind of performance art piece. Like Jesus’s General on a much larger scale without ever dropping character.
“Jim sees himself as a schizophrenic French girl who lives in the Wild West, believes in UFO’s, and gets turned on by women with large Adam’s apples.”
Oddly enough, that also sounds like Gavin…
Is Rutz going to claim that England is demon-plagued?
He should google for Gog and Magog, which definitely aren’t of Christian origin.
Okay, so I read this:
First, let me wave my tiny set
and figured that was all I needed to know about this guy.
Tiny set.
Is Rutz going to claim that England is demon-plagued?
Only the parts where people vote for Labour. How else to explain socialism?
Psychotic-grade injectable socialism, or the regular kind you chop up and snort?
Well, In central america, as elsewhere, the general pattern was for people to worship the Catholic god in public, so they wouldn’t be burned or hung or savaged by dogs, and in secret they still worshiped the old gods. Often, as a cover, they were given the names of saints.
Catholic missionaries were pretty much ignorant of native religions, so they wouldn’t realize that the reason the natives were so excited to celebrate the birthday of St. Boris was that Boris was born on the same day as Quetzalcoatl, or whatever.
So the saints are pretty much the old gods, with new names.
One of the most comprehensive overviews of Aztec religion was written specifically to help missionaries stamp out the last vestiges of it.
Anyway, one problem with Mr. Rutz’s theories is that the roots of modern illiteracy in Guatemala can be traced directly to, that’s right, Christian missionaries. The mayans at the time of the conquest already had their own written language, and apparently a high literacy rate at least among nobles, and The Spaniards proceeded to quit efficiently wipe out all knowledge of it.
Not to mention that, while efforts were made by Spanish authorities to treat the indians fairly, America was so far from Spain that the Spanish government could be pretty well ignored, and the result was that a bunch of Spanish jerks basically made slaves of the entire population.
Before Christianity, meanwhile, central america was home to some of the most technologicacally advanced, intellectually well developed, and most prosperous civilisations in America. In fact, most problems in central america can be traced back to the Christian conquest of the area.
This Rutz guy should pick up a history book.
As an aspiring copywriter, I respect Jim Rutz. One of the great copywriters I am studying right now has praised Jim’s ability to write compelling copy (selling copy).
But the religion thing is too much. People who come back from the dead? Really? Are they zombies? because in my culture, haitian culture, we believe in zombies or “revenants” in French.
As far as Christianity is concerned, or at least the Christianity that Europe exported to the the rest of the world, this is a problem.
How do you explain the Crusades? How do you explain the Inquisition? How do you explain the extermination of the Native Americans? How do you explain the enslavement of the Africans?
All these happened in the name of Christianity, perpetrated by people who presented themselves as apostles, bringing salvation…no they brought radical, active and merciless extermination.
For centuries Europe has used Christianity to impose its will on the other parts of the world, under the pretext that ‘if you converted and gave up your life, your wife, your land, your children to the colonisators, you will have a better life in paradise”.
In the meantime, since you’re ‘guaranteed a great life after you’re dead culturally, emotionally, and physically, ‘ it is easy to let the colonisator rule your life.
What Mr Rutz is doing is blatant advertising for a cause he believes in (and I respect his position). But I have some questions. If Christianity is so active and powerful, why segregation had plagued this country for centuries? Is it ok to have an American president having promiscuous sex with women in the White House? What is Christianity’s take on that?
In my country, Haiti, Christinaty is a main cause of social division. And sometimes I fancy that many new protestant churches are encouraged for the sole purpose of keeping the population divided. If I believe you’re impure, infidel, I won’t have much respect for your point of views because I think you’re inferior. This is my little conspiration theory.
From my experience and my own observations, if anything Christianity divides. It creates a bunch of people who know the Bible by heart, yet fail to apply the Bible’s laws to their very everyday life. It creates a bunch of hypocrites.
I am technically Christian because I believe in the words of Jesus, I believe in his philosophy…and last time I checked his philosophy was about serving other people, not getting money out of them.
Let’s not mix business with religion. It’s a very explosive and dangerous mix. I respect everyone’s religion, but I believe that NO RELIGION has the TRUTH.
It is often easier to critizise another from the confines of one’s own comfort zones. Irrespective of what Jim Rutz does or doesn’t say or even how people have manipulated Christianity throughout the ages for their own personal gain, this fact remains; only Jesus took on the public position that He was the only Way, Truth or Life, and that no-one could approach God but through Him. Even though He may be the “gentlemen”, waiting for you to respond to Him, He will always be in your face. And it’s not about just following His philosophy but getting down to who He really is and what you’re going to do about it.
Furthermore, I see Christianity as a grassroots movement where one man or woman effects another and together they effect their region. Christianity is never to be forced upon anyone because God wants respondents not puppets. It is time that ordinary Christians get off their lazy, idle butts and get about this Christian stuff as Jesus taught it. Structure has its role, the role to equip, but it is “power to the people”.
Trust me I am not sticking up for Jim but don’t confuse Christianity or True Christians for those that simply call themselves Christians. A true Christian follows the example that Jesus Christ set while here over 2000 years ago. The other type simply hide behind the name while doing some terribly evil things – These are the ones you will find the most of, unfortunately.
Don’t put us all in the same basket – If a so called Christian doesn’t keep every one of the 10 Commandments or doesn’t treat everyone with respect & kindness then that person simply is not a Christian. I think independent research is the key. Many problems begin when we simply take the word of some tool (or bunch of tools) that have a hidden agenda. I researched evolution – easy to see that theory is nothing more than just that. I was a non Christian & tried all the things that I shouldn’t have but eventually – using some common sense & unbiased research into history & science etc I have decided to try & follow the example that our creator gave us. I have never been so happy or felt more fulfilled & no I don’t belong to any church.
I pray you can find the happiness I have found – the answer is in the Bible… May God Bless you all.