Boiling in the inner cities is a witch's brew of out-of-control passions fed by ignorance, poverty, drugs, and sex. ... Our journey into downtown Columbus exposed us to an element that has been quietly lurking in the shadows. All of the signs have been visible, yet our rose-colored glasses and Polyannic attitudes have cast a false brightness into the storm clouds.But Dave, at least the men are still leading!
The thunder is rolling in the form of roving gangs of fatherless families trolling the sidewalks of the inner cities. Saggy-trousered teenage boys, tattooed from pillar to post, wander the sidewalks, followed by scantily-clad teenage mothers with a toddler saddled to the hip.
That was from last week's post. This week he takes up one of his standard hobby-horses: the alleged effeminization of evangelical Christianity and his broad dislike of most of its leaders. Along the way, he suddenly blurts:
Heck, I guess Jesus isn't good enough. It takes an "anointed teacher" to help lead you to your destiny. The thought of getting out a Bible and getting on your face just doesn’t seem to do the job anymore. I've always found eating carpet to be an effective way of getting in touch with my destiny.Emphasis mine, but wow, did that ever jump out. That doesn't mean today what it used to mean, Coach.
1 comment:
As a Central Ohioan, I've been following the career of Coach Dave since the late 90's when he had his run-in with the ACLU for pushing his religious practices on his public high school football team. He got enough public support at the time to convince himself that he could turn his 15 minutes of fame into a big time career as a nationally recognized Christian leader. His support eventually died out as he sued the people who turned him in to the ACLU for libel, lost the case, sued on appeal and lost again. He had been caught in a couple of lies and people were pretty sick of the controversy. Eventually the just wanted him gone. He quit his teaching/coaching job and started his ministry.
Coach Dave's ministry never really got off the ground. Now it can only be described as a failure. Even for rural Ohio, he's too extreme, too self-righteous and way too arrogant. He shoots himself in the foot every time he opens his mouth. He criticizes the “sissy” pastors, who respond by not inviting him to their churches to speak, which causes him to voice more criticism and fewer invitations to speak. He's on a downward spiral but hasn't figured out what he's doing wrong. Now only a couple of churches in Ohio will have anything to do with him. He points the finger of blame at everyone but himself. He has to travel outside the state to speak at Christian fundamentalist/Tea Party events with other Christian leader wannabe bottom feeders. These events almost always get a poor turnout. Poor turnout = miniscule donations. Since Coach and his wife choose to live on part time jobs and “the generosity of others”, their financially situation is pathetic. This became apparent when, in 10/09, Coach Dave let it be known that he was looking for one of his followers to donate a car to him. In his late 50's, he can't afford to buy a car nor can he get a loan for one because he and his wife don't have full time permanent jobs and a lot of debt. That's pretty pathetic IMO
Interestingly, Dave's buddy John Freshwater of Mount Vernon followed a similar trajectory when he was fired for teaching creationism and pushing his religious beliefs on his middle school SCIENCE classes. Like Dave, Freshwater got initial support but got caught in a few lies. His inept lawyer failed to comply with discovery demands resulting in a formal sanction from the judge. Locals became disillusioned and then angry when the taxpayers where informed that Freshwater's court case to fight his termination cost the school district nearly a million dollars. Freshwater sued the people who complained about his classroom behavior and, of course, lost. Now Freshwater is broke, up to his ears in debt yet still fighting in the courts recently acting as his own attorney (!) since he can't afford even a lousy attorney anymore.
Rural Ohio is often viewed as a cultural and intellectual backwater full of fundamentalist bible-thumpers who vote against their own interests when the issues of abortion and gay marriage are used to manipulate them. To some extent this is true. But even the rubes have their limits. They don't like Dave's extremist views and but mostly they don't like HIM. This is evidenced by the public reaction to the news that Dave's 24yo son (still living at home) was convicted of pandering child pornography on the family computer in '07. The son was just about to begin a career teaching Special Ed kids! Dave's reputation in Ohio couldn't be any worse. And that speaks well for Ohioans.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791954/posts
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