Remember the super-hip pastor who said “Avatar is Satan?”  Well he’s back, and this time he’s not too pleased with Twilight, or any of the other supernatural romance books trying to piggyback on Twilight‘s success.  It may be a churchy abstinence parable to begin with, but it’s still a MORMON abstinence parable full of vampires. Fundamentalists bashing books is nothing new, and it makes perfect sense — the more well-versed in narrative device and metaphor you become, the more a strictly literal interpretation of the bible starts to seem like a less-good idea. And of course the fringe Christians have been always been down on anything with vampires or sorcery (see also: Harry Potter).  But I can’t help it, this guy is legitimately fascinating.

For one thing, it’s fun to hear him refer to Edward, Bella, and Jacob as “the beast, the false prophet, and the antichrist.” (Team Antichrist!)  For another, while he may not make any new or interesting points about why reading a book about vampires is bad, he’s oddly adept at “the rant”, and has solid comedic timing for a guy who’s crazy.  He’s actually funny if you ignore the basic logic of the things he says.

“That means you’re consulting with dead people!  It’s about sorcery, witchcraft, divination, wicca… dead people!  You know what? Dead people don’t talk to you!”

Haha, very true, Douche Kazoo, very true.  I’m with you so far…

“Demons pretend to be dead people!”

“Dead people don’t talk, that would be ridiculous!  Clearly it’s demons from hell using the dead people like microphones.”  Phew, good thing we cleared that up.  Hey demon, pass that sh*t, Kirk Cameron wants to sing “It’s Rainin’ Men.”

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Mark Driscoll is a super-cool pastor from Seattle who has tattoos, wears skinny jeans, and swears during his sermons, delivered in a church that used to be a nightclub.  He’s not the first guy to swear a lot in the name of the lord, but lately he’s pretty pissed about Avatar, which he calls “Paganism 101″.  From a recent sermon:

“It presents a false mediator with a witch… We have a false Jesus.  And the visuals are amazing, because Satan wants you to emotionally connect with the lie.  Oh, the problem is not that I need a savior, the problem is that I need to live in tune with creation.  This is all Eastern garbage-ism.  …We’re a very creative church.  I’ve got three Tivos.  We just don’t like Satan.”

Ouch, yet another poor review for Danny Masterson.   Kidding aside, I’d make fun of the guy for criticizing Avatar‘s false idols while wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, but this is mostly James Cameron’s fault for making it so easy for them.  I mean really, dude, did you really need the dreadlock dirt orgy rave party?  Of course the crazy Christians were going to hate it.  Meanwhile, for counterpoint, I decided to check in with the Avatard forums.  They point out that critics like Mark have overlooked an important point, the idea that the Na’Vi mate for life, unlike the rest of us sick, duplicitous, Tiger Woods-like primates:
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The one good thing about psychotic fundementalist Christians is that they make hilariously terrible movies for each other.  Below, you can watch the trailer for C Me Dance (“A dance that shines through darkness”), which, as you can imagine, is basically Step Up 2 the Streets for people who love fetuses.  Just like in Hollywood, the protagonist has to win the dance competition to pay for a relative’s operation.  Only this time it’s not greedy developers she has to contend with, it’s… SATAN! Oh hey, and did I mention there’s a random split-second shot of Jesus being nailed to the cross spliced in there?  Because of course there is.  Fundie movies without Jesus being nailed to the cross are like french fries without salt.

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