One of the most unintentionally funny wingnuts in America is Pastor Ken “Hutch” Hutcherson. The last time we visited him, he was asking us if we’d all like the opportunity to be a “big black man” who hangs out with Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson. When everybody was like “um, well, hadn’t really thought of it before,” he rescinded his offer. He mostly stays up in the Pacific Northwest making noises toward Microsoft and the like, for being nice to gays. Microsoft, as of this writing, has never really noticed. Also he used to play football, which supposedly makes him “tough” and “cool,” two things that wingnuts never are.
He has a column, though, at the WingNutDaily, where he’s just really so mad at all the gays, because we stole his rainbows:
Mocking Ken is way too easy, but let’s do it anyway. For one thing, the rainbow is, yes, in the Bible, but so are many things, like polygamy. You don’t see Ken running around screaming about taking the polygamy back from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints.
Rainbows used to mean something very different than they do today. It used to be understood as the sign God put in the sky to remind us that even when He’s angry about sin, He’d never again destroy the earth with a global flood. But of course, that’s not what most people associate a rainbow with today.
Rainbows are a meteorological phenomenon. Here are some other instances of rainbows being used as religious symbols:
In Greco-Roman mythology, the rainbow was considered to be a path made by a messenger (Iris) between Earth and Heaven.
In Chinese mythology, the rainbow was a slit in the sky sealed by goddess Nüwa using stones of five different colours.
In Hindu religion, the rainbow is called Indradhanush, meaning “the bow (Sanskrit and Hindi: dhanush is bow) of Indra, the god of lightning, thunder and rain”. Another Indian mythology says the rainbow is the bow of Rama, the incarnation of Vishnu. It is called Rangdhonu in Bengali, dhonu (dhanush) meaning bow. Likewise, in mythology of Arabian Peninsula, the rainbow, called Qaus Quzaħ in Arabic, is the war bow of the god Quzaħ.
In Armenian mythology the rainbow is a belt of Tir, a Sun god.
In Norse Mythology, a rainbow called the Bifröst Bridge connects the realms of Ásgard and Midgard, homes of the gods and humans, respectively.
The Irish leprechaun’s secret hiding place for his pot of gold is usually said to be at the end of the rainbow. This place is impossible to reach, because the rainbow is an optical effect which depends on the location of the viewer. When walking towards the end of a rainbow, it will appear to “move” further away (two people who simultaneously observe a rainbow at different locations will disagree about where a rainbow is).
So please, Ken, let’s not pretend that gays using the rainbow as a symbol is somehow an attack on your gross distortion of Christianity.
The guy who puts a rainbow sticker on the back of his Prius is sending a slightly different message: He’s got a co-pilot, and it isn’t God.
Nope, it’s Blake. Or maybe Chad.
If you really want the conversation to get going, try putting one of those stickers on your minivan right next to the Jesus fish logo. Talk about mixed messages. Is that guy straight? Is he gay? Do you think he’s a liberal Presbyterian?
If you’re an idiot, that might get the conversation going. “Maybe it’s a gay Christian” is something a person who didn’t fail out of kindergarten might say. But this is directed at WorldNetDaily readers, so we’re on a grading curve, obviously.
How did we get here? Just when was this symbol liquidated of its meaning? When was the sign pointing to God’s promise intentionally co-opted to point to a certain lifestyle choice? Let’s just say that the homosexual movement has been busy over the last couple of decades and that many of these changes have taken place without so much as a peep from the larger Christian community. Rome’s burning; Nero’s fiddling; and Christians are taking a well-deserved nap.
Worse, they were asleep when the leprechauns took it, also.
I’m not suggesting that believers don’t appreciate the theological importance of this colorful little symbol, but I think that too many Christians may have adopted the wrong kind of rainbow. They’re yellow with fear, green with envy, blue with depression and red from embarrassment.
Orange from spray tan, indigo from a false sense of uniqueness, violet from a false sense of royal entitlement…
So, why are believers so off-color these days? Maybe they’re tired of fighting the good fight. Maybe they haven’t seen as much progress as they’d like. Or maybe they think someone else will carry the proverbial water. Sadly, as believers, we’ve gone from echoing Luther’s, “Here I stand, I can do no other” to “Here I sit, I want my mother.” After all, why not put off today what someone else will postpone tomorrow?
How many words can Ken type to avoid confronting the actual reality of the situation, namely, that the majority of Christians just aren’t ignorant bigots like him? More denial, please?
It’s this rigorous apathy that’s got me so riled. I’m bothered that Christians can breathe noxious fumes coming from a decaying cultural carcass and think they won’t be affected. I’m bothered that Christians are too afraid to work together because someone might be overshadowed. I’m bothered that Christians wave a white flag of surrender when they should be taking ground. I’m bothered that Christians are more concerned about offending people than they are that people are offending God. And what’s more, I’m bothered that a number of other pastors aren’t bothered.
Yep, that’s the denial I was talking about. There is a particular delusion common to wingnuts of all stripes: they think that everybody else is really like them, when in reality, they’re a dwindling minority of the population, increasingly the subjects of mockery and derision by people smarter than they.
It’s been said that if you lead the orchestra, you’ll have to turn your back on the crowd. Well, the crowd is getting increasingly hostile. From the rainbow to Tebow, the Christian message is under assault.
His metaphors are getting really mixed, but I think he’s upset that people make fun of Timmy Tebow. Another wingnut delusion is that “Thou shalt not ever hurt the fee fees of or laugh at Fundamentalist Christians, for any reason” is one of the enumerated Bill of Rights.
So what is it going to take to wake up this sleeping beauty known as the Bride of Christ?
Smelling salts?
Don’t we understand that if our symbols can be hijacked, so too can everything else we hold dear? The rainbow is only one example of many where the church has passively sat by and allowed others to redraw lines on the playing field.
We’ve already established that Christianity never owned the rainbow. You’d think he was talking about the cross…
Linguistic redistricting is a pet peeve of mine, so don’t even get me started about terms like “tolerance,” “justice” and “love.” Those fish will be fried at a later date. But for now, I have a simple proposition:Let’s take the rainbow back.
Yes, let’s take back the rainbow for God.
Okay, you do that, Ken. We’ll wait and watch.
Let the homosexual community find a different religious symbol to commandeer. If they were feeling congenial, perhaps the Muslims would let them borrow their crescent moon. In these desperate economic times, maybe the Wiccans would rent the pentagram to them. I don’t really care.
Really, is Ken confused about which symbol is most iconic to Christianity?
What I want is for the Christian community to wake up, wipe the sleep from their eyes, and realize that they are in a spiritual battle that isn’t going away and has no demilitarized zones. The rainbow is a symbol, but it’s meaning points to the very character of God.
I know WND editor Joseph Farah is really busy trying to prove that Obama is a Muslim, but nobody caught that its/it’s mistake?
So Christians …use this God-given symbol for His glory. Using it won’t make you a homosexual.
What if it does?
It won’t make you a New Ager. It won’t make leprechauns real.
What if it does? What if it makes you a gay new age leprechaun? It might. You don’t know.
But it might allow you to get into conversations with people who need to meet the very One Who gave us His promise in the first place.
Go ahead wingnuts. Stick one on the back of your car and head to P-Town!
Is it time for another Telemachus, the monk who tried to stop the gladiator fights taking place in Rome? In the process, Telemachus was stoned to death on Jan. 1, A.D. 404. However, from that day on, there was never another gladiator fight in Rome.
Was there a rainbow that day, or does this reference seem to make absolutely no sense in the context of the rest of the piece? Along the same lines…
Martin Luther King stood up to make the issue black and white.
Martin Luther King did not march in order to take rainbows back from gays and give them to wingnuts. I do not care what David Barton version of the historical record you are using, Ken.
We as Christians have watered down the truth and are trying to make it purple and pink.
And those are GAY COLORS.
Is it time for us to change history? Let’s take back the rainbow!
All righty then. Until Ken manages to get it, here:
