 "Where the worthwhile worship. Unsaved unwelcome!" | |
Screenshot | |
| Owner | Americhrist Ltd. |
|---|---|
| Created by | Chris Harper/Paul A. Bradley |
| URL | www |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | 1998 |
| Current status | Active |
The Landover Baptist Church is the website of a parody fundamentalist Baptist church. The church lampoons fundamentalist, Independent Baptist churches and Biblical literalism, and originated as a satire of Liberty University.
The site was created by Chris Harper, who obtained his master's degree in English literature from George Mason University in 1993 after being expelled from Liberty University (founded by Jerry Falwell) in 1989 for producing a radio show satirising the school's procedures [1] which Liberty's administration found offensive. [2] Harper responded to the expulsion by creating the Landover Baptist Church website, described by Pop Matters as both a parody and an exposé of the religious subculture at Liberty. [1]
In an example of Poe's law, some members of the Christian community have supported some of the outlandish stories on the website, [1] and a book [3] about Hello Kitty mistakenly cites a joke article on the Landover site as an example of the "dead seriousness" of the Christian right's opposition to Japanese culture. [4]
The church is located in the fictional town of Freehold, Iowa. [5] It is described as operating under a dictatorial structure whereby its "Pastor" holds all authority over the church, its members, and its extensive holdings. The church supposedly uses an elaborate fine system to maintain its authority over its members, parodying Jerry Falwell's system at Liberty University, [6] and in addition can force its members to comply with any and all of its wishes (a common phrase on the website used in such cases is that the member "mandatorily volunteered" to comply). In cases of expulsion the member is also removed from the church property. The website describes Landover as having a "permanent injunction" against all "unsaved" persons, prohibiting them from being within ten miles of the Landover property as well as forbidding them to enter Landover's website. [7]
Within the Landover universe, the church is described as owning well over 1,000 acres (400 ha) in Freehold, with twenty-eight paid pastors, 412 full-time staff members, eleven fully equipped chapels, seven sanctuaries, a 100,000 seat amphitheater, twelve television studios, two radio stations, an academy, a university, two gated communities, twenty-seven developments, three office parks, as well as a shopping mall, amusement park, golf course, retirement community, foundation, fire and police department, circus camp, resort center, retreat center, and a number of fitness centers, swimming pools, hot springs, and cemeteries. An annual feature on the website is a story about the church's Halloween hell house. [8]
The site records that the initial pastor of Landover was Ben Ebeneezer Smith, and that upon his death his brother (Deacon Fred Smith) assumed the office. In and around June 2010 a "coup" was related to website visitors (in accordance with a spurious interpretation of Romans 13) whereby Pastor Harry Harkwell took over leadership. The site went on to describe Deacon Fred being "restored" to his pastorship after a "reconciliation" during Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally.
The Landover site also features material from Betty Bowers, a fictional central character on the satirical website BettyBowers.com. Bowers is portrayed by voice actress and comedian Deven Green, appearing both in photographs and numerous satirical videos. According to Bradley's fictional satirical biography of Bowers, she proclaims herself "America's Best Christian". [9] Listed as a member of the Landover Baptist Church, [10] Bowers operates several Christian ministries with names like "Bringing Integrity To Christian Homemakers" (B.I.T.C.H.) [11] and "Baptists Are Saving Homosexuals" (B.A.S.H.). [12]
Jerry Laymon Falwell Sr. was an American Baptist pastor, televangelist, and conservative activist. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia. He founded Lynchburg Christian Academy in 1967, founded Liberty University in 1971, and co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979.
The Christian right, otherwise referred to as the religious right, are Christian political factions characterized by their strong support of socially conservative and traditionalist policies. Christian conservatives seek to influence politics and public policy with their interpretation of the teachings of Christianity.
The Moral Majority was an American political organization and movement associated with the Christian right and the Republican Party in the United States. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell Sr. and associates, and dissolved in the late 1980s. It played a key role in the mobilization of conservative Christians as a political force and particularly in Republican presidential victories throughout the 1980s.
Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC) is a Baptist megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia, located on the campus of Liberty University, which it founded and is closely affiliated with. In 2016, a church spokesperson stated they had an average weekly attendance of 9,000. The pastor is Jonathan Falwell, the son of previous Senior Pastor Jerry Falwell and brother of former Liberty University President, Jerry Falwell Jr. In addition to a second campus, Dan River Church, Thomas Road also hosts a Spanish congregation on its main campus. It is affiliated with the Baptist Bible Fellowship International and the Southern Baptist Convention.
Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that parodies of public figures, even those intending to cause emotional distress, are protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The Baptist Bible Fellowship International (BBFI) is a conservative Baptist Christian denomination. It is headquartered in Springfield, Missouri.
Liberty Baptist Fellowship is a fellowship of independent Baptist churches that grew up around Jerry Falwell, Thomas Road Baptist Church of Lynchburg, Virginia, and Liberty University. Most pastors of the Fellowship are alumni of Liberty University. In 1994, the Liberty Baptist Fellowship had 100 churches, including the 21,000 member Thomas Road church, which was also affiliated with the Baptist Bible Fellowship International. In 1996, the Thomas Road church joined the newly formed Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia, thereby aligning itself with 3 Baptist bodies.
Liberty University (LU), known simply as Liberty, is a private evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia. Founded in 1971 by Jerry Falwell Sr. and Elmer L. Towns as Lynchburg Baptist College, Liberty is among the world's largest Christian universities and one of the largest private non-profit universities in the United States by total student enrollment.
Jack Frasure Hyles was a leading figure in the Independent Baptist movement, having pastored the First Baptist Church of Hammond in Hammond, Indiana, from August 1959 until his death. He was well known for being an innovator of the church bus ministry that brought thousands of people each week from surrounding towns to Hammond for services. Hyles built First Baptist up from fewer than a thousand members to a membership of 100,000. In 1993 and again in 1994, it was reported that 20,000 people attended First Baptist every Sunday, making it the most attended Baptist church in the United States. In 2001, at the time of Hyles's death, 20,000 people were attending church services and Sunday school each week.
Tennessee Temple University was a private Christian university in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Temple Baptist Seminary was the university's graduate school of Christian theology, also operating in Chattanooga. The university merged with Piedmont International University in 2015.
Mission University (MU) is a private Baptist Bible college in Springfield, Missouri. Founded in 1950, MU focuses on training Christian professionals and ministers. It offers accredited associate, bachelor's, and master's degrees.
Bascom Ray Lakin was a Baptist preacher and evangelist.
Elmer Leon Towns is an American Christian academic, pastor and writer who co-founded Liberty University alongside Jerry Falwell in 1971. He is a speaker on the principles of church growth, church leadership, Christian education, Sunday school, prayer and fasting.
Jonathan Pate Falwell is the senior pastor at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Chancellor at Liberty University.
Edward G. Dobson was a Northern Irish-American pastor, at one time an executive for the Moral Majority. He became the pastor of a megachurch in Grand Rapids, Michigan and a nationally known author and speaker, especially after being diagnosed with ALS in 2000.
Ergun Michael Caner is a Swedish-American academic, author, and Baptist minister, who became well known for his book, co-authored with his brother, on Islam and his claims that he was a devout Muslim trained as a terrorist. He emigrated to the United States at age four and claimed to have converted to Protestantism in the early 1980s.
Christwire is a satirical website that published blog-style articles intended to ridicule excesses of American Christian conservatives. Recurring topics include homosexuality, atheism, Hollywood, and other purported threats to American culture.
Deven Green is a Canadian comedian and model who produces comedy parody videos, including as the satirical character Mrs. Betty Bowers, "America's Best Christian".
Steven Lee Anderson is an American preacher and founder of the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement. He is pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. He has advocated for the death penalty for homosexuals, and prayed for the deaths of former U.S. president Barack Obama and Caitlyn Jenner. He produced a documentary titled Marching to Zion in which he "championed a wide range of antisemitic stereotypes", according to Matthew H. Brittingham of Emory University.
Jerome Richard "Jerry" Johnston is an American evangelical Christian pastor, author, and docu-filmmaker. Johnston is currently vice president for Innovation and Strategic marketing at Houston Baptist University in Houston, Texas, and director of Christian Thinkers Society. Johnston and his wife Cristie Jo Huf Johnston are professors of theology and co-producers of a documentary in production about the "Nones" phenomenon.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)My name is Mrs. Betty Bowers and — as you already know — I'm America's Best Christian.