Man is a social being, but there’s an inner sanctuary within us all where we retire from all that fellowship and influence.
I’d known the idolatry of wealth and power had deep, deep roots in Christianity and Judaism, and that our worship of whiteness was just conveniently claimed by Trump, revealed by Trump.
It’s Sunday. Repent and believe the good news.
6 Likes
The distress of nations with perplexity tho lol as if man or Klingon could do shiite
Diggin Z’s look. It communicates something
lol not a trekkie, but didn’t the Klingons find themselves doing stupid shit alongside humans?
Jack Caesar Smith, reading aloud, “You are to forgive seventy times seven.”
Kings are not elected. Gods are not elected!
The big picture, eye I eye want to see!!!
In November 1905, stone mason Herman Menz had a novel idea for a yard ornament.
At his home on the west side of Detroit, Menz unveiled a 14-foot statue that he chiseled himself. It had horns, a tail and cloven hooves.
It was the devil … as in Satan.
After its appearance, um, all hell broke loose.
People showed up in droves at Menz’s home; churches organized to fight what they had long prepared for — the sudden appearance of the evil one. There was talk of mob violence, though only a couple of minor incidents took place.
Neighbors, agitated to a “pitch of hatred,” called the statue “an insult to the community” and demanded it be torn down. The Free Press blasted the granite devil as a “hideous freak.” Rumors flew that it was “a relic of witchcraft.”
A representative of the Catholic Church in Detroit called the statue “shocking.” He added: “I can hardly conceive a man in his right mind erecting such a monument.”
…
Menz didn’t appear to have a lot of supporters in Detroit, but one lived next door. “Let him have his statue,” said Robert G. Young. “The only difference between Menz and a lot of other people is that he puts the sign of his beliefs out where everybody can see it. He has been a good friend.”
Menz, 71, was a German immigrant who ran a masonry business at his home on Stanton Street at McGraw Avenue, near today’s interchange of Interstate 96 and I-94.
He was described as short and sturdy. People considered him eccentric even before the statue, like during the previous summer when Menz protested revival tents in his neighborhood. He claimed the singing of religious hymns made him nervous.
…
When asked in interviews about the real devil, the legendary horned fellow who is said to be the source of all evil in the world, Menz made his feelings clear. “He is my friend,” he said.
Menz called churches “sheep pens” and said he didn’t believe “a word of the Bible.”
He also taunted the clergy: “The ministers and the priests ought not to complain. The devil is the best friend of them all,” Menz said.
Unlike many of his tormentors, Menz had a sense of humor. He seemed to enjoy the attention. With a bemused smile, he patrolled his yard with a long stick, and at times blocked the view of the statue from the street, charging 10 cents admission to see it.
“Where is your devil?” a neighbor asked one day.
“In purgatory,” Menz joked.
He added sarcastically that he had purchased a rosary and planned “to pray him out,” in the Catholic tradition.
On another occasion, Menz decorated the statue with a red, white and blue bow around its neck. He called it a “Yankee devil.”
Menz’s next-door neighbor was not his only supporter. A scrapbook in the Labadie Collection of social protest literature at the University of Michigan contains a sampling of sympathetic letters, telegrams and postcards from Utah to Denmark.
One of the themes contained in the communications is that devils — as well as gods — are social constructs that human beings have created over the centuries to meet their own needs.
In fact, a Latin inscription on the devil statue’s 8-foot base, translated, proclaimed: “Man is not created, but is developed. God did not make man, but man did make the gods.”
Frank Dvorak, of Chicago, assured Menz there actually were millions of Satan worshippers in the world and they had his back. “Down with religious fanatics and up with the truth of nature,” he wrote.
“Long live the devil!” said Tobias Sigel, a Detroit physician.
…
Beyond his provocative landscaping, Menz was a gadfly at Detroit city hall, and he ran twice unsuccessfully for city council, advocating such progressive causes as municipal ownership of the streetcar system and public utilities. He also wanted the city to tax real estate owned by churches.
6 Likes
And god said “fuck the kids. Protect your money”.
6 Likes