Squinty Whistles Reborn as Ultraconservative, ESV-only, Pro-life, anti-PowerPoint Revivalist Pastor

Squinty Whistles, late 19th-century mountain man and corn bread enthusiast, has been thawed and revitalized in a secret new Mexico lab, and once he came to his senses, and sprouted a massive beard, suddenly vaulted into a calling of a revivalist pastor of a most unusual persuasion. His followers, known affectionately as "Whistletarians", have been following him as he leads a series of revival crusades across the Midwest. His key tenants include

A radical new idea to preaching: Squinty actually does the incredible... he stands up, opens the Bible, and actually TEACHES from it! No stories, no jokes, no idiotic personal reflections, no puppet shows, but he actually opens the Bible and explains it to people! An incredibly novel idea!

Also, Squinty holds to strict ESV-onlism! (Although the NASB is fine as well. KJV is cool, too. And he doesn't mind the NIV. The Message is strictly forbidden, though)

Strict credo-credible-baptist. No sprinkling water on angry, unrepentant babies, or even on smug, just-doing-it-because-youth-pastor-said-to pre-teen kids, but rather it's adult-only baptism featuring a full-submersion (for an extended 5-10 seconds to make sure the candidate is completely dunked) and only done when the baptismal candidate can make a completely credible, convincing, realistic and plausible profession of faith and genuine repentance. None of this 'unguarded baptismal' stuff.... that's just as idiotic as sprinkling water on a baby and calling it a "sacrament" (and where, Squinty wonders, is the actual word "sacrament" found in Scripture, or was that just whimsically dreamed up by some goofy Pope? It's an "ordinance", papists. Call it what it is.)

Strictly guarded (literally) elements of the Lord's Table. And when I mean strict, I mean that there's an elder standing at the table, guarding it with a tazer. And if anyone comes up who is not a church member, and has not met with the session and again provided the aforementioned genuine profession of faith, they get the loving reprimand of a 50,000 zolt zap.

Hymns alone are sung, but not the stuffy kind. The only rule is that the hymns must be completely Scriptural, and they must not contain any one word/verse that's repeated more than 10 times. Those aren't Christian hymns: those are tortuous exercises in monotonous chanting

Squinty holds to a literal, universal interpretation of Leviticus 21:5, "'They shall not make any baldness on their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts in their flesh." Squinty has a handsome head of hair, and the edges of his beard are vibrant, but most importantly, he holds to a strict antivasectometarian viewpoint, that Lev. 21:5 is saying that "cuts of their flesh" applies to the vasectomy scalpel of the urologist

Squinty also quotes from I Kings 18, regarding the priests of Baal: "So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom..." It is also the custom, he notes, that urologists slash at the vas deverens of men with swords, attempting to make them shout louder. "The priests of Baal aimed to serve a false god," observed Squinty, "no different than men today who go to urologists in order to serve their own false gods of self, indulgence, and convenience. Two kids was probably all the priests of Baal had as well."

Squinty is fiercely pro-life, and demands that all members of the church be as well. "Well, of course we are, pastor!" "And how many kids do you have?" "Well, two, of course, pastor... how else would we afford the over sized SUV and the annual Disney trip?" At this Squinty goes on an impassioned explanation of the Scriptural emphasis on the blessing of children, from Gen. 1:28 through the life of Israel and explains, clearly and slowly, that blessed is the man who fills his quiver with children, and two or three arrows in a quiver would be a pathetically lacking arsenal. He then drives home the pro-life thing: "How can you be pro-life, and yet only be pro-two lives, when you could easily have more, or easily foster care or adopt more. What, you think if you asked the church to raise up a fund to help you adopt that no one in the church would rise up to help support you in that goal? You can't say that you're TRULY pro-life unless you prove it with your actions and actually LIVE a pro-life life with lots of lives..."

Women wear head coverings in the church as well, because, as Squinty puts it, "Quit fiddling around with I Cor. 11 and making it say things it doesn't. 'Covering' isn't long hair, nor is it a wedding ring. Those are the lame Eve-style excuses whispered by pastor's wives to their husbands so that they wouldn't tell their church to do what the Bible actually says to do. Covering should be worn because it's tied to the creation order, it's done on behalf of the angels, and it goes against the proto-feministic rage of this era (aka "the spirit of the age"). Stop making excuses and do it!"

Finally, Squinty maintains that any church that incorporates PowerPoint is violating some Levitical law, but he hasn't quite pinpointed it out.

The Squinty Whistles campaign is slowly growing in momentum, and Squinty himself hopes to soon become a regular contributor of this blog, with regular messages and a handy guide to theological definitions and what not. Stay tuned!