News Intelligence Analysis
William Jefferson Clinton Phoenix Flies Again
And An Old Owl Tells the Southern Baptists to Reject the Gospel of Political Power
by Katherine Yurica
June 22, 2004
President Bush’s campaign birds, flew off to Indianapolis, Indiana last week. They were dubbed “the re-election committee,” by the old crow Rove. Their purpose was to meet with church leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention. The largest crow, called “Ralph Reed,” in English, guided his gaggle there to devise a way to gain the 16 million Baptist votes nesting within the largest protestant church in America. He wooed them with his smile. He caressed them with his words.
Meanwhile, in another American town, a Phoenix rose from his ashes.
The reborn bird stretched his wings and watched his feathers once again rapidly grow and cover his body. With delight he realized he could fly again! He opened his heart and his voice reached the range only extraordinary birds could sing. He took his first tentative steps and then in a great leap of faith he began to soar. He rose up to the stratosphere and circled America as he used to do. He was once again the Spirit of the hour: William Jefferson Clinton Phoenix! He swooped past his brother, John F. Kerry, the Eagle from Massachusetts who was just learning to sing spiritual songs and deliver sermons of faith! “Come on, John, we’ve got a Nation and a world to save!” William Jefferson Clinton Phoenix shouted. And John F. Kerry Eagle began to soar.
But there were other birds watching. Theirs carried a dark countenance sponsored in secret counsel. “Power is ours,” said the crooked beaked Vice President, a Dragon who never sleeps. “Let us use it,” spoke the distant crow in the rear of the room. “Unleash the furies!” the President ordered while preening himself to cover his sudden nakedness. (Such a disconcerting loss of feathers was unheard of for a Republican bird.)
In the meantime, William Jefferson Clinton Phoenix was interviewed by a handsome bird called Dan “Hawkeye” Rather who was beginning to age and showed some loss of feathers himself. Afterward, William Jefferson Clinton Phoenix agreed to several other interviews with famous birds like Oprah, the Nightingale. Sadly, as the questions chirped along, interviewers became more strident and suddenly the questions formed themselves into stones and rocks. The lust for blood-letting crept into the hearts of American flocks again. It was a lust with overpowering seductions. All over the country and in the churches, everywhere where a bird might look, birds had left their nests and young ones to pick up stones and hurl them at the Phoenix all over again.
“You lied!” “You’re evil!” “We want you dead!” “You didn’t really repent—you’re faking it!” “Only we crows are good!” “We’re the only moral beings left on this planet!” The stones came from everywhere, striking the Phoenix harder than they ever had done. “We’ve struck blood!” shouted an old Thrush.
Indeed the bloodletting began and one tall thin female crow shouted, “Let’s drink his blood and we’ll be made stronger than ever!” “It’s delicious!” an old crow known as Rush said.
The President turned to his staff in the White House Nest and said, “It’s ex-pee-di-ent, Oh hell, it’s easier that one man should die so the rest of us can go out and have the time of our lives on the town!” “Wouldn’t you love to put him in Abu Ghraib?” an aid croaked.
“With a leash around his neck!” said another. And the President and his birds all laughed.
While the Republican crows crowed about the second demise of the Phoenix and its wonderfully distracting sirens, a sparrow rose up from the great American Southern Baptist Convention flock. “Americans have to have a scapegoat, else they’ll have to acknowledge their imperfection and sins,” he said. “It is America that must repent and turn from her wicked ways! It is we who are in need of prayer!” the sparrow said.
Then a very wise Owl came forth at the Southern Baptist Convention: “My name is Morris H. Chapman Owl, and I’m president of the Executive Committee.” Thunderous applause followed.
“I’m addressing you messengers. I am warning you flocks. We must not elect trustees who are susceptible to political agendas. Politics for the sake of control by a few is not how our forefathers envisioned the operations of our Convention. Politics do not die easily because the death of politics in a spiritual environment only comes after we die to self.”
A stunned silence fell upon the messenger birds sitting in the Indiana Convention Center.
“It is the sin of Pharisaism,” he went on, “when good people, whose theology and ministry are above reproach, are slandered, discredited, or ostracized simply because they refuse to blindly follow particular political posturing.”
“Innuendos, unfounded rumors, sly winks and nods are as deadly as an assassin’s bullet and usually as ungodly.”
“Southern Baptists will be poorer because of this behavior,” Morris H. Chapman Owl warned. Then he sat down.
A hush fell upon the American church as old and young examined their political ideology and realized that power was at the center of their desire to re-elect President Bush--not the edicts of scripture to cloth the poor and feed the hungry. Politics had usurped the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the church had become a whitéd sepulcher.
Katherine Yurica was educated at East Los Angeles College, the University of Southern California and the USC school of law. She worked as a consultant for Los Angeles County and as a news correspondent for Christianity Today plus as a freelance investigative reporter. She is the author of three books. She is also the publisher of the Yurica Report.
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