Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 June 28

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June 28

Christian propaganda books

Mainly for entertainment purposes, I like to collect right-wing Christian propaganda books, such as those condemning heavy metal music, masturbation, gay rights, etc. It has been a while since I've encountered one really fun to read though. Could anyone recommend some? The kookier, the better. Thanks. --121.88.230.245 (talk) 02:10, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

The Pilgrim's Progress is an oldie but goodie. Very heavy-handed allegory makes it kooky, IMHO. StuRat (talk) 02:14, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

StuRat -- It's a visionary fantasy filled with advice for those burdened with a sense of sin and wishing to live a Christian life. It's unfortunate if your world-view has very little in common with Bunyan's, but considering that Pilgrim's Progress was a major influence on the English-language literature of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, I doubt that the word "kooky" truly applies... AnonMoos (talk) 16:31, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

The total lack of subtlety is what makes is laughable, IMHO. A much better book about morality, again in my opinion, is A Modest Proposal, from a few decades later. StuRat (talk) 16:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

This article discusses a book covering one of creationisms weirdest claims: Grendel as a Tyrannosaurus. How else could Beowulf have pulled his arm off? Matt Deres (talk) 02:16, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be in 1988, by Edgar C. Whisenant. And in case you were disappointed with that one, the 1989 follow up: The Final Shout: Rapture Report 1989, which explained why he was off by a year. He had two more books, which predicted 1993 and then 1994. There were living, feeling, loving, human beings raised in poverty just because Whisenant convinced their parents the world was going to end. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 05:10, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Atethnekos -- Much more prominent than Whisenant in my area was Hal Lindsey. As far as I can tell, the man seems to feel no shame that he made a lot of money from what turned out to be false prophecies... AnonMoos (talk) 16:35, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

121.88.230.245 -- The modern king of peculiar alarmist Christian literature is of course Jack Chick... AnonMoos (talk) 16:35, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I just checked out The World of Jack T. Chick on Google. Amusing. --121.88.230.245 (talk) 22:59, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

P.S. In the early 1970s (when I came across some of his stuff) Billy James Hargis combined strange extremist politics with generalized ranting against almost everything modern. At a much earlier period, Wilbur Glenn Voliva was a notorious flat-earther... AnonMoos (talk) 17:41, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Probably hard to get, but anything by Salem Kirban will be good for a chuckle. Russia should've invaded Israel by now, apparently. Only reason I'm looking at a copy right now is I found it helping my Baptist minister grandfather move.

Like Anonmoos said, Chick Publications is the standard. Anti-Catholic, anti-Masonic, anti-Evolution, anti-LGBT, KJV-onlyist, anti-Dungeons & Dragons, anti-rock (even Christian rock), anti-Harry Potter... And IIRC, you can read most of their tracts for free online (although not the ones they've taken down now that African-Americans are accepted as human beings nowadays). The Southern Poverty Law Center labelled them a hate group, by the way.

Also, second AnonMoos's comments: Pilgrim's Progress is early modern Narnia. Confuses easy-to-digest piety with quality at points, but you don't eat steak when you're not yet off the teat, and such works aren't inherently right-wing propaganda (heck, I suspect Bunyan would have included "cutting welfare" and "keeping minimum wage down" as demons if he wrote today). Ian.thomson (talk) 16:43, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Thirded. I'm not a huge fan of Bunyan, but he's in a higher and great league than the folks we're discusisng here. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:27, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

The works of Harold Camping, perhaps? He's the guy behind the Rapture prediction in 2011. Adam Bishop (talk) 17:50, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

And 1994! (in his book 1994? which had a question mark in the title, but not enough in its contents :) - Nunh-huh 00:56, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Slouching Towards Gomorrah by Robert Bork is a good example. Anything by libertarians theocrats Gary North or Rushdoony sample the extreme end of the spectrum. — Melab±1 ☎ 03:21, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The most entertaining I've seen is mandatory-total-abstinence publications from the early and middle 20th century, the "booze is from the devil" stuff. I can't remember any titles, but among other things, I've seen stuff from c. 1942 blaming booze for the losses of Pearl Harbor, since if the sailors had been sleeping in their berths instead of hitting up the bars on the previous night, they would have been ready to fight off the attack. You'd do well to look into anti-alcohol writings published after the re-legalization of alcohol in the United States. Nyttend (talk) 04:26, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The text for yesterday's Supreme Court ruling might qualify. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:52, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I rather liked The Antichrist and a Cup of Tea by Tim Cohen. Propaganda, but for weird Bible predictions rather than weird Bible prohibitions. In a nutshell (and I choose that word carefully) it could be summarized as "Prince Charles is the Antichrist, and you better watch out!". - Nunh-huh 00:54, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Evelyn Verrasztó sources

Hello, I've recently stumbled across an article about an Olympic Athlete called Evelyn Verrasztó. I wanted to improve it but did not find much sources. The only ones I could find is [1] [2]. Now being an olympic athelete who won medals and held former world records, I bet there are more sources than that. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!TheQ Tester (talk) 08:09, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• Tip:  typing the following →  {{find sources|Evelyn Verrasztó}}

Results in →  Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

— Preceding helpful comment added by 71.20.250.51 (talk) 08:42, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Is Juncker a Junker?

There's been a lot of press lately about Jean-Claude Juncker. Is he a Junker or Junker (Prussia) in the sense of nobility, and if so does it mean anything, or is the similarity of name pure coincidence? (I recognize of course that the article says his father was a steelworker; but I'm guessing European culture looks further than that) Wnt (talk) 15:34, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

It theoretically could just be a German dialect word meaning "young man"... AnonMoos (talk) 17:44, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

This referenced article agrees, but adds "...however, the term was commonly applied to a man of gentle birth who was not yet ranked with the nobility". It says it originates in the former duchy of Swabia. Alansplodge (talk) 19:06, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

That URL gives a compound etymology "young lord" or "young sir" (same as Junker). However referenced it may look, it's actually part of a Heraldic "bucket shop" website, whose purpose is to persuade people to part with their money based on the premise that coats of arms are inherently associated with surnames (an assumption which is completely incorrect in the vast majority of cases according to the traditional rules of heraldry). AnonMoos (talk) 21:36, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Agreed on that, but it was the only thing that I could find in English and it sounded as though they had made some effort to get their facts right. Alansplodge (talk) 11:33, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

No, it's just his surname. Johnbod (talk) 16:05, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

It's just his surname, but as a surname it preserves a now obsolete spelling of the word Junker spelled Junker or Juncker before, say 1750. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 19:04, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The web site referenced says the first men recorded as using the surname Junker were "burghers in Überlingen in 1295". A man in the German-speaking world who settled in a town but who wanted to claim a noble origin would surely have used his family or territorial name, not a new name vaguely suggesting nobility. NB, whatever literal meaning a surname may seem to have at first sight, the reason why it was actually adopted by someone in the remote past is nearly always obscure. For instance, having the English surname "Pope" or "Bishop" does not mean someone living now is descended from an actual pope or bishop. Such names may have begun by being given to men who played characters in a mystery play, but there are all kinds of other possibilities. And so it is with the name "Juncker", no doubt. It may even have begun as a joke. Moonraker (talk) 03:35, 3 July 2014 (UTC)