If you want to get an idea what kind of drivel being taught by some Christianist schools and Christianist homeschooling curricula, People for the American Way found a real lulu from yesterday's edition of TruNews. Rick Wiles's guest that day was Kevin Swanson, the host of the popular hyperfundie podcast Generations Radio. Swanson opined that Mark Twain was demon possessed.
“Mark Twain was probably the strongest apologist against the Christian faith that America’s ever seen,” said Swanson, claiming that Huckleberry Finn was an “attack on the Christian church” by exposing Christian hypocrisy on issues like slavery. “He mocks Christianity throughout and Huckleberry Finn is an atheist himself.”
Swanson argued that “his book is extremely, powerfully, cynically against the Christian faith” because Twain was possessed by demons.
Listen to Swanson's whole screed
here (sorry, it won't embed).
I know that Mark Twain has been a favorite whipping boy for fundies. But pointing out that people back in the period in which Adventures of Huckleberry Finn had no problem going to church and keeping slaves is not only an attack on the church, but also evidence of demon possession? My, aren't we a little thin-skinned?
This sort of wingnuttery is nothing new from Swanson. Remember, this is the same guy who thinks 9-11 was part of a plot to put a Muslim in the White House, thinks gays want to give homeschooled kids to pedophiles and that women who used birth control pills have dead babies in their wombs. But this is staggering, even by Swanson's standards. And let me say it again--this claptrap is being taught in some Christianist schools.