MINUTEMEN UNITED: OUT AND PROUD IN COLUMBUS

Coach Dave Daubenmire, New Beginnings Church Pastor Bill Dunfee, and about 20 Minutemen United including Max Erwin, Sr, Jim Harrison, Jeff Cline, and a few wives, passed out bottled "Jesus Water" and The Word to the Local Lost at last Saturday's Pride parade. Joining them in their Living Waters project were three members of the Jehrico Riders an independent motorcycle ministry who rode in from Missouri, and a handful of freelance culture warriors. I hung out with them for several hours. Below are pictures from their event with commentary. For the Minuteman version go the their page here.

THE STATEHOUSE

The day starteda little after 11 AM with prayer and instructions at the Great Seal of the State of Ohio at the Statehouse. Pastor Bill laid out the logistics of the water distribution, walkabout, and protest. He admonished the gang to respond to critics, "not in the flesh but in the spirit." That is, don't get in a fight if anybody hassles you. Nobody did, and they didn't.

WALKABOUT

After the prayer service, those who hadn't already done so, slipped into hot chartreuse "I was born a sinner/Talk to me" tees. I joined them as they headed for Bicentennial Park to kill time and evangelize a little. For a $5.00 entry fee we could pick over merch and lit from the health department, banks, realtors, NARAL, sex phone lines, and ubiquitous "affirming" churches--and pass out water and minister. I doubted the Minutemen would pay $5.00 a crack to get in ( I wouldn't!) and wondered what they'd do when stopped at the toll table. Coach told me that he had a "letter from the lawyer" saying that the park is public space and they could walk in. I was unable to clarify if "the lawyer" was just any lawyer or the Columbus City attorney. Whatever, the walls tumbled temporarily when security disappeared, and the Minutemen walked through with no outstretched hands grasping or their wallets.

CALLING OUT THE SIN OF GLUTTONY

Coach Daubenmire rejecting trendy fashion opted for this tee. A member of the Local Lost gently remonstrated him on the sin of gluttony. Coach vowed to diet.

BICENTENNIAL PARK

Conversion was in the air. Once inside the park, the Minutemen broke into small groups. The ick factor remaining high, few went it alone, remaining attached to at least one buddy. No down low allowed. They passed out water and pink "Pride and Peace" bracelets, and attempted some low-key evangelizing. I overheard one person claim the Minutemen were a gay group. He was serious--not projecting.



Soon, of course, the preachers were being preached to by the preached at. Liberal affirming churchers cluelessly tried to talk the Minutemen into reading the Bible their way. Minutemen cluelessly tried to talk liberal affirming churchers into seeing Jesus their way. Each thought they gained points with the other. Bill Dunfee was laid back and seemed to enjoy the tete a tete. It's probably better than Saturday mornings standing with the homeless under the Broad Street Bridge or being yelled at by strangers driving by a clinic. And let's not even talk about The Fox Hole!







No doubt the boys were squicked, but they were troopers to the end.

HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE CHOICERS, QUEERS, SATANIC RELIGIONISTS, DELUSIONALS, REBELS, SHYSTERS, AND POSEURS

MEANWHILE BACK ON HIGH STREET...

At the New Beginnings Church truck, Minutemen traded their Talk to Me! shirts for "Little Lambs Protection Agency" tees, to gear up for the parade.

Coach handed out water...


Pastor Bill and the boys stirred it up...

JIM CARROLL CAME ALL THE WAY FROM MISSOURI WITH
THE JEHRICO RIDERS.
"WE ARE MEN WITH BACKBONE."

ANTI-CLIMAX

Pride is a social event. The parade is just a reason to get together. It reminds me of standing in a line three hours to get into a campus bar on Saturday night. This year was no different. After the run-up prayer service, Bicentennaial visiation, and "discussions" in the street, this year's parade was almost an afterthought. But the Minutemen didn't see it that way--nor did the police. Lined on both sides of HIgh Street, just south of theh Statehouse, the Minutemen let themselves be seen and heard as the cops grided them in (at least on the west side) with their bicycles.




When the Dykes on Bikes (surprisngly small is year) roared by, one Jehrio Rider shouted, "Get yerself a reak bike!"

Pastor Bill waved his Bible--when he wasn't wearing it.

Coach popped a cork when a young African American marched by in a leather thong, "Cover yourself up!"

Oops sorry! No picture!

Most energy was spent on "affirming churches," especially from the Minutemen sphere of influence, that marched by...like in Granville.

ACCORDING TO DAVE DAUBENMIRE:

2200 BOTTLES OF LIVING WATER WERE DISTRIBUTED DURING PRIDE

LIVING WATERS: MINUTEMEN UNITED PRIDE MINISTRY

Minutemen United plan to be at Pride this Saturday, not to protest but to minister. They will be participating in the Living Waters Project distributing water to marchers and spectators.

The Minutemen plan to meet at the Statehouse at 11 AM for prayer, and then fan out to various locations along the parade route and Bicentennial Park. According to the Minutemen webpag , "There will be thousands of "profoundly lost" souls that need to hear from all of us."

Also, go here for an odd collection of photographs of "body mutilation," with the admonition that "scenes like this could become commonplace across the state, and it would be illegal not to allow or even to criticize such displays."

PRUNING THE VINEYARD; GEARING UP FOR PRIDE MINUTEMEN STYLE

Now I will sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well beloved hath a vineyard in a very beautiful fruitful hill. And he fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vineyard and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein, and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes….And now go to ; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down.
.....Issiah 5: 1-2. 5 (KVG)

I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch to me that beareth not fruit he taketh away and every branch that barest fruit he purgeth it, that they may bring more fruit…I am the vine ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing.
.....John 15: 1-2, 5 (KJV)


Christian Dominionist Minutemen United geared up for Pride early this year.

On June 7, Minutemen founder Dave Daubenmire, Bill Dunfree, pastor of New Beginnings Church in Warsaw, and a small group of Minutemen consecrated Bicentennial Park, site of the annual Pride Festival, to “defend the vineyard.”

Taking Isaiah 5 and John 15, with their prophetic imagery of the vineyard (the Kingdom of God-- ie, OT Israel/contemporary US), the hedge (divine judgment), the hill (the church), and the wild grapes (the self-willed/the unfaithful), as the foundational message for the consecration, Coach Daubenmire and Pastor Bill, called for American Christians to be the “light on the hill.” Though he condemned homosexuality Daubenmire counseled, “we can’t be mad at the homos” Bill Dunfee added later, “We don’t want controversy. We want God.”

The “homos” in fact, got little actual play. In the end they seemed to be a ghost in the vineyard, a handy looming specter among other specters (abortion, feminism, evolution, divorce, illegitimacy, modernity, liberalism, Islam), mucking Grendel-like through US culture wearing the stamp of secular state approval. Or to mix metaphors: the wild grapes

“God planted His church in America, not China or Iraq,” Daubenmire exhorted. God expected America to be good.” Instead, the “grapes of Sodom” are being brought forth. Pastor Bill reiterated. “God started a good vineyard, with good intentions.

Judgment,” he declared, “is the pruning fork.”

Despite the subject of the afternoon’s event, the wild grapes of homosexuality, Daubenmire, directed much of his invective to the unpruned vineyard of the “compromised church” that rejects God’s laws and prophets, at least, according to the particular scriptural interpretation of the Minutemen and their co-theocrats. “Where did the wild grapes begin?” Coach asked? “From the pulpit! From the compromised word of God!”

Yet the question runs deeper. Are, in fact, the Minutemen and similar organizations out to “save” others, the church, and the country? Or are those salvations tied ultimately to their own? “The Lord is the vine. We are the branches. What are the grapes but the fruit of the vine through the branches? Daubenmire declared.” If so, then the wild grapes spring from their own unfaithfulness. Can they not be saved unless others are?

After Bible study, the Minutemen, led by Pastor Bill knelt at the park bench, each taking turns at prayer. Then, after a couple ran to feed the meters, they walked silently to the site of the Pride Festival stage. They prayed at the four corners, and then split up, some with Bibles raised in the air, for a prayer walk around the park and at the Scioto.

When it was over, Coach Daubenmire returned to the bench. “Did you see how filthy the river (apparently the trash heap for current Broad Street-area repairs), is? Horrible. Disgusting. . Water is supposed to be symbol of life. That river is the River of Death.”

No word yet if the Minutemen plan any action at this year’s parade.