In one of my early posts on Talk2Action, I wrote on Chick-Fil-A's role in promotion and funding of dominionism--including handing out CD's of Focus on the Family's "Adventures in Odyssey" with kid's meals as a form of "stealth evangelism".

So imagine my surprise when one of DailyKos' walkaway community wrote concerning the show.

And as it turns out, it seems there was more I had to worry about than I even suspected; the production quality approaches 40's radio serials (per the escapee) and the content featured, well...I'll let the following quotes speak for themselves:

It may sound like I'm overstating, but I'm not.  Chubby, pink-cheeked li'l skeezers sitting around the radio in the `90s to find out what hijinx "Whit" and the gang would get into this week were not likely to possess the kind of cultural context needed to parse some of the political stuff they would hear; and their fundie parents were not bloody likely to provide it.  Sometimes it felt like the writers were purging their own demons of remorse over their own earlier rebellion against God's established authorities.  The results didn't always ring like a fine narrative bell!

In short, a significant component of the action in the `90s "Adventures in Odyssey" episodes seemed bent on explicitly redressing putative wrongs imposed on elites by "counterculture" revisionists.

Here's a sampling of some of these themes from past Odyssey episodes:

• A little boy has intense fantasies about being a fighter pilot, like his father who died in action in Vietnam.  His fantasy is "shot down" by a history teacher who gives him a text to read which is apparently critical of our Vietnam involvement--though we never hear anything from the text that can be submitted to reasoned judgment.  The teacher is subsequently upbraided by "Whit" for failing to uphold the values of honor and dignified service--though we never get to find out what's honorable about visiting years of superior firepower on rice farmers, or what's dishonorable about a history text which (perhaps; hard to say) could plausibly seek to put Vietnam in some kind of a moral context.  The straw dog teacher crumples before Whit's posturing.  They also throw in flashbacks to another straw dog "hippie" character whose opposition to the war is pretty much indistinguishable from a wimpy, groovy, and generally out-of-it lifestyle.

• A boy is questioning giving money in church to support missionaries, then has an extended, Scrooge-like vivid dream about visiting a struggling missionary to the Miskito people in Nicaragua.  You'd think the focus would be on Christ's legacy of serving people in need, but the piece turns out to be largely a Trojan Horse rehash of a strained apologetic for unquestioned support for Reagan's contras.

• "Whit," an older, semi-retired man, runs an ice cream soda shop, and hands-on science and technology play-space for the kids of the town of Odyssey.  Oh.  Did I mention that he's also a spook on the CIA payroll who sometimes hands control to trusted underage employees while he's out on assignments whose purposes are not even hazily contoured in the scripts?  It was likely conjured up by the screenwriters to avail the ailing Hal Smith opportunities to get some needed R&R, but you have to admit it's a weird-ass dodge to choose.

• But to show this spook angle was something of an idée fixe, there are two other adult characters in the scripts who are CIA spooks, fall deeply in love, and naturally, ardently seek to place these feelings into a scriptural context.  Sexy!  Again, we never learn what their assignments were.  So what is the metamessage behind these bizarre, otherworldly little vacuums in these plotlines?  If fleshing in these bits doesn't figure in to the scriptwriters' sense of narrative balance, who are you to think that official secrets are any of your business?  If concern about this even shows up on your screen, you may not be the good little soldier of God you think you are.  Mindlessly absorbing these subtexts is good practice for a placid future life blocking out perpetual outrages committed against the principles of civil government in some Christian police state--or could that be state in which we find ourselves presently?  The universal solvent that dissolves the salts of moral accountability would appear to be Jesus.  Our lesson for today?:  Jesus Christ gives you a moral free ride, which translates into never having to tell anyone what's really happening, or what you're really doing.  Bush's illegal spy program--and the harrowing reality that "Christian" middle America doesn't give a shit about it-- dovetails perfectly.

Yup, you're hearing this right.  Chick-Fil-A has given to parents--often completely unaware--CDs of what is essentially a Radio Jesus Camp to their little tykes getting the kid's chicken-nugget meal.  (And interesting indeed in regards to the specific mention of the Miskitu people--who in fact were commonly abused by dominionist groups using CARE packages to funnel aid to the Contras (via the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International,. with full support of the CIA--as detailed in my history of dominion theology).  Both Contra and Sandanista factions in Nicaragua, as well as in Honduras, targeted the Miskitu as a result.  Disgustingly, FGBMFI-linked churches would often send the Contra groups aid under the guise of it being "missionary work"--no matter that the Miskitu people have almost been completely Christianised since the 1850's.)

Fortunately, this particular walkaway--who is familiar with the material for having had his kids because this was some of the very few material he allowed the little sprogs to listen to during his days as a dominionist--was able to get out.  And, much like myself and other walkaways, he's been brave enough to share his story--which, all too often, is the only way we have to know what goes on in these groups.

Some of the more interesting quotes from the article feature discussions of the mindset of dominionists--including recollections of talking with members of his family:

You may be asking, why did I let my kids listen to this pernicious stuff?  Well, the first reason is that my kids were also my wife's kids, and marriage is necessarily compromise.  In my defense, remember that she is my ex-wife.

Also, I recall an exchange with a fundamentalist brother-in-law who questioned how my wife and I could function as a parental team, what with our disparity of outlook on these kinds of issues.  I countered with the obvious:  If my wife and I were in total, "ideal" accord on such things, who would teach our kids certain valuable lessons, such as the necessity to develop as free, moral agents, continually and earnestly evaluating the barrage of messages from authority figures, using one's best lights.  In the words of my eldest, when I told her, "Question authority!" she said,  "Why?"

See?  It worked!

Thank God that there are at least some of us out there who dared to question authority in dominionist groups when we realised all was not as it seemed.

Here's hoping this writer will tell more of his experiences--I've actually encouraged him to join Talk2Action and share his stories.