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The Truth, Mainly - 12/06/1993

Barney the dinosaur, rubber mallets, flabby minds and New Age demons

Barney-wise, the scales have dropped from my eyes. I can see more clearly now why UN-L students last month used rubber mallets to whack hell out of the purple dinosaur. I'd always thought Barney was a little flabby-minded, but my wife points out that I, of all people, can't use a rubber mallet on someone for that.

It was a radio evangelist who led me to the truth about Barney and why he needs hell whacked out of him: he's evil.

The Rev. Joseph R. Chambers—of Paw Creek Ministries in Charlotte, N.C.—tells us in a report from the Cox News Service that Barney is "straight out of the New Age and the world of demons and devils," further evidence that "America is under siege from the powers of darkness." The show, he says, is full of "New Age philosophy which is the antithesis to the Scripture."

If you send a donation to Paw Creek Ministries, Rev. Chambers will tell you all about it in his free booklet called "Barney the New Age Demon."

The producers deny there's anything demonic about Barney, but then you can't expect powers of darkness to tell you what they're up to, can you? Barney, they say, "is warm and friendly and loving and teaches children to accept other people and their differences."

And that's just what Rev. Chambers vigilantly objects to.

"Barney is teaching kids that we must accept everyone as they are—whether they're homosexuals or lesbians," he says. "He teaches alternative families."

I'll bet you didn't know that. I certainly didn't, and when I heard, it just froze my blood.

Because our two dewy-eyed grandbabies, Lovely Little Leslie Jo and Mari the Marvelous, have fallen under Barney's evil spell. I've noticed they've taken to telling lies, denying they need their diapers changed in the face of eye-watering circumstantial evidence to the contrary. Especially when getting changed would keep them from watching Barney.

They surround themselves with demonic images—Barney books, Barney stuffed toys, even little Barney fanny packs that they wear on their little diapered fannies.

They're so addicted that they have videotapes of old Barney shows so they can get their fix of wickedness whenever they need it.

I tell a cunning little lie so that I can inspect the awful evidence.

"Can grandpa borrow your Barney tapes?" I cleverly ask. "Grandpa wants to learn Barney songs."

"OK," they say, so full of New Age evil that they forget Old Age property rights.

So I watch the tapes. They're even worse than Rev. Chambers says.

First of all, Barney is a reptile. Just like the snake in Eden. Get it?

The little kids singing and dancing appear sinfully carefree. Not one of them seems sufficiently worried about the mean temperature in hell.

And—how can I put this delicately?—they don't all seem to be the right sort. Most of them aren't even of European descent.


The Truth, Mainly

 

"Rampant multiculturalism!" I yell at my wife. "Blatant permissiveness! Anarchy loosed upon the world!"

"Hush," she says. "Watch. Maybe you can firm up your mental flab."

They play around with other languages and appear to enjoy it—as though the eleventh commandment isn't "Thou shalt speak English." They dance with butterflies and friendly bears through meadows of wildflowers—as though life isn't supposed to be a vale of tears.

They learn how to use libraries containing yet more material antithetical to the Gospel according to Rev. Chambers, and they're shown how to take sinfully sensuous bubble baths, but nothing about self-flagellation.

They enjoy collaboration—which might lead to collectivism and godless socialism.

And they sing those damnable songs that so upset our sense of The Way Things Ought to Be. The one that most clearly teaches "alternative families" is called "My Family's Just Right for Me." The kids sing praises of traditional families, of one-parent families ("There's a girl I know who lives with her mom./Her dad lives far away./Although she sees her parents just one at a time/They both love her every day"), and of no-parent families ("I know a boy who just moved in./He moved from Alabama/And the person who's head of the fam-i-ly/Is his loving dear old gramma").

It's hard to trust someone who rhymes "gramma" with "Alabama."

But the really poisonous stuff comes through in the Barney theme song: "I love you, you love me. . . .' And so forth.

That kind of sacriligious venom needs an antidote and I know just the thing. A copy of "Barney the New Age Demon." With a matching rubber mallet, it'd make a hell of a Christmas present for the Barney addict in your family.

Or maybe not. My wife gives me a look that says it may be the flabbiest-minded, most demonic gift idea of the season.

 

Satterfield is a college professor and writes as a means of discovery.


 
 

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