The Landover Baptist Church is the website of a parody fundamentalist

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

. The church lampoons

fundamentalist Fundamentalism is a tendency among certain groups and individuals that are characterized by the application of a strict literal interpretation to scriptures, dogmas, or ideologies, along with a strong belief in the importance of distinguishin ...

Independent Baptist Independent Baptist churches (also called Independent Fundamental Baptists or IFB) are Christian congregations that generally hold to fundamentalist or conservative views of Evangelical Christianity and Baptist beliefs, such as believer's bapti ...

churches and

Biblical literalism Biblical literalism or biblicism is a term used differently by different authors concerning biblical interpretation. It can equate to the dictionary definition of literalism: "adherence to the exact letter or the literal sense", where literal me ...

, and originated as a satire of

Liberty University Liberty University (LU), known simply as Liberty, is a Private university, private Evangelicalism in the United States, evangelical Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia, United States. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Conservativ ...

Origin

The site was created by Chris Harper, who obtained his master's degree in English literature from

George Mason University George Mason University (GMU) is a Public university, public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Located in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., the university is named in honor of George Mason, a Founding Father ...

in 1993 after being expelled from

(founded by

Jerry Falwell Jerry Laymon Falwell Sr. (August 11, 1933 – May 15, 2007) was an American Baptist pastor, televangelist, and conservatism in the United States, conservative activist. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch ...

) in 1989 for producing a radio show satirising the school's procedures which Liberty's administration found offensive. Harper responded to the expulsion by creating the Landover Baptist Church website, described by

Pop Matters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fil ...

as both a parody and an exposé of the religious subculture at Liberty. In an example of Poe's law, some members of the Christian community have supported some of the outlandish stories on the website, and a book about

Hello Kitty , also known by her real name , is a fictional character created by Yuko Shimizu, currently designed by Yuko Yamaguchi, and owned by the Japanese company Sanrio. Sanrio depicts Hello Kitty as a British anthropomorphized white cat with a red ...

mistakenly cites a joke article on the Landover site as an example of the "dead seriousness" of the Christian right's opposition to Japanese culture.

Description

The church is located in the fictional town of Freehold,

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

. It is described as operating under a dictatorial structure whereby its "Pastor" holds all authority over the church, its members, and its extensive holdings. The church supposedly uses an elaborate fine system to maintain its authority over its members, parodying

's system at

, and in addition can force its members to comply with any and all of its wishes (a common phrase on the website used in such cases is that the member "mandatorily volunteered" to comply). In cases of expulsion the member is also removed from the church property. The website describes Landover as having a "permanent

injunction An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a special court order compelling a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. It was developed by the English courts of equity but its origins go back to Roman law and the equitable rem ...

" against all "unsaved" persons, prohibiting them from being within ten miles of the Landover property as well as forbidding them to enter Landover's website. Within the Landover universe, the church is described as owning well over in Freehold, with twenty-eight paid

pastor A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...

s, 412 full-time staff members, eleven fully equipped chapels, seven sanctuaries, a 100,000 seat amphitheater, twelve television studios, two radio stations, an academy, a university, two gated communities, twenty-seven developments, three office parks, as well as a shopping mall, amusement park, golf course, retirement community, foundation, fire and police department, circus camp, resort center, retreat center, and a number of fitness centers, swimming pools, hot springs, and cemeteries. An annual feature on the website is a story about the church's Halloween hell house. The site records that the initial pastor of Landover was Ben Ebeneezer Smith, and that upon his death his brother (Deacon Fred Smith) assumed the office. In and around June 2010 a "coup" was related to website visitors (in accordance with a spurious interpretation of ) whereby Pastor Harry Harkwell took over leadership. The site went on to describe Deacon Fred being "restored" to his pastorship after a "reconciliation" during

Glenn Beck Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, radio host, entrepreneur, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and rad ...

Restoring Honor rally The Restoring Honor rally was held August 28, 2010, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and was organized by Glenn Beck to "restore honor in America" and to raise funds for the non-profit Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Billed ...

. The Landover site also features material from Betty Bowers, a fictional central character on the satirical website BettyBowers.com. Bowers is portrayed by voice actress and comedian Deven Green, appearing both in photographs and numerous satirical videos. According to Bradley's fictional satirical biography of Bowers, she proclaims herself "America's Best Christian". Listed as a member of the Landover Baptist Church, Bowers operates several Christian ministries with names like "Bringing Integrity To Christian Homemakers" (B.I.T.C.H.) and "Baptists Are Saving Homosexuals" (B.A.S.H.).

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

Landover Baptist Church
Religious parodies and satire Religious comedy websites Criticism of Christianity Fictional organizations Internet trolling Internet properties established in 1998 American comedy websites Independent Baptist movement

Origin

Description

See also

References

External links