I'm astonished that it has taken the right wing so long to attack Twain's views on fundamentalist Christianity.  Twain was certainly no friend either of Calvinism or Biblical literalism, and Huck's naive "Why don't deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork?"(I'm quoting from memory and I'm over fifty--please don't correct my lapses unless you wish to appear ageist), and uncle Phelps preaching a sermon that was widely considered great because nobody could understand it are two of my favorite digs.  And, yes, Hal is right to remind us that Clemens was sympathetic to the ameliorative and Arminian Christianity of Clemens's Bushnell-following neighbors, but those Fred Chappell calls the back-woods crazies, the descendants of whom now populate various fundamentalist mega-churches, were always targets of Twain's derision, often quite intense.  See, for instance, "Letter from the Recording Angel."  

So why has it taken so long for this particular kind of book hater to turn the gunsights on all things Twain?  

Gregg

Sent from my iPad

On Aug 31, 2013, at 2:26 PM, Scott Holmes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Whether or not he was possessed we know he had access to Satan's
> correspondences with Sts Michael and Gabriel.
> 
> On Sat, 2013-08-31 at 17:07 -0400, John Bird wrote:
>> Was Mark Twain demon possessed? These folks think so:
>> 
>> http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/swanson-mark-twain-was-demon-possessed
>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>> John Bird
>> [log in to unmask]