In Biblical times, if I can believe Cecil B. DeMille, prophets of the Lord had long, wild hair and unkempt beards, Nordic features, and piercing blue or brown eyes. Never mind that the only people living in and around the area we now know as Jordan and Israel were dark-skinned natives of Arab and African descent, and Roman conquerors primarily from Southern Europe. Not a one of them looked like Charlton Heston or Jim Caviezel. It’s all good; the velvet painting my dad had of Jesus knocking at the sinner’s door looked almost exactly like the velvet Elvis over my mom’s bed.
In that vein of historical accuracy comes the new Bible on the block: the Duck Commander Faith and Family Bible.
I kid you not. You, too, can own a Duck Dynasty Bible. No word on whether it will have a camouflage cover or come with its own AR-15 personally blessed by the Prophet Phil.
Essentially, the DDB (or, to be more Biblically precise, the DCF&FB) will consist of the New King James version of the Bible, with God’s Holy Word periodically interrupted by testimonials and blather from Phil Robertson and his Not-Only, Probably-Not-Misbegotten Son Alan. It will be released just before Halloween by renowned Bible and commentary publisher Thomas Nelson.
According to the publisher, the DDB will contain 30 “life-changing testimonials” from Brother Phil and Little Brother Alan on one of five recurring topics all lived and demonstrated by the Robertson family: “Faith, Family, Fellowship, Forgiveness, and Freedom.” The DDB will also contain 125 “Set Your Sights” features. The inserts will give some insight on, the publisher says, “how they’ve seen God transform lives and accomplish His plans for people.”
Forgive me if I’m skeptical. The Robertsons may be fine and upstanding people maybe perhaps, but some of them aren’t quite living by the Christian standards Brother Phil recently touted at a conservative holy roller convention. Phil made a lot of decent people’s hair stand on end in December 2013 when video surfaced of him bragging about marrying a 14-year old girl (Marsha Kay, who is still with him), and advising men to go get them a girl out of middle school themselves for maximum fun and happiness. (He married Marsha Kay at the “respectable” age of 16, but started dating her when she was 14. He was 28, even though the media portrays them as “high school sweethearts”. First time I’ve ever heard of a 28-year old schoolteacher and a 14-year old student described that way. Sure didn’t play out like that on Law and Order: SVU.) But, as Phil has said:
Look, you wait ’til they get to be 20 years old, the only picking that’s going to take place is your pocket. You got to marry these girls when they are about 15 or 16. … You need to check with mom and dad about that, of course.
Funny, I didn’t know Mom and Dad could give permission for a grown man to commit statutory rape on their daughters. But what do I know? I do wonder if Phil will advocate trolling the elementary schools like Aqualung in the DDB.
Phil also caused a bit of a stir when he made a series of homophobic remarks, first in December 2013 and again in May 2014. He compared homosexuality to bestiality and adultery, and twisted the words of I Corinthians 6:10 to claim that “the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders” and others “won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right.” (For the record, the verses say that neither “thieves, nor [the] covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners” will get past the pearly gates. Phil just added the parts about gay folks on his own.)
Brother Phil isn’t real good with black people, either. In the same December 2013 interview when he unloaded on Teh Gays, Phil had a few things to say about Teh Black Folks, too. He never saw any black person mistreated whatsoever when he worked alongside them in the Louisiana cotton fields in the 1950s, no never ever.
They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’ — not a word! … Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.
Happy singing darkies in the cotton fields, just like God intended, right, Phil? Durn all them liberals like Lincoln and LBJ and that commie Dr. King for filling them fellers’ head with stuff about freedom and equality. Why’d you take them out of the fields where they could work for white folks and be really happy? And all that talk about segregation, mistreatment, lynching, raping, and so forth, stuff and nonsense. He never saw a bit of it.
I don’t know as much about Brother Alan. He’s known as the “beardless brother,” and doesn’t appear on the show. I do know that he’s worth $3 million on his own, and is a senior pastor of a church in West Monroe. (Brother Phil, his dad, is worth a cool $15 million, placing him in good company with the nation’s other megazillionaire evangelists and Bible-thumpers. I presume the others are worth a good bit themselves.)
He also considers his dad a 21st century prophet and the modern equivalent of John the Baptist. Sell yer clothes, boys, we’re all goin’ to heaven! Dad’s a prophet, he can get us all in! Backstage passes! We can even meet the band! Yeeee-hah!
Let’s also remember that regardless of the hardscrabble life Phil had when he was a youngun, the Duck Dynasty clan hasn’t been driving around in pickup trucks with their long hair and beards catching the Louisiana breeze for a long time — or at least until the show was in development, when they all tossed their razors in the back cabinet and bought new camo outfits. The boys lived the life of wealthy young yuppies, wearing short hair (in Willie’s case, frosted hair tips!) and wearing tennis outfits. In other words, clean-cut guys driving sports cars and whacking balls around on the back nine before hitting the clubhouse and knocking back a few mimosas before going home to nosh on sushi while relaxing in the Barcalounger. But after scoring a hit on the Outdoor Channel with their own faux version of Redneck Chic, A&E scurried to sign them up, and since March 2012 the show has been going strong, with the family magically morphed from golf-course yuppies to beard-stroking, gun-toting swamp folks.
So, you might ask, can us not-heathen liberal types write our own version of the Bible? I mean, Phil and Alan get to have one, and the boys at Conservapedia are rewriting the Bible to get rid of all the liberalism contained therein. (“Perfect and infallible”? I guess not.) But I suspect that any group of liberal, well-meaning Christians who tried to release a version of the Bible with its own commentary and “life lessons” would find itself on the receiving end of a long, screaming blast of vituperation from the Infallible Right, and would be labeled as infidels, heretics, apostates, profaners, and other words not fit to print in a Bible-friendly publication. If you believe you’re qualified to take on such a project — I am most certainly not — please let me know. I’d be interested in witnessing the results, preferably from a good distance away.
There’s no word on whether Phil and Andy will wax poetical about the virtues of pedophilia, racism, homophobia, and misrepresentation in the Duck Dynasty Bible. But whether they are strong representatives of their version of the Christian faith or not, they are absolute hellers at marketing. The DDB comes out just before Halloween — a strange holiday to mark its release, perhaps, but it’s also when the Christmas shopping season really goes into high gear. So expect every teabagging, gun-toting yahoo who wishes his boss would let him grow a beard just like Daddy Phil to find a gift-wrapped copy of the Duck Dynasty Bible under the tree, right next to his box of ammunition and his 6-pack of Red Man chewing tobacco. Complain all you will about their perceived hypocrisy, guys — I suspect that the Robertsons will just smile and count their earnings.
In case you’ve forgotten, here’s the 2009 video of Brother Phil waxing poetical about the virtues of marrying underage girls.
Published writer since 2001, focusing on politics, history, Web development, and other topics. First book is coming soon.
