The All That Know Him Movement

So. For those of you who weren't paying attention during Sunday School, lets do a quick rundown of the Book of Job.

Job was, according to the Old Testament, an extremely devout man who worshiped God faithfully. He was also extremely rich.

So one day, when he apparently had nothing better to do, Satan came to God and said "You know, this guy Job. The only reason he serves you is because you've made him so rich. If he were to lose everything he owns, he'd probably curse your name and die."

To which God replied that he found this highly unlikely. And despite the fact that I was taught gambling was immoral, apparently Satan and God struck up a wager. God would take away all of Job's riches and reduce him to abject poverty. If Satan was right, and he did curse God's name, then he got Job's soul. If he was wrong, he apparently had to get the fuck out of Heaven and stop bothering the Almighty.

So, this being the old Testament God, he could do vengance like no one else. He promptly caused all of Job's crops to die and his animals to waste away. He killed all his sons and daughters (and sons-in-laws and daughters-inlaws) by having the house they were holding a wedding in collapse on them. His money evaporated like rain after the sun, he gave him leprosy, and eventually, Job was reduced to sitting by the side of the road in rags, scapping at his sores with a broken piece of pottery. At which point his wife, who somehow wasn't around while the wedding was being held, showed up and told him he should simply curse God and die.

But Job refused and remained faithful. In return for which, God gave him back twice what he'd owned in the first place. I don't know if he got a new wife, but he had twice as many children as before, and basically, everything God had taken away from him was replaced.

Satan ended up going back to Hell, snarling all the way about 'goody-two shoes idiots,' and the book ended with Job returned to good health and even richer than before.

So what does this have to do with Stephen Baldwin, you ask?

Meet the people from the All That Know Him Movement

I wasn't aware, till I stumbled across the site, that apparently Stephen Baldwin converted to Christianity back in 2001 (though he didn't get around to writing a book about it till 2006). Stephen, of course, is one of the famous Baldwin brothers, Alex, Daniel and William. He was raised Catholic, but apparently converted to Christianity after 9/11.

The point is, the people behind the website are convinced that Hollywood is persecuting Baldwin and refusing to give him a chance at movie roles because he's a Christian, and thus, it's up to all Christians to send him monetary gifts to show him they're behind him.

At least I THINK that's what they're saying. Because they start out with this:

Quote :

Imagine how ancient Job must have felt when the first “All That Know Him” movement was conceived. As a result, Job’s friends came bearing monetary gifts of love and appreciation which more than restored his monetary losses! Our modern day re-work of All That Know Him is based on the idea that the internet and social networks could be used as a platform to attract and inspire very large numbers of Christians to give very small gifts to a single worthy person, just as was originally done for Job.

Now, I'll admit it's been a while since I read the book of Job, but I don't seem to recall that his neighbors were any more sympathetic towards him than his wife. I sure's heck don't recall them all bringing him small gifts at any point. It was made fairly implicite that God took everything away and then gave it back because of his faith, and his refusal to bad-mouth the Almighty.

Perhaps my memory's fault, or perhaps they're using a different version of the Bible.

In any event, none of that matters, because the poor man is being persecuted! Persecuted, I tell ya!

Quote :

This gifting is intended to be in addition to all other charitable gifting as a show of Christian solidarity in support of individuals who have suffered monetary loss and become news stories because of their righteous convictions.

The first challenge was to construct a website to allow for fast and efficient electronic online gifting using Credit Cards and PayPal.

The second challenge was to cost-effectively attract the world’s attention through the media. This was achieved through the controversial selection of the first recipient and was fitting because it was through watching the courage and outspokenness of the first recipient in the media that the movement was originally conceived. Amazingly, the hostility and vindictiveness of this same media which hates Christians, has been used to build our movement beyond anything we could have done without their unwitting assistance.

Stephen Baldwin was the first recipient selected and this honor was entirely unsolicited by him. Our choice attracted an incredible amount of worldwide media attention enabling us to garner large numbers of Christians who registered on our site and selflessly gave very small gifts of appreciation. At times the site has had so many viewers that our server became overwhelmed, causing us to completely upgrade our hardware.

Thanks to the media’s assault on Stephen Baldwin, the movement now has the ability to communicate online with large numbers of good-hearted and selfless people who have the ability to bless the next recipient with a small gift if they chose to do so when prompted.

Without the courage that was clearly witnessed in Stephen Baldwin’s life this movement would not have been conceived and without his participation and the cooperation of the media, this movement would never have received such phenomenal recogniotion. Current upgrades in progress will allow our site to better share the full vision of this new movement in much greater detail and facilitate your giving to recipients as you wish.
A new Testament example of this conduct is found in Luke 6:29 where Jesus tells the Christians to yield to the new nature even if it means giving away their shirt. In the same message (Luke 6:38) Jesus says to give and men shall give back to you. If we can restore or expand this Christian conduct of over-and-above believer-to-believer gifting when loss is suffered, we could be better at verse 29. Without the action in verse 38 verse 29 ceases to be practiced.

Now the interesting thing is, Stephen isn't actually connected to this movement. Apparently, he's founded his own ministry. He's also still getting roles in Hollywood, though he refuses to do anything he considers 'offensive.' Plus he and his wife have defaulted on one mortgage payment, and apparently filed for Chapter 11 in 2009, claiming he was more than 2.3 million in debt. This appears to be when the 'All That Know Him' people first popped up.

And so it stands. For a reasonably unbiased picture of Baldwin's career, check out the Wikipedia article on him.

My personal feeling is that if, in fact, he's truly a devout Christian, I wouldn't think he'd WANT to be associated with Hollywood, and that he'd do better to concentrate on his ministry. Of course, I suppose it's just easier to lie back, bitch about how you're being persecuted, and let other people support you.

Wonder if Job ever thought of that?

The treating of the sons and daughters as stuff that is easily replaced is one of those things that really bothers me about Old Testament God.

And Catholicism is Christianity. You mean he converted to some Protestant sect.

Don't have much to say about the site itself, except yep, that's weird alright.

Miss Prince wrote:

The treating of the sons and daughters as stuff that is easily replaced is one of those things that really bothers me about Old Testament God.

And Catholicism is Christianity. You mean he converted to some Protestant sect.

Don't have much to say about the site itself, except yep, that's weird alright.

I hate to empty quote, but MP just said exactly what I was thinking as I read this.

Also, different Bibles have slightly different ways of how things went. In whatever Bible these fools read, God may have given Job back his crap through donations of friends.

In other Bibles, it may have went something like...

God then appeared before Job. "Job, thou hast fallen upon hard times. I'm here to inform thee that this was simply the result of a wager with Satan. Thanks to thine understanding, I won twenty Bible Bucks off of that jive sucker. Anyway, I would greatly appreciate it if you were to spit into your own mouth."

Job, slightly irritated that he went through all of that over a bet, and puzzled beyond belief, spat into his own mouth, because why not. When that spit landed upon his tongue, his leprosy was cured.

"Holy me," God exclaimed with fake surprise, "You have healing spit! Now, I take it that pile of rubble over there is what was your house and those corpses trapped under the pile were your relatives?"

"Yes, my lord. It collapsed during a wedding party that I was strangely absent from [plot hole in the Bible, OH NOEZ]."

"Verily, gravity is a bitch. I'd like it if thou would close thine eyes and speaketh 'There's no place like home' three times."

Job obediently closed his eyes, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home."

When Job opened his, eyes, he saw his house rebuilt and filled with his zombie relatives.

"Wow, thou hath rebuilt thine house. Thou art truly full of surprises. Speaking of surprises, there is a staggering sum of money in on of the closets. Oh, there's also a handful of hookers in your bedroom. Normally I am against such things, but since thou hath been such a great sport about all of this, I'll let it slide."

Miss Prince wrote:

The treating of the sons and daughters as stuff that is easily replaced is one of those things that really bothers me about Old Testament God.

And Catholicism is Christianity. You mean he converted to some Protestant sect.

Don't have much to say about the site itself, except yep, that's weird alright.

I have the same problem with the Old Testament God. He comes across as a major dick whom people worship out of fear, not any real reverence or love. Kind've like worshipping Cthulhu, except God's not likely to eat you. He is, however, likely to destroy your entire family, then replace them like nothing happened. Or cause major chasms to form under your feet and send you to hell if you displease him.

And yeah, I know Catholicism is Christianity. I was just quoting the article, which was likely written by fundamentalists (though it really doesn't say what particular sect he converted to).

Job's friends did a LOT of bitching and "Hey, Job, here's why you need
to be pissed at God" talk. Chapters upon chapters... we spent a long
time on Job in my OT as Lit grad course. IIRC, the wager was that 1) Satan could do anything he wanted to make his point but could not touch Job, and when that didn't get Job cursing God, 2) Satan could then do anything he wanted to Job but could not kill him.

Even after all that study, though, I do like Mikey's interpretation. Very... something. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Rabid Badger wrote:

I have the same problem with the Old Testament God. He comes across as a major dick whom people worship out of fear, not any real reverence or love. Kind've like worshipping Cthulhu, except God's not likely to eat you. He is, however, likely to destroy your entire family, then replace them like nothing happened. Or cause major chasms to form under your feet and send you to hell if you displease him.

The OT is decidedly brutal in that regard. I really loved the book God: A Biography. Basically, the author argues that reading the OT (with the books ordered as they are in the Tanakh) tells the story of God "growing up" into becoming a deity who has a more solid approach on the whole God-ing thing. God starts out doing this dual personality thing, going from loving deity to fire and vengeance with little warning--the way God is referenced even changes according to the personality. As time goes on, God mellows a little, and by Job (toward the end in the Tanakh), God's settled down considerably compared to Genesis/Exodus, even apologizing to Job for the whole incident by restoring him to his previous stature. After Job, God doesn't do a lot of communicating. It's a great book for getting a different perspective than is normally offered in Sunday Schools and the like. [end religion geek sidetracking because I could go on for pages more on this topic but don't think anyone wants that]

lemmingwriter wrote:

Job's friends did a LOT of bitching and "Hey, Job, here's why you need
to be pissed at God" talk. Chapters upon chapters... we spent a long
time on Job in my OT as Lit grad course. IIRC, the wager was that 1) Satan could do anything he wanted to make his point but could not touch Job, and when that didn't get Job cursing God, 2) Satan could then do anything he wanted to Job but could not kill him.

Even after all that study, though, I do like Mikey's interpretation. Very... something. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Rabid Badger wrote:

I have the same problem with the Old Testament God. He comes across as a major dick whom people worship out of fear, not any real reverence or love. Kind've like worshipping Cthulhu, except God's not likely to eat you. He is, however, likely to destroy your entire family, then replace them like nothing happened. Or cause major chasms to form under your feet and send you to hell if you displease him.

The OT is decidedly brutal in that regard. I really loved the book God: A Biography. Basically, the author argues that reading the OT (with the books ordered as they are in the Tanakh) tells the story of God "growing up" into becoming a deity who has a more solid approach on the whole God-ing thing. God starts out doing this dual personality thing, going from loving deity to fire and vengeance with little warning--the way God is referenced even changes according to the personality. As time goes on, God mellows a little, and by Job (toward the end in the Tanakh), God's settled down considerably compared to Genesis/Exodus, even apologizing to Job for the whole incident by restoring him to his previous stature. After Job, God doesn't do a lot of communicating. It's a great book for getting a different perspective than is normally offered in Sunday Schools and the like. [end religion geek sidetracking because I could go on for pages more on this topic but don't think anyone wants that]

Oh go ahead. This thread was started by Rabby. Which almost guarantees it'll be filled with boring tl;dr. The only difference is that Rabby's tl;dr is mostly boring anecdotes about her gay son and how her husband left her when he realized she had no personality if she wasn't a bitch, while your tl;dr may actually turn out to be interesting.

It doesn't really matter either way, I'm not going to read it.

Also, let's keep needlessly quoting entire posts and build a quote pyramid so large the forum breaks. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

lemmingwriter wrote:

Job's friends did a LOT of bitching and "Hey, Job, here's why you need to be pissed at God" talk. Chapters upon chapters... we spent a long
time on Job in my OT as Lit grad course. IIRC, the wager was that 1) Satan could do anything he wanted to make his point but could not touch Job, and when that didn't get Job cursing God, 2) Satan could then do anything he wanted to Job but could not kill him.

Thanks for the back up, Lemming. I was fairly sure that I remembered Job's friends essentially telling him he should curse God and die as well , which makes me wonder where the people who founded this silly movement got the idea that they all brought him small gifts. Mind you, they may've brought him small gifts AFTER Got returned everything, but that was probably an attempt to stay on his good side, lest God do the same thing to them.

And Mikey, feel free to write all the shit you want. I've blocked you, so it doesn't matter what you say about me, my son, or anything else-I won't see it. I'm not sure exactly what's behind all this crap, except maybe an attempt to get a rise out of me, in which case, YOU WIN! I will henceforth be ignoring you, you spoiled rotten little entitlement brat.

Have a nice day!

Was Stephen Baldwin the bloke who said he'd rather see his daughter gunned down than hear her deny Christ? Or was that a different Baldwin?

ZoZo wrote:

Was Stephen Baldwin the bloke who said he'd rather see his daughter gunned down than hear her deny Christ? Or was that a different Baldwin?

Sounds like him. He also sent care packages to troops in Iraq that included the Left Behind videogame and proselytizing materials printed in Arabic.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Also, different Bibles have slightly different ways of how things went. In whatever Bible these fools read, God may have given Job back his crap through donations of friends.

Silly me, I thought bibles were translations and essentially only differed in their interpretation of individual words.
(Except children's bibles, obviously)


Other than that, I would like to emptyquote everything everyone else said.

Stephen Baldwin, I hope you've atoned for Bio-Dome.

Because goddamn.

Is it possible to atone for that?

ZoZo wrote:

Was Stephen Baldwin the bloke who said he'd rather see his daughter gunned down than hear her deny Christ? Or was that a different Baldwin?

That was him. He also once told a magazine that if he ever caught any daughter of his working in a strip club, he'd beat her ass till she couldn't sit down for a week. Charming fellow, Mr. Baldwin (his daughters are seven and four, BTW).

Maybe he's not getting a lot of roles because he's a bad actor. Because he kind of is.

Rabid Badger wrote:

ZoZo wrote:

Was Stephen Baldwin the bloke who said he'd rather see his daughter gunned down than hear her deny Christ? Or was that a different Baldwin?

That was him. He also once told a magazine that if he ever caught any daughter of his working in a strip club, he'd beat her ass till she couldn't sit down for a week. Charming fellow, Mr. Baldwin (his daughters are seven and four, BTW).

And people think ALEC Baldwin's a hothead? [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

karmyn31 wrote:

Maybe he's not getting a lot of roles because he's a bad actor. Because he kind of is.

No, no, no, you silly person! He's obviously being persecuted for his Christianity! Being a crappy actor has nothing to do with it!

Though I will say he swears a lot more than most actual Christians I know.

Rabid Badger wrote:

Though I will say he swears a lot more than most actual Christians I know.

You've never spent much time in an Irish-American community, have you? [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Why did God feel he had to justify himself to Satan anyway? I mean, if he's al-knowing, all-seeing, benevolent God, surely he'd know that Job would be loyal to him without having to kill everybody he loved and take away everything he owned.

Satan: "Hey, God, you know that guy called Job who loves you? I bet you he only loves you cus he's so damn rich. Take away all he has and I bet he'll hate you."

God: "Fuck you, Satan, I'm God, and I know he will love me anyway, without having to kill people."

Satan: "But I bet you-"

God: "Shut your ass up, didn't I throw you out of heaven in the first place for pulling this sort of holier than thou shit? Take away his stuff yourself, and pretend to be me, if you need conformation so bad, but why should I fall for your shit when I'm supposed to be benevolent?"

Satan: "But you're OLD TESTAMENT GOD. You're allowed to smite people for shit like accidentally dropping arks, and playing nasty jokes about sacrificing people's sons, and sacrificing daughters for greeting your servants at the door of their house - you could have popped up and stopped that, once you knew he was serious, but you didn't. You're supposed to be cruel and vengeful."

God: "Oh, that's okay then. Let me just go get my Smiting Stick."

because you know there aint no devil its just god when hes drunk

The devil is his sockpuppet?

grmblfjx wrote:

The devil is his sockpuppet?

God is a troll?

That would explain a lot.

Who the fuck cares about Stephen Baldwin?

Seriously, WHY.

Let me put Mr. Baldwin's persecution complex in perspective:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Is that butt, er, blurred?