....I’ve decided that I have had all I can take of “Christianity”. I admire some of the things the first century carpenter-turned-rabbi is reported to have said, but that’s as far as I can go now. The religion, in all its permutations, is part of “the problem” – every Christian who does anything other than pray quietly is, as far as I’m concerned, as deadly to our country as any “Muslim Extremist”.
There is one thing that can change my opinion. A call has gone out for Muslim clerics to renounce terrorism and those who hijack their faith as justification for their evil acts. Councils of their religion have responded to that call – denouncing the extremists, denying the validity of fatwas issued by unrecognized clerics and stating clearly their dedication to peace.
So I want to hear this from Christian churches. Every decent preacher, parson, priest and padre needs to stand up and denounce any organization or person who so much as whispers this kind of bloody, hate-filled bile – from the monolithic Christian Broadcasting Network to the one-room corner church with an insane, mouth-frothing sociopath in the pulpit. When I start reading of Christians denouncing so-called “Christians” who are the exact opposite of that carpenter from Nazareth, I’ll feel better.
Until then, you hypocrites, you can keep your terrorist sky-god. You say I’m going to hell? Good. I’d rather burn in your mythical lake of fire than hang out with such an asshole for all eternity. It would be that much worse if you were there too.
Damn skippy. The thing is that "mainstream" Christianity has managed to repackage itself as sort of a religious Costco, a big-box full-service discount Retailer O' The Lord, stadium-sized megachurches as far as the eye can see, saving souls by the thousands. Dressed up in such seemingly innocuous pseudo-corporate jive, it's hard to pin the tail of hate on such a beast.
That's why Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson's slip o' the tongue hurt them more than they'll ever admit. Because Robertson is such a fixture in the political activist wing of American evangelicals, and because he's so obviously a lunatic, he's problematic for them. The script that the American Christofascists have all tacitly agreed to work from stresses putting their best foot forward -- the easiest way to pull in money from the suckers and use it to grease the political machine in the Bible Belt is to do it with the tent-revivalist's shit-eating grin.
Robertson gave up the game when he inadvertently revealed the malicious intent behind the easily smiles and homespun bromides that they all peddle in unison. But they'll all be back on the same page in no time, if they aren't already. Most of the outrageous things they say were meant to get coverage anyway; it's a very efficient way for them to use Satan's Broadcast Media as a vessel by which they can speak to each other in code. We snicker at their hysteria over Spongebob Queerpants, but they all nod and wink to each other knowingly, secure in the knowledge that all systems are go, that the agenda is right on track as planned.
The most effective weapon these well-oiled, well-heeled Christofascists have in their arsenal is the way they pretend to marginalize the wingnuts who are actually well-entrenched in the ranks. They'll never cut Falwell and Robertson loose (if they didn't after what those two cocksuckers said after 9/11, they never will); they simply raise too much money, and like painters, they'll raise even more when they croak.
For these people to publicly disown their loons would expose their dirty little secret. They'd be tacitly admitting what we all already know -- it's never been about God, it's always been about the accumulation of money and power.
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Let's face it, these fellows will be a fixture in American politics for some time to come. It's part of the political dynamics of American society. Christianity here hasn't been generally compromised as it's been in Western Europe in the wake of two continental wars, so American churches are alive and kicking, without being taken to task for their intermittent fascism. So we better resign ourselves to this idea; John Rawls understood it, a couple of decades after he wrote 'A Theory of Justice.' Religion in America will be around for a while, and, since mainstream churches are Protestant, they will keep emphasizing (literal readings of) the Old Testament, with its intolerant, narrow-minded, oppresive theology (to the detriment of the radiant humanism to be found in the gospels). No, for these people it's all about Leviticus and St Paul's merciless epistles. That's Christianity for them.
But this doesn't mean that we shouldn't fight them tooth and nail, and refuse to give them a single inch of ground. God knows that they're a pretty stupid bunch. Shouldn't be that hard to counter.
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