How America is getting "back on track"

Before 9/11, an American a politician could get by with being only nominally religious. Now, it helps if he’s “born again”; claims that God inspired him to run for office; thinks God created America to dominate world affairs; considers the Bible a reliable guide to scientific truth; believes our laws are based upon the Ten Commandments; thinks America started down the tubes 50 years ago when the Supreme Court ruled against school prayer; believes that God gives health and wealth to those who please him—making poverty the fault of the poor; opposes abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, the teaching of evolution, and universal healthcare;  and wants America to fully support Israel against its neighbors in order to hasten the Battle of Armageddon and hence the “Second Coming of Christ.” 

However, America is not just rattled by its newly discovered vulnerability. It’s also disturbed by: its impending financial collapse; the increasing number of its people who have no religion; its loss of status in the world to horrid little yellow men who don’t love Jesus; its inability to win wars against semi-literate and poorly armed “ragheads” (aka “sand niggers”) who don’t love Jesus;  and the fact that its rich are getting richer, its poor are getting poorer, and its middle class is disappearing. America gives billions to buy the friendship of oppressive regimes the world over while its roads are falling apart, its local governments are laying off teachers, firemen, and policemen, and its people are dying because they can’t afford medical care. The belief is that a “return to God” will bring about a return to the optimistic materialism of the Eisenhower administration (mid '50s) when “In God We Trust” was first stamped on all American money, the words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance, and Christ’s words about loving your neighbor and doing good to your enemy were ignored, especially in regard to Commies, queers, atheists, and niggers.

In times of fear, religious fervor often grows and religious people start looking for someone to blame for what they interpret as the loss of God’s favor. Well, guess who they have in their sights? Atheists, liberals, socialists, feminists, scientists, environmentalists, non-Christians, homosexuals, unionists, and animal rights’ supporters. Civil libertarians can win victory after victory in court to keep America from becoming a theocracy, but the number of mayors, aldermen, school administrators, teachers, governors, and other officials who are willing to promote Christianity without the least regard for the law, or freedom of speech, or their oaths of office is such that we can’t begin to sue them all. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights that have for so long protected freedom in America are honored less and less everyday and the Bible more and more due to this desperation to get America “back on track.” You can now be charged with terrorism simply by committing what used to be a misdemeanor property crime. Your house or business can be searched without a court order. A GPS transmitter can be installed on your car without your knowledge. You can be locked away for life without ever seeing the inside of a courtroom. The FBI can even obtain a list of the books you got from your local library. Pre-9/11, such things were unimaginable.

Evangelical Christians (Evangelicalism is the dominant face of American religion) are enthusiastic supporters of such violations of the Constitution as well as “enhanced interrogation.” This Evangelical contempt for liberty isn’t surprising when you consider that they subscribe to an authoritarian religion which brooks no questions, offers no appeals, and predicts everlasting agony for everyone but themselves. The future is looking ever bleaker for those of us who don’t go along with this unholy alliance of religion and politics, but there is very little we can do about it. I don’t see how the current trend is even a good thing for Christians, because once they silence the rest of us, history would suggest that they will turn on one another. As the saying goes, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” but once that enemy has been annihilated, the “friend” had better sleep with one eye open.

What has been most breath-taking  about America’s post 9/11 descent into madness is how quickly and easily the very government that was supposed to protect our rights went about abolishing them, and how few people objected. Most Americans appear ready to buy safety at any cost, not realizing that oppression from within is surely a greater threat than terrorism from without. In the fight against Islamic fundamentalists, our government has the capability of being our ally, but who will help us when the terrorists’ Christian equivalent is running our government? It is my sad conclusion that the only things that are genuinely important to the American people are junk food, comfy recliners, trash on the telly, and that most hard-assed American patriot of all, the Lord Jesus. Give them these, and they will follow like sheep.

An old Negro preacher prophesied that I would preach someday. This is that day.

First, I want to thank you religious/spiritual people who read this blog because, ironically, it has primarily been your emotional support that has enabled me to go ever deeper into what it is about religion—specifically Christianity—that has led me to hate it so much. In enabling me to do this, you have touched me more deeply than you can know. What little regard I have for your religion, I have because of you. I’ve long heard that the journey is just as important as the destination, and this is what I’m feeling right now because of my gratitude for the kindness of my readers.

I’m not looking to bite anyone’s head off—after all, only a very few of you have ever tried to bite my head off—but I have a question that I really would like your thoughts on. I’m going to refer you to two fairly common stories, those of: Jessica and Damon. Pick one or both, and tell me, where are the good religious people when nonbelievers are being abused for standing up for what they believe? By “good,” I mean the ones who: (a) obey the laws regarding religious observances and displays, (b) believe vicious behavior in the name of God is reprehensible, and (c) consider it their duty to defend their religion against those who use it as a weapon to attack science and violate human rights. I’ll tell you in advance what I think, and then you can let me know if I’m close.

I grew up white in Mississippi during the 50s and 60s. My area was notorious for its racial oppression, yet very few of us got up in the morning with a smile on our faces as we anticipated another day oppressing black people. When the Freedom Riders came, it took relatively few racists to burn the crosses, blow-up the churches, murder people, and so forth while the rest of us sat home watching banana-juggling monkeys on The Ed Sullivan Show. So, why didn’t we protest the violence? Two reasons. One was that the Klan scared us too (I mean, hell, they killed people), and the other was that we saw them at a gut level as our protectors against those who were trying to force change upon us—sort of like junkyard dogs, a bit over the top but good boys nonetheless. Because we could neither embrace the Klan nor reject it, we became a silent party to its evil. This is how I see the good people among Christians and Moslems, in particular, today.

Do I feel anger toward you silent believers? Yes, if I think about it, but I mostly think about other things, the things I see in you that I respect. I just wish you could find the courage to do something about the forces that have co-opted your religions. At the very least, you could speak out for people who are persecuted, even when you disagree with them. You could also oppose oppressive laws as well as the governmental neglect of laws that protect people from oppression, and you could write letters to the newspaper reminding other religious people that they claim to worship a God of love rather than a God of spit, threats, slanders, assaults, and vandalism. To outsiders, it appears that the only religious people who have any real influence in this country are the ones who, if they had their way, would swiftly enact punitive laws against all kinds of people, nonbelievers being just one of them.

As for those among you who have your heads so far in the sand as to consider religion a personal matter, I would say that as long as:

churches are harboring molestors;

nonbelievers are being run out of their homes;

children are being threatened with hellfire and disowned by their families;

school science classes are being supplemented with mythology under the pretense of presenting “all sides of the issues”;

school administrators are ignoring the law by distributing Gideon Bibles, putting religious plaques on walls, and holding prayers at ball games, graduations, and other school ceremonies;

and teachers are giving out religious tracts, leading prayers before tests, and assigning Christian specific projects, all in America, and all in the name of Christ, Christianity, at least, is not a personal matter. (In point of fact, I don’t think any religion that’s worth a damn is a personal matter. If your religion/spirituality doesn’t inspire you to act from an advanced level of enlightenment OUT IN THE WORLD, how is it anything more than an indulgence—or an evil?)

You and I are both under assault. You’re just further down the religious right’s hit list than I. Militant Christians interpret your mainstream Protestantism, your Buddhist meditation retreats, your seasonally-based Wiccanism, your New Age centers of spiritual power, your Kumbaya Catholic masses, and your Native American beliefs about animism, as a weakness if not the work of Satan. Your existence depends upon preventing them from obtaining ever more political power, so where are you, and why don’t you speak out? You know that the oppressors don’t represent you. At best, they represent your fear, and, atheist though I am, I must say that fear is most unworthy of you.

If none of what I’ve written rings a bell, and you’re not about to read articles from infidel magazines, then I pity you because your religion is but a comforting escape, and if this is the case, how can you have any confidence that Christ—or whomever—is going to prefer you to me at the Day of Judgment? Do you really think it’s as easy as crying out, “Oh, Lord, forgive me my sins for I accept you as my Savior,” and letting the rest of the Bible go? Is that what you read in II Timothy 3:12, and is that what those first Christians did; you know, the ones who were burned, boiled, stoned, flayed, crucified, mutilated, thrown over cliffs, and eaten by lions? Are you going to stand alongside them someday and tell Christ that you’re his follower too despite the fact that the only thing you ever did to show it was to go to church on Sunday and buy gifts for a poor family at Christmas?

P.S. I spoke the truth in the title of this post. Truly Westbrook knew me better than I knew myself, but he wouldn’t have guessed in a million years what it was that I would someday preach.