What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. Isaiah 1: 11-17
Today I mourn. A few days ago, I learned of yet another human being I know who was molested at church, which was, unsurprisingly, covered up. There is a lot to process. As I’ve said before, oftentimes the coverup is worse than the crime. On top of this recent discovery, a few weeks ago I was having another conversation with a friend in which I found out about another devout adherent, a relative of my friend, who did not stand up for her children who were molested by an evangelist (also a relative)—because that evangelist ‘saves many souls.’ They let that predator go on to diddle other kids, again, because he saves souls (until eventually the secular authorities caught him.) I suppose the number of souls he gains exceeds the number of those he molests—thus having a net gain so all is better overall, right? My friend is very angry about this, and I am both deeply saddened and enraged. All of this is horrifying, yet is so very, very common. This kind of toleration happens because of the way the church chooses to reveal itself to the world—our common response to the fundamental violation of human persons is baked into the theology of maintaining appearances. The victims are shamed into silence or blamed for the crime so that the masses, those who tithe faithfully, and submit to authority can frolic in an illusion of joy as such comfort is evidence of being in the center of God’s Will. This is so evil.
Pretending a problem doesn’t exist doesn’t make it go away. Pretending evil isn’t among us doesn’t diminish the evil’s power over us but rather allows evil to spread and flourish. This is why I reacted so strongly against the claim, ‘Without Christ, our hearts are hearts are desperately wicked.’ What a crock. The church is broken. The church is anti-Christ as it talks (and sings) about our feelings, about ‘releasing our joy,’ about our love affair with Jesus, about our longing for Jesus to ‘Open up the Heavens’ to increase our bliss. With such a feelings-based ‘Jesus fixes everything’ assumption, communal wrestling with ethical matters and conduct is pushed ever further back into the ethereal realms as a matter God will handle. The argument in favor of this approach to ethical conduct and accountability cites the rejection of works-based salvation. This view is strongly epiphenomenal, that is, to use Thomas Huxley’s analogy, our lives are experienced much like a steam locomotive on tracks—we can observe and blow the whistle, but our direction and destination is predetermined. Thus, in short, ‘everything happens for a reason’ as God plans it. It is not that hard to imagine how such thinking could lead to the notion (and common refrain) that ‘Jesus fixes everything.’ No matter if the particular evangelical church claims the power of freewill, the collective religious history going all the way back to the Puritans, all the cross-contamination from prosperity preachers and the vast ‘Christian’ media empire, all but guarantees a very contradictory mix of ‘letting God sort it out’ and the use of political and social power to make ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ behave in ways the ‘Spirit-Filled’ leaders teach ought to be so. All of this mess is wrapped up in ‘faith’ so that such assertions the leadership are commonly regarded to be ‘biblical.’ This works because the average Christian knows very little about the Bible which offers all this fuckery a sense of authority. Playing pretend is fun. Let’s tumble down this insidious little hole as I give myself over to vent my anger…
Hence, due to our propensity to pretend, we tolerate, nay, we joyfully give ourselves over, for example, to a liar as our salvation to take America for God. This liar, this horrific human being speaks lies and inspires us to hate the ‘others’ every day. He has sown so much hate and division as those who oppose these lies, those who call for equal representation for everyone, those who are trying to uphold the law (and just plain basic decency) are demonic, woke, leftist, godless liberals. The righteous delight and applaud the lies, the misogyny, the open xenophobia, inventing and erecting all kinds of religious and ‘practical’ justifications for all the destructive mischief because the ‘righteous’ want to maintain their status as the keepers of a righteous nation. (Thankfully, the ‘Red Wave’ didn’t happen. Maybe the godless will be able to push the fascists back? I’m very hopeful about the election results—but I’ll talk about that elsewhere.)
The irony of evangelical leadership lies within its entrepreneurial nature. In our prosperous environment, the laity rewards the leadership for affirming what they already believe, and that belief lies in the adoption of American values (‘winning,’ prosperity, happiness, superiority, etc.) into the faith. Within this transactional relationship the powers of the leadership are limited by the Biblical literacy of those they lead—thus they cherry pick (and just make stuff up) to uphold American values for their reward. The people get to feel like their afterlife is being covered while still getting to believe and feel the way they want to believe and feel. Leadership has a lot of power since, as the convenient little myth goes, the leaders supposedly speak for God; but the leaders must know enough about people to excite and inflame about the right issues and against the right people while at the same time reassuring their flocks of their own blessed assurance if they remain within the congregation’s behavioral expectations. Challenging a congregation’s comfort too far, too fast, and too explicitly will get them fired.
Leadership can bite back; I’ll describe ways in which they do. Hierarchical social organization (that is, the notion that some people are superior and thus ought to be running things) very much helped to create a ‘holy’ system which emphatically emphasizes forgiveness over repentance—the requirements for who does what is determined by the victim’s relative power and status within the system. As this often plays out for example, some holy man violates a lesser being in this system the victim is often criticized for not being more forgiving. This is a fine way to keep the power in the hands of whom God supposedly wills. We have been taught that the onus of fixing a wrong primarily lies with the victim. Such a system attracts predators providing a pool of victims to choose from as the flock itself will beat the victim down as they do not wish to lose the appearance of what they have. The ‘Sunk Cost Fallacy’ describes the human tendency to not abandon what we’ve invested in. Purity culture doubles down on this bullshit putting the fate of the nation upon the bodies of adolescent females. After all, in the Dobsonian universe boys will be boys—aggression, sexual aggression, is a necessary quality for leadership. The quest and responsibility for purity hence lies mostly with the girls. (This is the system of thought I grew up in and remains to his day.) This is why men (and boys) are frequently forgiven while the women (and girls) are frequently blamed. Do you know any preachers out there who speak against this? For the leadership, why repent if you can just be forgiven? (Repentance is difficult, takes time, work, and, contrary to popular belief, does not require forgiveness from the victim.) But we don’t often hold leadership to account because charisma is very valuable to the whole religious transaction. I could cite Andy Savage and Mark Driscoll, and many, many others, who egregiously violated a sacred trust only to pop up elsewhere to feed off more of the faithful. Still falling down the hole…
Why can’t I be more forgiving? Because I have a brain. Yes, I’ve done mean things that hurt people. I’ve held beliefs and done things which now I’m completely ashamed of. Yes, I hope to be ultimately forgiven. I’ve got a ton of ‘stuff’ to work through. And this is true for everyone, admit it or not. I choose to intensely self-examine because I want to do the work required to not hurt people in the future and be a benefit to those who cross my path. I want to speak the truth and uphold what is just. I want to speak up for the vulnerable. I want to stand against predators. The acknowledgement of all my failings, and my observations of all the failings of godly leadership, cements my belief that no one should conceit to speak for God. Anyone who does, if you have a brain, ought to be ignored. All the Seven Mountains tripe, along with its prophets and apostles who are just men and women who just want to be rich and important—and they have the charisma, a mysterious thing, to pull it off. And so, to maintain the collective illusion, abuse and exploitation will continue because such a structure is God’s Will as we keep pitching the BS that ‘everything happens for a reason.’ What primes the pump to sell this useful fabrication which helps make abuse a bit more tolerable for those being abused?
The following little (smirk) tweak to the understanding of the word ‘joy’ is just plain genius in how it flies under the radar to levy strategic strikes to keep the masses in line by reinforcing the myth that ‘everything happens for a reason.’ (Oh me of little faith…) I’ve no way to count the number of sermons I’ve heard which emphasize the importance of exhibiting ‘joy’ as an apparent means of drawing people to Christ. This implies that one must become like the evangelical Christian to experience the ‘joy’ the chosen evangelical enjoys because the Greek word χαρα, translated as either ‘joy’ or ‘gladness,’ is strongly associated with the concept of solidarity—which is situational. Just do a word search for all the times χαρα pops up and you’ll see that χαρα is experienced in association with others and/or with an event larger than themselves. In James 4:9 those who in solidarity with worldly behaviors are warned to exchange their χαρα for κατήϕεια (often translated as ‘sorrow’ or ‘gloom.’) This too is situational.
Indeed, I do think χαρα ought to be properly associated with the concept of solidarity, but not enough work, attention, and distinction is given by our teachers to whom and/or to what that personal experience of solidarity is given thus allowing the larger culture (that is, the environment in which congregants spend most of their time and attention) to form that understanding in the minds of the average parishioner. Due to the way we commonly use language, the word ‘joy’ is commonly equated with situational happiness (which may include an element of gratefulness) which comes through, thanks to our constant exposure to billions of dollars of advertising, having stuff. (Maybe this is one reason why Jesus said it is very, very difficult for a rich man to enter heaven? Another day…) There simply isn’t the literacy and teaching available to differentiate a significant difference between joy and happiness for those on a schedule. (Just the way it often is.) The experience of ‘gladness,’ as χαρα is often translated, is only a smidge away from the emotional experience of ‘happiness;’ the difference I believe lies in why and in what we are experiencing those warm feelings. This is where it gets ugly…
I know that preachers often try to draw a distinction between happiness and joy by calling the first experience situational and the latter not; this mis definition and appropriation is a mistake with serious consequences. People will act subconsciously to both cultural/religious bombardments that they may not be consciously aware of. The destructive effect of the teaching above is amplified by the fact that it is not true. Certain conclusions will be drawn and acted upon regardless of active consciousness in response to what is being taught (the advertising world is constantly trying to make this happen.) I think preachers do this to bestow an ethereal and/or quality upon the experience of joy—which implies that only the true Christian can experience such a thing. (This may be well intended.) Joy therefore is something exclusively given to those chosen by God to enjoy such an experience. There is a certain attractiveness, an allure, an exclusiveness, to draw people into the faith; and in this paradigm and practice the religious idea spreads to act as an immunization against all things and conditions which may make us unhappy—but the righteous do not frame this in those words. This common sermon about joy implies that joy is something faithful people ought to have. The trouble is, if we do not experience joy despite our circumstances as is commonly taught, then there just well may be a serious spiritual defect within us which could shed doubt upon our eternal condition. Such a dissonance and potential conflict with the most powerful being possible, along with His wrath which comes from the lack of faith, can lead to considerable anxiety. The ‘Blessed Assurance’ rests upon the teaching that the faithful live in joy and do not live according to a ‘spirit of fear;’ after all, Paul wrote about experiencing ‘joy’ while he was ‘in chains.’ It sucks to be a prisoner, right? Despite his situation, being ‘in chains,’ Paul, the faithful example, was still in a state of ‘joy’ or ‘gladness’ as χαρα is often translated. If the faithful do not control their emotions despite the circumstances, this in the individual soul conflicts and smashes the soul down to a very root level if the acolyte should fear, doubt, not be ‘joyful’ as commanded. One should believe that any awful thing which happens is ultimately meant by God to eventually bring joy. Psychotic.
Escaping this conundrum could very well lead to the faithful’s rejection of any serious thought or involvement in anything perceived to be ugly which may make them sad, or angry. The call to a state of joy requires deflection of present circumstances, injury, death, poverty, separation, betrayal, or just plain dishonest and deceptive evil, to project those negative feelings resulting from those stresses towards some future hope and/or upon some distant enemy. If one should succumb to those stressors guilt, shame, and doubt could descend upon the adherent to add to their grief and anxiety. This is a very significant factor which adds to the evangelical faith in and reliance upon collective political power to act upon those things, those people, they’ve been conditioned to fear. For all the talk about evangelicals not living according to a spirit of fear, they, through their actions, demonstrate that they are driven by it. (As I’ve addressed again and again in this blog.) By necessity, they must separate, they must make distinctions, between one set of people and another; they must distance themselves from horrors because they must feel ‘joy’ in order to be in good standing. (Yet, paradoxically, must also feel like they are being persecuted in order to be a good Christian.) The conflation of joy and happiness, the failure of distinction between the satisfaction of having a full belly, a warm house, and fine companionship from the, dare I say, pride of being part of something ‘bigger,’ good and noble despite suffering and pain which sucks, leads to the desire for either separation and escape, or worse, outright conquest. (Preachers need to do a much better job of making that distinction if they are to convince me otherwise.) This incongruity leads to the necessity of creating illusions to protect the human psyche from utter collapse. We try to have it all, but we can’t. (Again, oh me of little faith.)
The human abhorrence to embracing despair and suffering conflicts with the evangelical value of enduring suffering which is supposed to build character. Considering our constant conditioning as to what it means to be happy and the desire to feel that we are in control, despite what they may claim otherwise, creates the need for shrinking the circle of solidarity. Indeed, my circle has shrunk as well to exclude those who are in for theocracy. Boundaries need to be drawn despite, as some interpret the word of Jesus, the international mission of the gospel. There is no single cause for the rise of Christian nationalism, but it is generally a response to perceived threats (spurred on by the acknowledgement of demographic changes in relation to the obvious crimes of our past which gives rise to fears of retribution) to which forward thinking and entrepreneurial folks have capitalized on. The evangelical’s fear and desire for control allows those entrepreneurial folks to insert themselves as answers to the problem as the mouthpieces of God to assert the assurance that it is God’s will that the historically dominate group maintain power to keep things as they should be. The framework and rhetoric of nationalism is a fine way to facilitate a sense of purpose, a direction, providing an answer to an otherwise seemingly inscrutable and inevitable problem which faces the demographically declining group if democracy should survive. This necessarily requires the maintenance of some sort of hierarchy which traditionally, in our history, is patriarchy and white supremacy. Since the eternal order appears to be threatened (how that could be in the face of an infinite power is beyond me,) all means, be they cruel and dishonest, ought to be employed to the proper order of things for the salvation of some. This requires the adoption of a form of fascism. They honestly think this is the best expression of freedom because they think themselves to supremely superior because imagine themselves to be the chosen people of God.
The evangelical cannot mix with any different people who may challenge their perspective because they must maintain the faith that they are the chosen. In the face of increasing knowledge, science, and technology which may undermine the foundations of faith, one must either adapt or double down to exclude anything which may bring discomfort. The matters of salvation, eschatological notions of future dominance, supremacy, and, dare I say, purity, rely upon some varying understandings (depending on who you talk to) of a future theocracy. The lovely illusion must be maintained. The chosen people must exist according to supremacist evangelical theology—equality in their view is not an option because they have been chosen to bring God to the world. (If you are not quite following, the paths to future bliss in Christian thought are seemingly infinite. Some options include something called Dual Covenant Theology within that dispensation premillennialist framework—but even within this inclusive invention God will kill 4/5ths of the Jews in the Great Tribulation to pave the way for Christian rule. My apologies for not being able to completely sum it up because various loyalties are all wrapped up in personality and charisma.) Many of these eschatological fantasies are indescribably brutal. Such brutality requires separation between one set of people and another. Some are more equal than others as Orwell put it. In the end it’s all a mix of fear, resentment, revenge, and a quest for power.
In my personal experience, having seen trauma in graphic detail, having smelled the blood, the bone, the brains, having held the hand of someone violently attacked, gravely injured and facing death having been intimately betrayed as being shot by a loved one, to explain to that person so betrayed that we, your rescuers, are going to paralyze you (trust us) to breathe for you in order to save your life, having also looked into more than one person’s eyes whom I could not stem the approach of death as the light of life left those eyes, to have the blood flow across my hands as I try to stop the bleeding, to experience the smell of burnt human flesh, to see one suicide, one assault, one rape, one brutality, one result of rapidly moving meat against an inanimate object after another, to be threatened with violence, to literally breathe for those descended into respiratory passivity by opiates of which I have no idea how many, and in the end it doesn’t matter. I conclude that these ‘Christians’ against whom I speak are utterly detached from those they are trying to ‘save.’ They don’t understand what they are talking about. I do not say this to make myself out to be a hero; I was paid well to do these things, (and I do not miss them in my retirement because I cannot handle them anymore without personal implosion,) but to say that these experiences has influenced my perspective on life and the concept of salvation profoundly. The wounds run deep. I still partake in the elements of communion, but I am utterly broken, disconnected, and extremely angry. I am ashamed. Why?
Such descendance into the realms of human suffering, the screams, the smells, the fear, takes its toll. Jesus was beaten to a pulp, had spikes driven between His radius and ulna, and through His tarsals, so He could support His weight until He suffocated in agony from exhaustion. This is what people do to each other if one should piss off some more powerful than themselves. Jesus set aside His right to save Himself despite His power. We’ve tortured and killed people to save their souls. This is the dominant feature of human history. In this I argue that now the Christian ethic has been corrupted by prosperity and invented a system so the masses may advocate for someone brutal enough to enforce the sense of their own superiority—the Nazis proved they could bureaucratize the process so as to separate the brutality from the larger population so the average person personally wouldn’t have to experience the horror of dealing with the tears, screams, meat and the piles of corpses. The evangelical expects God to do it—I read it, the Left Behind series which sold 20.4 million copies—Jesus comes back at the end to have lasers come out of his face to literally melt, Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark style, his enemies. Piles of goo. Vapor. Smoke. Just wax and heat. Distance is convenient. The righteous do not have to see and smell the results of their vengeance. Oh what joy and hope…
And now we have new and improved means of separation between what is good and what is bad as expressed in the slogan, ‘I stand for the flag and kneel to the cross.’ As I’ve observed, most evangelicals would view this statement as either blatantly obvious or at least harmless. I beg to differ. This common slogan explicitly says that if one claims to be a Christian, he or she will be patriotic; those who are not sufficiently patriotic are faithless and disobedient. The association of the flag to the cross is clear. A good American will be Christian. Romans 13 is frequently cited to uphold Christian nationalism never mind the fact that this is cherry-picked as the Bible has other things to say about wicked governments and their evil and oppression elsewhere in scripture. The nationalistic Christian will squirm and most likely refuse to say they owe their unquestioning allegiance to the administrations of Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, or Barrack Obama for example. The hypocrisy is clear as Romans 13 will only apply to administrations they see as legitimate—this was made abundantly clear in the January 6th insurrection.
Thus, in context, a very clear majority of Christians view, despite one failed prophecy of specifically Trump’s victory after another, will still send money to those fuckers who claim to speak for God. (As it has been said, DeSantis is DeFuture? Need to look into what the frauds are saying about that guy.) This allegiance both baffles and horrifies me.
The disconnection from reason, the decline of moral sense, the urge to joy, collapses to the point that the command to ‘love our enemies’ shrinks down to the individual evangelical’s immediate environment. What is good for me? This makes it much easier as the list of perceived enemies of the evangelical continues to grow. Oh my, the white evangelical is so persecuted… (Okay, okay… the women, and little boys and girls are literally being diddled (by the evangelical leadership)—granted—you’re right; these ‘lesser’ people are being persecuted along with the LGBTQ people who are scapegoated for just about any problem that nation faces. Somebody has to take the blame.) It’s the best of both worlds: the faithful get to hate those ‘others’ they fear while at the same time think they are faithful for loving the guy who keeps using foul language at work. Just lead that guy to Christ through your love for him while not giving one rat’s ass, for example, about all those kids caged and orphaned due to a policy of punishment intended to make trying to come here so miserable for those seeking a better life so that they won’t come. Never mind the Bible in what it says about oppressing aliens seeking shelter. Out of sight, out of mind—shrink the world to make it comfortable. Reach out only in ways to maintain distance and your sense of safety and autonomy. We don’t want the others to come here. If you say that I am merely a godless asshole I will cite the fact, the fucking fact, that identification with evangelicalism is the greatest predictor of the harshness towards immigration. For 90% of evangelicals, the Bible has no bearing on their views of immigration. Preachers who don’t point this out are a serious part of the problem. If you are not a white, Christian evangelical, it sucks to be you.
What about mourning with those who mourn? Evangelicals tend to not give two squirts about immigrants, but do the righteous even care about citizens who are already here? Hmm… Are you righteous people so isolated to not see the destruction the Big Lie is bringing to the nation you claim to so dearly love? I don’t think so. I think that you honestly believe those who are not you are not a rightful part of the country. Hence, you believe you can do with them what you please, as God wills it. The leadership devours the money of the fearful to then amplify and return that fear and loathing of the others making the others the enemy of the true American—as the empowered evangelical defines it. The faithful evangelical may say that I am demonizing the righteous. In response, I would say that the evangelical bears the image of God just like any other human being on this planet, but that the average evangelical has been dreadfully misled to be unjust in their quest for power and comfort, appropriating the power of God Almighty to grab authority for themselves. This, in my mind, makes all the evangelical righteous people a serious threat to human rights everywhere judging by the levels of predation, toleration of coverups within your own communities, and inclination to fascism. It is not to say all evangelicals are evil, but that the average evangelical is completely comfortable with not examining the morality of, and responsibility to, anything outside of their immediate sphere. The leaders intentionally keep it this this way to facilitate their own comfort. Hence, evangelical arrogance, selfishness, and moral isolation is a threat to all human beings. The church is doing horrifying things in the name of God.
In the evangelical mind, having been a part of it for so long, the answer to all problems begins with conversion. If the evangelical can just get you saved, whatever that means, then healing and order will follow. Every other human need shrinks in comparison to the central evangelical problem of salvation. All charity is a means to that end. You may say, ‘What wrong with that?’ I’ll concede that it is sweet (well intentioned) for the evangelical to be concerned over the eternal souls of others, but when evangelicals prioritize in such a way motives are corrupted since such help can easily become conditional to that goal. Moreso, human misery can be seen as a means of inspiring conversion to escape the pain. Focusing on the ethereal condition of the soul allows us to forego the greater risks and costs of advocating and supporting those whom society fears and tangibly marginalizes. What does James say about wishing someone to be well without attending to their physical needs? Look it up.
What I’m saying here isn’t merely theoretical, it’s what evangelicals believe, support, and do. It lies in the attitudes towards ‘welfare queens’ and ‘thugs’ (thinly veiled racism) who threaten the true American’s capitalist way of life. It shows in the inverse relation of the harshness of abortion laws and the quality and quantity of maternal care offered to our most vulnerable. It is displayed in the fear of the criminal, rapist aliens (whose criminality rate is about half of that of those already here—it’s probably much more likely to get screwed in church by some godly asshole in charge) invading our land taking our jobs and burdening our welfare systems. Very little of what the godly says about the aliens is true but it is both what they want to believe and stems from the fears stirred up by the likes of Tucker Carlson about the ‘Great Replacement Theory,’ another blatantly racist untruth.
All these attitudes, beliefs, and actions described above are antithetical to what Jesus taught about advocating for the oppressed. Yet in the evangelical nationalist religion, the ‘liberals’ pointing out what Jesus taught about social justice, listing example after example of abuse, documenting lie after lie, revealing one exploitation after another, are the satanic people working against God. The evangelical has appropriated their own greedy, selfish desires as being what God Almighty desires; and by doing so sanctifies those desires. They’ve even appropriated the American flag for themselves as it now flies with both Confederate and various Christian flags and banners without shame. The evangelical leadership tells the people what they want to hear in exchange for money. Predators run amok because church culture protects them. By golly gee, all the predator needs to do is make the confession of faith and all is good—happy hunting—because Jesus fixes everything. Those with a conscience will forever be plagued with fear and shame as a means of social control from both leadership and their peers. All the while, through all the lies and predation, preachers get up and preach about ‘joy,’ and success saying very little, and even that little bit is coded to meet the specifications of the flock, about the injustice in the world—let alone the injustice evangelicals are responsible for. The illusion must be maintained that all the problems result from a curse from God because of the toleration of gay people and, you know, other various godless people. Heaven forbid that the evangelical be called to look in the mirror…
Those who do not point out injustice, who do not stand up for the oppressed, who do not call out the lies, who pretend that nothing is wrong (other than the routine problems white, middle-class people face—not to mean they don’t feel pain,) who do not call those under their charge to the fight for justice (Yes, that’s right—social justice; the Bible mentions that word, that concept, time, after time, after time,) are a serious part of the problem. The church largely believes the battle (you know, the Big Cosmic Revenge Fantasy) will be won with earthly power; few are challenging this belief. Those that do are ostracized as evil doers. All of this is so evil as millions are deceived into believing in a self-affirming system which protects predation, and that Christian nationalism is either the will of God or just some harmless aside to be left to do its’ thing. I, and countless others, have been gravely hurt by those who supposedly are filled with the Spirit of God to protect those under their charge. You neglect justice! You turn your face away from systemic oppression to maintain your own comfort. You tolerate lies because if you don’t you will be fired. You circle the wagons to protect those you regard as having higher status in the godly realms. (Hierarchy is delicious, isn’t it?) And by this program of obfuscation, your whole fucking system, routinely turns the blind eye towards the vulnerable so it may continue to feed itself.
Fuck you.