Yet another tone-deaf message from one of the pillars of truth, Centralia Nazarene. The message from last week the pastor quoted from Bonhoeffer and mused about what it would have been like to serve the German people from the beginning of the Third Riech. The Third Reich is repeating itself here, right now. People, specifically brown people, are being deported, without any due process, to disappear in a hellish prison in El Salvador. How is this different from the Nazi concentration camps? Think it won’t lead to genocide if we don’t stand against it now? For all you shepherds, who are supposed to set the example for the flock to follow, as I’ve said again, and again, better than 85% of evangelicals voted for the Orange Beast all three times. How is it, with all your talk of love and acceptance, you support this demented, evil man who vows to be, and is, a destroyer?
My departure from the church began with my disgust for the popular Christian support of this evil man. Perhaps if I had been a loyal member of a liberal (thus ‘fallen’ in the eyes of the conservative Christian political establishment) church I may have remained a Christian. My turn involved reading those ‘hostile’ to the Christian faith, actual scholars and intellectuals, to find out the Christian apologists largely just make stuff up. The lies are supposedly justified by the seriousness of the consequences (burning in hell forever.) Therefore, it now follows in my mind that the Christian support of the firehose of a liar Trump is justified because ‘He’ is here to return the nation to god. All the lies, grift, destruction, lawlessness is justified on the authority of god to save us from god.
There would be no Trump, Musk, ‘Big Ballz,’ Hegseth, Bondi, and the host of other miscreants now taking a wrecking ball to the world. ‘Don’t you see? You don’t need safety, a job, shelter, food, energy, trade, stability, infrastructure… You just need (our) Jesus.’ You Christians are seriously broken! You speak of those who live a ‘different lifestyle’ as your use of English language within the insider, wink-wink, ‘Christianese’ dialect, which caters to the prejudice of your Fox News addled congregation to reinforce their visions of that supposed ‘depraved’ lifestyle. The pastor didn’t have to be specific at all—what the pastor was talking about was understood. ‘They,’ those ‘dirty, corrupting, child-molesting perverts’ are hurting people far less often proportionally than all the children getting molested at church—vastly less. Fact. Your hurt over their ‘depravity’ is pulled out of your own collective asses to cover your own crimes. This cripples love and acceptance for all people on numerous levels. It reinforces prejudice which ultimately leads to ‘justified’ violence against those you collectively deem unfit. This ‘justified’ violence is being carried out right now, to real people, to prepare for a ‘godly’ society.
It is telling that I feel compelled to put so many of these words in quotes because in general it is not good writing. But this is done to point out the violence which has been done to our language, largely by Christian teachers, to convince the faithful that their best interests hinge upon the creation, and further enrichment of billionaires under an authoritarian oligarchy of their rule. 1984? Brave New World? Fahrenheit 451? Elements of what these dystopian novels describe are happening right now. But who gives a shit? All you need is Jesus. Fuck justice. Fuck equity. Fuck mercy. Fuck equality. Fuck rule of law. Fuck democracy. No, the billionaires are going to make this all right in the name of faith! We believe this because we have been convinced that money equals blessing from god.
Christianity is based in fear. It is a hateful lie. It is supremacist and it creates and supports assholes who prey upon decent, generous, fearful folk to fuel all this bullshit. It is full of charlatans and just plain violent assholes commissioned to maintain ‘order’ to benefit the conditioned worshippers of an asshole god. Think about it… What kind of cruelty does it take for a third grader to endlessly pray for a little girl in his class, whom he thought was cute but that her family was Mormon, that she and her family would find the (right) Jesus, so she would not burn in hell forever?! That’s Christianity. That little boy was me. You had me for decades. It breaks my heart that I raised my children in the church. They suffered and I, at the time, thought it was good.
On the very common felt requirement for worship, else this god is going to burn you with fire forever, I finally embrace the conclusion that worship of anything is corrupting. Notice the similarity of the worship of a god who miraculously bring diseases, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, famines, hardship, and deprivation, yet there is zero evidence god listens to any kind of prayer from the faithful to alleviate their suffering yet still demands worship. Furthermore, Christian leaders have largely taught the faithful to worship the Orange Beast, because he is the Chosen One, who brings nothing but lies and destruction in his path all the while saying, ‘keep the faith.’ Literally. ‘The Revolt of the Angels’ describes the corruption of worship very well. Nothing, nobody should receive worship. Period. Worship corrupts the worshipper and the worshipped. Trump would burn the whole world to the ground to be king of the ashes if, in the end, there was an effectively nameless, sycophant, remnant who would worship him none-the-less for his great mercy in sparing them. He is currently doing just this because of his endless need for attention and revenge. This has been described as something god is going to do on a massive scale. (I was inculcated to experience this fear from a young age.) Notice this is Trumpian maleficence has echos of the same story as described in the ‘Left Behind’ interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. In short, god viciously assaults the planet for seven years, eventually causing the horrific death of 80% of the people, to then come back in glory to renew the world—and this will all be forgiven. What a loving god… And what a loving surrogate and representative we have in Trump. Oh, worship him! Our Savior!
If you identify as a Liberal Christian please consider the words of this atheist, formerly conservative, exvangelical–I’ve no beef with the liberal Christian. As I see it, we probably share many common values convergent with Jesus’ supposed teaching in Matthew 25 concerning the sheep and the goats. We may well agree that the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is nonsense. We may both hold that Hell is a made-up story. At the core, our common values might agree that love mean risking and challenging ourselves to uphold and protect the most vulnerable among us. With all the innovation… medical, agricultural, engineering, scientific, economic, et. al, with all these advances we probably believe all the ‘it’s socialism’ nonsense bombarding us from the Christian Right is bullshit. We are our brother’s keepers. (If that’s socialism I’ll have it.) There is currently no reason, other than pure greed, that everyone should not have, as a basic right, good healthcare, solid shelter, and healthy food. Period.
But greed in the massive concentration of wealth is what Christians have been convinced is for every one’s good. Screw the numbers! Better yet, delete them! ‘Have faith’ our prophets say (as they milk us for more money.) The numerical, statistical provable fact is that (especially) since Reagan (the story of the corporate propaganda goes back to the New Deal but sake of brevity I’ll skip that) demonized the poor, and their laziness, all the (tax) policies enacted since have caused an astounding, exponential, astronomical concentration of wealth in the hands of a very small minority. Fact. Now so much so, as courts, legislatures, and presidencies have been bought and brought to heel, the supreme welfare queen Elon Musk, whose wealth was built on government subsidies, can literally buy the Presidency. Now the corruption is out in the open—and it doesn’t matter to the faithful. Christians, churches, that which you say is a ‘movement,’ are (in very large part) responsible for all this open corruption. The pastor did not speak against this, but all around it. All we need is Jesus you say. Love bomb to bring them in. This may sound all warm and fuzzy but the ‘theo bros,’ good, god-fearing evangelicals, teach that empathy is sin. Their emphasis lies the truth of god’s word. This very same ‘word’ is referred to in the fictional ‘godly’ society of Gilead. (Handmaid’s Tale. Read the book. Watch the series on Hulu.) Supposedly all this divergent teaching come from those who’ve all given their hearts to Jesus. Why is this? It’s all a train-wreck bound to the necessity of the rise of a religious central power to determine what the final ‘truth’ of what god wants is, and so bring an enforced unity. Atwood is dead on. This is nothing new; the fictional ‘Gilead’ is, for example, representative of Calvin’s Geneva. The religious authorities there felt completely free to kill people who didn’t agree with them. Christians butchered each other throughout history for theological disagreements. And it’s rising again as the most heartless and brutal are winning.
Turning back to lies and money, allow me to throw some facts at you. Around 6% of the federal budget goes to salaries for Federal workers. The federal government deficit spending is tens of billions higher than last year despite Elon and ‘BigBallz’ chainsaw ripping through federal agencies in the effort to obtain a compliant autocracy. It’s not about saving money, America, or whatever. Now we have the destruction of tariffs (the efficacy of tariff’s wealth generating capabilities are supposedly based upon an authority named Ron Vara—a completely fictional character made up by a man who went to jail for the Orange Turd.) Hang in there? The destruction of USAID pales in comparison to the destruction the poorest countries are going to experience because of this maleficent idiocy based upon a contrived formula. The Christians cheer! And you, pastor, say nothing.
I was a faithful Christian for decades, tithed, served on the board, worship team, construction projects, taught Sunday School, mowed lawns, washed dishes, etc, for two decades. I am completely morally appalled by what I was indoctrinated into. As an atheist, I am now happier than I’ve ever been despite the anger I feel towards my betrayal, by my parents, by the churches I’ve been in, and the total Christian destruction of my country and the destabilization of the entire world to bring ‘Jesus’ to us all. You Christians hired an arsonist; and you, pastor, say nothing.
The Jesus I want to believe in advocated for the poor and the oppressed. I know the pastor attempted to say something akin to that but, quite frankly, he failed. The language in that sermon was supremacist; and I know he doesn’t see because he wasn’t trained to see it. I’m not questioning the heart but the head. Pastors in the past took my criticism and questions seriously. I still, as an assumed ‘evil, communist, god-hating’ atheist, care deeply for people—including people in that church. The Jesus I want to believe in spoke against the oppression Herod, the Romans, and the Jewish Religious Establishment, dealt against his people; and he was killed for it. The historical Jesus advocated for the oppressed. All the nonsense about a blood atonement to appease some angry god of some sort was made up later. This ‘movement,’ now the institution of the church, has established itself as a political power throughout history (the pastor mentioned the Crusades and what not,) despite the few who ‘got it,’ most of Christian history is horrifying. Our nation was the first one who had established itself as a secular one. It is a complete lie that these United States was founded as a Christian nation. David Barton is a liar.
If Christians really want to unite with those they’ve harmed, how about talking about the ‘Doctrines of Discovery’ for instance? Those edicts declared that if Christians see land (and stuff) they want that the heathens currently possess, those Christians are (enthusiastically) permitted (because the Church is going to its portion of the loot) to take that land, stuff, and make slaves because those heathens are ‘enemies of Christ.’ Let the genocide commence… None of this kind of crime was mentioned in the sermon going instead straight for, ‘some Christians sought to eliminate slavery?’ How about the endless splits in the church other this (or that) issue? How about how the bible was used to justify slavery and dehumanization by ‘spirit-filled’ Christians? Same ‘Spirit’ right? The white (literally) washing of history is infuriating. It is just plain dishonest. But it does help explain why Christians support the gaslighter-in-chief.
I am very familiar with Fox News and the parade of liars and grifters within. I have family who are held under the spell of Fox and all its Christian pandering. I know that most Christians regard Fox as actual news (even though it is easier demonstrable that are morally bankrupt liars. BTW: A scientific study was conducted in which it was found that when people ingested no news whatsoever were significantly better informed about reality than those who watch Fox News.) When I was a Christian, I too ingested Fox. God was assumed to be a Republican. Having my mind liberated from that was a life-changer. I know that this rant will do nothing to change the trajectory of the church, and the endless stream of bullshit from Fox News, televangelists, prophets, apostles, pastors, grifters and cons of all stripes, simply because of seriousness of the believer getting it wrong, eternity in hellfire, to listen to criticism from an atheist who knows vastly more about the bible, church history, theology, philosophy, and apologetics than the average Christian. This fear is such a tragic trap which imprisons millions upon millions of minds, souls, and bodies to be slaves to parasites.
Christians will not tangle with me because of the fear that I might blow a hole in their faith, a faith which holds them in fear of burning in fire, in indescribable terror, hopelessness, and agony, forever, and ever, and ever as god continually renews and sustains the nervous system subjected to that fire (as fire is understood, applied heat rapidly breaks down the chemical composition of whatever substance that heat is being applied to—becoming other things (like a gas of some sort in most instances) depending on the nature of the original substance and the pressure and heat which is being applied to that substance) so the agony can be sustained for eternity. That is majority Christian doctrine; I didn’t make it up. Some very cruel people invented for purposes of control. I cannot emphasize enough the depth of that terror of those indoctrinated to believe such a horrific fate is possible. I was not fully free of that fear until a couple years ago. I understand it. Deeply. Yet the depth of that indoctrination to fear, to respect ‘established’ authorities who speak for god else tempt horrific eternal fate, helps to explain why apostates are greatly feared (and thus avoided, or killed, depending on the relative political power possessed by the ‘established’ authorities at the time) by the faithful, why it is so psychologically difficult to leave the faith necessitating support networks to ease the process; and why it is that the pastors, teachers, apostles, and prophets can convince otherwise good natured people to believe, support, and do horrific things in the name of god. It boils down to fear and self-preservation.
The notion that Christianity is centered on love is bullshit. It is intensely tribal. It is exploitative. It is racist. It is misogynistic. It covers up crimes for appearances sake. The evidence of this is clear as Christianity still worships the Orange One who is the very antithesis of a good human being, who is now using his power to burn the whole world as I write. Christianity cannot back down, just as their representative, a merciless arsonist, will not back down. This is why people with a moral backbone, people who care about all people, are leaving the church by the millions despite the psychological difficulty of doing so. Yet, in the sermon the invented specter of the eternal threat, based upon the invented ‘reality’ that all people deserve to be burned in hell forever, and thus must bend the knee to the ‘established’ Christian authorities. This threat is a styrofoam hammer now that science and philosophy have led to learning a few things. Christians, deep down, know this. The entry point now for the ‘outsider’ is to love bomb (or get the faithful to produce more children who are much more easily indoctrinated.) Once the hook is set, the fish is on, now to reel them into compliance as the newly compliant is taught the value of blind faith. That is the insidious reality of Christianity which establishes obedience in the adherent as the fear of hell is instilled through implication, repetition, and the cultivation of cognitive dissonance to assuage the emotions. This central tactic of compliance is horrifically evil—exacting psychological, spiritual, and physical damage of incalculable proportions. This false ‘love’ is just bait and hook. Real love does not threaten. Period.
I went to the protest in Olympia yesterday. There’s a widely divergent, yet unified, interest floating in the peaceful atmosphere generated by the thousands of people there. In that place, the threat of hell was not present. There was no presence of an infinitely pissed off god who needed to worshipped and appeased. It was a place in which nobody seemed to care what color you are, what religion you follow, your immigration status, how you identify sexually, none of that bullshit. The threat being stood against there is the new fascism being implemented by the Orange Turd, and the Oligarch billionaires seeking to loot even more from the little people. Those people, the fascists, are backed by the fear-based Christians who say the immigrants (especially those who are not cis white straight Christian males) are the problem; so much of a problem that they’ve commissioned an army of racist white men with guns to deport without due process brown people to a hellish prison in El Salvador to just disappear and die. The people at the protest collectively see this as evil because we see all people as having equal rights to due process of law and dignity regardless of whatever the perceived threat is. It is appalling that masked unidentified men are abducting people off the street—we liberals see this as being extremely lawless and evil. We liberals understand that the enormous economic power of the billionaires does everything in their power to keep relatively powerless separated little groups pointing at other relatively powerless separated groups as the problem—so we won’t look up to see the real problem, the massive concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few. (BTW: I highly recommend watching ‘Don’t Look Up.’) Conservative Christians do not see this reality as they are fundamentally fearful, easily led cowards, who couch themselves with a ‘bible-based’ religion which, among many things, says ‘fear not.’ True bravery means facing the unknown, standing up for the oppressed despite the risk to yourself. True love means doing your best to experience and cultivate empathy, to consider the needs, hurts, desires, and fears of others who are not you. Love means risk. As my favorite protest anthem Caliban’s ‘We Are the Many’ makes abundantly clear, we alone are nothing to change the institutions of power but together ‘we are crushing.’ Together, if there are enough of us to apply the pressure, we can restore the function of government back to serving the people, not the billionaires, peacefully.
I didn’t get the impression that anyone at that protest wants violence. Even in the face of such a threat as the possibility of the Insurrection Act being levied to deploy the military to use force to put down what we the people are legally within our rights to do so under the Constitution. Even in the face of the possibility of unidentified masked men dragging the unilaterally declared ‘enemies of the state’ to just be disappeared without due process. We are just loudly asking our legislators and judges to please stop this madman before it all collapses. We want impeachment (yes, yet again.) We want the Orange One removed from the office and lawfully jailed as the felon he is. We want to renew the investigations of Elon’s maleficence as well and lawfully prosecute according to due process—because no one should be above the law. Then we want to start to rebuild and repair the enormous damage which has been done to restore the government back to serving the interests of the people. That’s, in short summation, what the core of what the people at that protest want. We want all this to be done lawfully and peacefully.
Speaking of the Orange Turd and the conservative Christian acquiescence to lawlessness, DJT has constantly whined and complained that no one has experienced legal persecution like he has. This is obviously absurd. But this is what Fox News and the conservative Christian establishment pushes as the narrative for their savior. Millions believe it. Trump has millions of dumbasses who ship him money to pay his legal bills to keep him out of jail and to continue his numerous scams. He is a proven liar, fraudster, conman, cheat, rapist, and felon. Full stop. Christians worship this asshole and very likely would’ve gone bat-shit crazy (January 6th and beyond!) if the Orange Turd would have been held to legal account and be appropriately jailed. SCROTUS, perhaps because of the fear of violence, granted DJT immunity from basically everything. So now, our savior has it in his demented head that he can literally do anything to exact his vengeance upon his enemies.
The only person in DJT’s world that has value is DJT. This is demonstrable that he is demented, cruel and infinitely selfish in his verbal gibberish about being the most persecuted man ever as human beings are being abducted and disappeared off the street without any due process whatsoever on his command. Those human beings are not human beings to him. Fearful Christians everywhere cheer this because they believe Orange Julius is protecting them from some nefarious threat. This means those so abducted and disappeared are not human beings in the eyes of conservative Christians either. This is demented, evil, cowardly, and extremely selfish. Thier leaders are teaching the faithful that, ‘If you broke the law, you have no right to due process.’ Wow. Due Process is exactly what everyone needs if the get accused of breaking a law. Anyone with half a brain should be both afraid and outraged to hear anyone saying this–let alone anyone who political power. They’ll get to you eventually.
But conservative Christians too are victims of a firehose of lies from the church, the social media networks (which make billionaires even richer,) the conspiracy hacks, Fox News, and cowardly politicians all now rallying around the liar-in-chief. ‘Tow the line and don’t cross the messiah, stay in his good graces’ is the mantra—even though he will throw you under the bus at a moment’s notice if it serves his purposes. Even then, because the Orange One doesn’t care about you ‘faithful’ one whit, his endless hate and resentment is royally screwing the economy by destroying relationships, stability, and trust worldwide. He does not care. All you red hat wearing, patriotic, god-fearing, real American, Trump loving farmers out there listen up, your savior is purposefully destroying your markets. Good luck paying the mortgage…
Is it too much to think that the shepherds who claim authority from a collection of books which say, among many other things, ‘the truth will set you free’ would do their best to stay faithful to the ‘truth’ (roughly and simply meaning belief and thought in accordance with evidence and cross-examination to best understand reality) and teach their flocks to do the same? Not much opportunity for exploitation in conducting the trade in that manner; so yes, it is too much to ask. Just keep your heads in your asses, ignore the carnage around you that you are largely responsible for, and keep pitching love-bombing Jesus to keep people out of the fires of hell. Hear no evil, see no evil, so you can keep speaking evil. That’s your plan. Your love bombing is becoming less and less effective; that’s why you’ve completely sold yourselves, yet again, to acquiring political power. It has never turned out well in the past, and this time will be no different.
“Behold I stand at the door and knock, to save you from what I’m going to do to you if you don’t open the door.”
–the fictional infinitely merciful.