Author: Mark Jennings

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Men who understand the times

‘Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, 200 chiefs, and all their kinsmen under their command.’ 1 Chronicles 12:32 

This verse commonly serves as an anchor for Father’s Day sermons. Will you be this kind of man? Stand up now. Between (56:30-58:20) Tim implores the ‘men of Issachar’ to stand up. What is the understanding of these times? From what context is Tim asking the men to stand? At 53:30 he says that we should have the courage to stand alone. Just who exactly is standing alone?

To establish some context, Tim quotes from a verse I used in a recent post

“You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice.” Exodus 23: 1-2

But then to a very different purpose, and from a different understanding than what I intended. Who are the many, and to what evil are ‘the many’ standing in support of? In what way is justice being perverted? As an example, Tim references Rick Warren’s 2013 stand against gay marriage. In response to Piers Morgan’s pressure, Warren said, ‘I fear the disapproval of God more than society’s disapproval.’ 56:00 Fair enough. The question I have is whether God approves of both our tactics and strategy in combating those things we see as evil in the world.

In that interview, Warren is expressing his religious view that marriage should not be redefined to allow gay people to marry. This is protected speech under the First Amendment. However, as I’ve listed example after example, the Christian Right now seeks to use political force, which has been radicalized and encouraged by all the power it has gained under Trump, to impose its will upon the rest of society—be they Christian or not. This is not okay. Warren’s assumption implies that he believes the nation is a Christian one—this is what he was fighting for. If Christians believed in democracy, rule by the people, we would submit to majority rule as the law of the land. Of course, there are exemptions to following the rule of the land, like standing against genocide and the oppression of a people group (as in Nazi Germany for example,) which could serve as a model. But what really are we standing against? Are the gays systematically killing and oppressing people? Their choice to marry doesn’t hurt anyone—literally. What we are talking about here is essentially about hurt feelings over imagined oppression and the fear that God will unleash His terrifying wrath, according to what we have been told by mere men. The Bible is the authority, I understand. But men cherry-pick the Bible to suit their own purposes. The Christian Right is claiming to rule everyone Deus Vult—over hurt feelings and fear for our own wellbeing. The sins of the LGBTQ community have risen to the level of genocide through the means of the annihilation of the family—so we’ve been effectively told. In this Christian mind, this is what it is.

The righteous divine mandate stated is that homosexual sin hurts the homosexuals themselves. Does it? What about the feelings which are intrinsic to the person who just doesn’t fit into the expectations? They are being essentially told that God hates them because of what they feel. And what if they don’t believe in God? What about the damage inflicted upon the ‘sinner’ by the righteous who are supposedly working to impose God’s mercy on the condition of suppression and submission? Religiosity aside, this righteous indignation is based upon a simple rejection of the democratic principle of common governance. Instead of loving unjudgementally, as fellow sinners, more and more violence are being used and threatened by adherents to the salvatory Christian Right to gain more power to impose ‘God’s Law’ upon everyone in the United States of America. This is what we’ve become.

Rick Warren’s stand against gay marriage is the context Tim provides to call us to be men of Issachar. With all that is going on, this is Tim’s issue. ‘A line must be drawn in the sand.’ Much has changed Tim, from the time of Warren’s sanguine and toothless interview to now where emboldened ‘Christian’ Patriots are ramping up the threats. A Boise Baptist pastor said the God wants to “put all queers to death. …These people know that they’re worthy of death.” Are these the men of Issachar who understand the times? Are these the ones who are standing up? You may say that you don’t mean for the use and threats of violence to achieve the goals of righteousness, but these are the times. If you mean for the peaceful acquisition of power to ‘Make America Great Again,’ by using the gay marriage issue as the context for calling us to be ‘men of Issachar,’ your lack of specificity allows ‘the times’ to dictate the terms of that calling thus demonstrating that you don’t understand the times. ‘The times’ are becoming more and more militant and violent every day—all to enforce ‘God’s’ righteousness. This is the environment the now politically dominant Christian Right has feed and fostered for decades. As a Christian leader, if you don’t speak against it, you are for it.

The use of Exodus 23:1-2 to bolster your point about standing for righteousness against the masses of worldly sinners ignores the plank in your own eye. The masses of militant Christians who have it in for the evil ‘sodomites’ are falling in line with ‘the many’ of their own brethren to pervert justice by turning a blind eye to the lies and treason of those who empower them to go after those evil LGBTQ people—people whom many of you often say God would relish afflicting great terror and suffering for their wickedness. What gives you the right? Oh yeah… Deus Vult!

Once again, Jesus did not teach us to ‘stand’ in this way to inflict threats and violence. Nor do I believe Jesus would have stand silent and complicit in a culture which now encourages threats and violent to affect ‘righteous’ change. Like a broken record I repeat, our ‘teachers’ have prepped us for war as they’ve taught us to reframe Christ has a conquering warrior who will melt the faces off his enemies with laser beams shooting out of his eyes. We worship our pastors, with all the coverups and abuse, as our dull minds shuffle on having checked the box of having a ‘good service’ thus sanctifying our complicity to lies, treason, and violence.

Just as Hitler feed upon and in turn fueled antisemitism to place Germany’s problems upon the Jews, so too often American Christians blame our problems as a curse from God for our ‘toleration’ of the LGBTQ community. It is the same kind of thing.

Thank God the Coeur d’Alene police stepped up and protected human beings as they should. I don’t see the call to protect the marginalized much from Christians—this leads to the culture of silencing, violence, and persistent threat against those Christians find abominable. What I see from Christians is the cultivated persistent myth that Christians are the ones being picked on. This claim is laughable but man’o man isn’t it comfortable and convenient. It is ‘comfortable and convenient’ because white Christians, as a group, are in fact socially at the top of the heap; and as a result, have no experiential clue as to what real, organized, physically threatening persecution is. Christians deceived themselves into believing this to feel better about themselves as they create the environments which physical threatens those groups they see as posing a threat to their way of life. Tim feeds this mentality when he speaks of ‘standing alone.’ This is an illusion cast by out religious controllers to keep you in constant fear of both ‘the others’ and of the wrath of an inscrutable, eternally angry God. How do you know that war, inflation, drought, or even our ugly divisions which plague our consciences are specifically caused by a curse from God because of, let’s say, the sin of sodomy? Oh yeah… some Adam Henry who claims to talk for God told you so. Got it.

Prove me wrong please; are there many evangelical pastors speaking against Patriot violence against queer people? Tim didn’t; he just listed them as an example of what to stand against. I guess kudos to Tim for not specifically calling for violence, right? Again: if you don’t speak against it, you are for it.

These are ‘the times’ of increasingly violent division. Historically marginalized groups just want to freely live their lives without fear, having their rights as human beings protected by a broad-based, democratically controlled, secular power. To the common Christian fighting the culture war, trained to fear the angry God whose voice of judgement is broadcast by men using mass-media technology, the desire of ‘the others’ to have equal recognition, protection, and human rights is oppression of the Christian faith—because Christians fear ‘God.’ You got it wrong. Your oppression come from your leaders who have punked you into fearing them.

‘This is not a Christian nation.’ This was the heresy I stated just over 5 years ago which earned me my position as an ‘agent of Satan.’ I’m grateful that this self-proclaimed prophet of God woke me up. This was not persecution—this was just trained words from some dumbass who feels powerless who got punked by a bunch of organized people who are using him to forward their own goals. It is highly unfortunate for him, but what he said was a major catalyst leading to my freedom from religious bullshit. I still believe in the Prince of Peace, but the evangelical church is deeply fucked up. This is why there are deep divisions Tim. Jesus’ harsh words were for the religious leaders misleading the people. This is why I speak so harshly to those who claim to have religious authority. My anger stems from the fact that I have been deeply wounded by religious bullshit, which comes from men who want power without question, ever since I was a little kid. As a middle-aged white man with a comfortable pension, I have the power to be free. I want this for everyone.

Again and again, I’ve made arguments which attempt to show the only thing that makes the gospel believable at all is the testimony of suffering. This is what Jesus showed in word and example. One small tragedy on all this mess is that in all the various traumas I’ve experienced in my life, the institutional source, the church, was the most damaging. A typical reason for this trauma which would most likely be stated by the ‘godly’ leadership was my rebellion against the Word of God. I’ve read the Bible too jackasses—many, many times. The church backed the beatings I received from my parents as they weaponized scripture to say that in God’s Law disobedient children deserve to be stoned to death. That’s fucked up. I was shamed and taught fear of God, adult authority figures, and my parents who were His hand. I was silent about being molested by a neighbor only to be shamed later as the Christian reaction to the gay rights movement characterized homosexuals as abominations deserving death. I was terrorized as a little kid about the Tribulation and the anti-Christ—that I wouldn’t make the rapture was a constant fear. I was taught all that Dobsonian nonsense about human sexuality—to be ashamed of natural feelings and desires. I could go on but, to make it short, my formative religious experiences were based in fear and shame. I still struggle with this—but finally I’m getting better as rip myself away from all the training I received from people who just want to be important and in control.

I say all this as a straight, native-born American citizen, white male. I have no way to imagine how things would have been if I were an immigrant, non-white, or homosexual. Christians had me thinking for awhile that I was homosexual even though an eight-year-old boy taught to fear adults and submit to shame had no means to consent to what was done to me. Where is the mercy in that? What made it easier I suppose is that I had no desire for homosexual contact. But what if I had?

A wise black man said, “I’m not saying white people don’t have problems, it’s just that it is more difficult to be like me.” I sometimes imagine how much my religious traumas would have been magnified if I had sexual feelings for the same sex. The guilt is present still in my desires for the opposite sex, but in the Dobsonian universe those feelings are more excusable because they stem from that aggression which is required for leadership. (How convenient.) In any case, nobody is going to scream at, beat, or kill me for those heterosexual desires because they are socially acceptable.

The church is a broken system. It claims that ‘God hates the sin but loves the sinner.’ In practice people conflate the two together—it’s just what we do. We deal with the dissonance by categorizing sin into acceptable and unacceptable columns even going so far as to claim ‘entire sanctification’ thus, by necessity, loading one column heavier than the other. ‘Holy’ people are dangerous and very destructive to others as they load the columns to suit their own perceptions of themselves. They are blind to the fact that we all sin, all the time. Mercy is reserved for themselves. Blame is assigned to the others.

Deep inside we know this is wrong, explaining why we tolerate men telling us that our problems are curses from God because of the sins of ‘the others,’ and our toleration of that sin—all under the deflecting armor of ‘God hates the sin but loves the sinner.’ It’s religious, deflecting, stratifying, bullshit. If the religious leader who may read this believes I have it all wrong, then for fuck sakes don’t just use the cliché’ and then leave to the culture to define it, as I have, as it is commonly practiced; do your job, learn you own culture’s teachings, dig deep, correct it, and teach accordingly. I’m not making a straw man, it’s what we do. I know because I have personally experienced the conflation as explained above.     

Self-reflection is painful. Why do it? It’s far easier to just say it’s ‘the times.’ The pious religious language distances and disembodies the problem. The system encourages this protective mechanism even as it calls us to prayer. I know God hears me, but I have never personally heard a word from Him. I’ve reflected upon this often. Nonetheless, I place my faith in the character of Jesus and in the testimony of suffering. I want to believe that we all have a Father who loves us. I know that Tim said that to truly great one must be the servant of all. This is true. But there seems to be a major disagreement over what being a servant really means. We form up sides, each seeing the other as highly immoral. These are the ‘times.’

So here we are divided. Having lost domination over the overall culture, the Christian warriors settle for a scorched earth campaign. Burn it all. Misery for all—since that is what God wants from us. The endless ebb and flow of us in time searching for God’s will. His will for us has been shown in an accomplished liar and con man who scratches backs in exchange for unwavering support. The man, who could shoot someone in cold blood in the middle of 5th avenue and not lose his faithful, has given the Right what they wanted. These are the times for ever increasing fascism. Roe has fallen. Massive suffering will follow as the righteous will not stop until all people are under the boot.

Akin to those living under Warren Jeffs, the evangelicals now in power put forward an image of smiles and clean living. It’s just a matter of extremes, lighting up the immediate hostility and revenge of those who want freedom for all is not a concern. In biblical context, the men of Issachar were recruited to support regime change. Were these men charged to bring about a change of heart in the people? Or were they charged to employ subterfuge to smash the opposition? The biblical account is not clear hence we get to write our story to meet our own purposes.

In the end, force and deception will lose. The indomitable spark of humanism has taken hold of the collective human mind. The prophets will continue to enslave individuals to do their bidding, to submit to rape and oppression, but freedom people will continue to resist the will of these men of God. The fear of these men will continue to diminish, and finally someday, will we be rid of these men of understanding.

Amen.

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The theocracy has a foothold

Roe v. Wade has fallen. I have yet to read Alito’s majority opinion which I’ve heard is substantively much the same as the one leaked back in May. This is quite a day; one for the history books. ‘Originalism,’ however hard to define, is now the assumed rule of the land as SCOTUS ramps up to full speed. I will read the opinion in full and dissect it. But for now, just a few words of serious concern from middle aged white male.

I’m no fan of abortion; I seriously doubt anyone is. Alito’s promises that this decision will only affect abortion is obviously disingenuous. Having taken Constitutional Law at WSU, earning an A, graduating Summa Cum Laude (to say that I’m not a slouch,) I found that SCOTUS decisions frequently reversed previous law in favor of, and in accordance with, the current political winds. My initial thought is that this is different. Despite the majority opinion that Roe should not be reversed, a 50-year established ‘right’ has been taken away. This is right up there with the Dred Scott decision in terms of egregiousness. From the leaked opinion, as I discussed this with my daughter, a recent graduate of Law School, Alito’s reasoning can be applied to a great number of rights, not specifically found in the original Constitution, which many Americans have fought hard for in recent decades. Despite promises, we know, by the principles of stare decisis, as silly and irrelevant as that is, that other formerly regarded Constitutional freedoms will fall as well. When they say they won’t do it, they lie. The Christian Right is just getting started as the door has clearly opened to minority rule.

The poor will feel the immediate impact. But that is how it commonly goes. I hope that it remains peaceful, but doubt it will. I know that many women support this decision, but I seriously doubt these women are currently the most vulnerable. It’s all a very slippery slope and is very frightening to someone who studies history. If we thought we had a divided nation before, tomorrow will reveal further the increasing widening of this divide.

Instead of working to foster increasing the power of vulnerable women and to provide comprehensive sex education which would lower the number of abortions, the Christian Right now uses force to make its adherents feel better about themselves. This is what the game is. Abortions will continue and more vulnerable women will die. Fact. But those in the Christian Right don’t care much about that. And now we are supposed to believe you when you promise you won’t use this reasoning to reverse a whole lot of other rights the vulnerable have fought so hard for? You lie; you embrace a treasonous liar as your savior who has delivered a fascist SCOTUS to you—to do your will. People will die; you don’t give one shit for those living who are not you. Women are ultimately the property of men. It doesn’t matter one bit for rape, incest, or even, in some cases, ectopic.

This is your witness to the world. A bunch of power-hungry hypocrites looking to get yourselves in good with the God of your imagination. The God of the Christian Right, which is you, is a fucking bloodthirsty fascist monster with no mercy.

Obviously, we live in different worlds, with different moralities, with, tragically, a different set of facts from which to evaluate actions. I’m still working on the tear apart for asshat’s June 19, 2022 sermon on the ‘men of Issachar—men who understood the times.’ The ‘times’ now are for Christian fascism—to the glory of God. I’m at the top of the heap as a white, middle-aged male, but I care about the vulnerable. Really too pissed to write anymore right now; but I will conclude quoting the lyrics from an Arch Enemy song which now serves as an anthem for me.

Your hate is our trigger
Revolution now
The more we have to suffer
The more we will fight

With our fists up in the air

Legions marching
Ready to fire
These streets will burn
Let the black flag rise
Legions marching
Ready to fire
Empires of corruption
Crash and fall

Under black flags we march

The voice of rebellion
Calls your name
Servants of the truth
Are standing tall

With our fists up in the air…

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Defending the indefensible.

“Tonight, I say this to our Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) June 9, 2022

“You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice…” Exodus 23: 1,2

I’ve been told more than a few times by people who claim to be spirit-filled Christians that, putting it nicely, I’m outside of the will of God because I oppose Trump and the Republicans. As I’ve argued like a broken record, the evangelical church is inextricably tied to the GOP now. What was aired in the news last night was just a taste of the dishonor, treason, violence, and real peril to our Republic displayed on January 6, 2021. Good Christians have too much invested in God’s plan for America to turn back now.

It is absolutely appalling, beyond words to fully express, to witness the utter depravity in those engaged in the coverup to defend Trump’s ‘Big Lie.’ FoxNews would not cover the hearings because its investment in the ‘Big Lie’ (and all the associated lies) is too great. The people want lies. Lies in turn bring in lots of money and prestige to those willing to spread them. (I doubt if they lose any sleep over this.) As Laura Ingraham admitted, FoxNews is giving the people what they want.

We now live in alternative universes. Tucker Carlson said on his program opposite the hearings, “They are lying, and we are not going to help them do it.” Lying about what Tucker? There was clear evidence, for our own eyes to see and our own ears to hear, concerning the gravity of what happened that day. Yet, we are to believe the ‘real’ reality put forward by Tucker’s guest that, “There was no insurrection. There was a riot, a small one, that got a little out of hand.” A little out of hand? People died. And that’s just the start of it.

I’m having trouble wrapping my head around just how depraved this is. We are called to close our eyes and shut our ears to the evidence, to embrace the ‘Big Lie’ that the election was stolen, even when people in his own administration, we saw them and heard their testimony which said in summation, the ‘Big Lie’ is bullshit. There is no objective evidence to support the stolen election claim. None. Yet, because we’ve been told by God that Trump and the Republicans are God’s choice to ‘Make America Great Again,’ we are to believe the words of a man who made ‘30,573 false or misleading claims over 4 years,’ that the election was stolen. Despite having no evidence, the evil man inspires and encourages a slithering mass of conspiracy theories to fulfill his vacuous need for power and attention. Trump is a morally empty man who continues to spread destruction through his lies. (He would throw anyone, even his own daughter, under the bus to defend them.) In Trump World, only Donald Trump and those he currently (as this could change at any moment) sees as his supporters are telling the truth. Everyone else is a is liar. The evidence (or lack of) does not matter anymore. Honor and integrity are dead.

Ever wonder at the depth of our division? The ‘Big Lie’ led to the violence on January 6, 2021. The ‘Big Lie’ has led to deep wounds which are still being inflicted upon this nation and has caused deep divisions within the church as it continues to offer its implicit and explicit support of the man who continues to poison us all. FoxNews and the evangelical church is engaged in a coverup—it’s what the ‘Save America’ people want. No matter the destruction sown by those we revere, to the point of placing all our faith in them, no matter the evidence, no matter the hurt, the faithful will not turn on their investment. For example, those faithful to the Apostle of La Luz Del Mundo convicted for sexual abuse said that the state had doctored the evidence. The witnesses be damned. The evidence be damned. The people will support whoever they’ve invested their faith into—no matter the evidence of the evil they bring. People like Tucker sooth the consciences of those who want to believe things contrary to the evidence—people like Tucker are paid well to obfuscate and deliver an ‘alternative’ story.

To a much lesser degree of evil than La Luz, my own former church is engaged in a coverup. Pastor Tim Westerberg, in sermon after sermon, as more than a few are torn apart in this blog, admonishes those who sow division in the church—people like me. He acknowledges that division exists but intentionally obfuscates and misplaces the source. He bullies, shames, and tries to intimidate to shut people up because it is a threat to his sense of order. In his last sermon on June 5, 2022, in a rant around the 53-minute mark, Tim complains about those going around ‘sniffing armpits’ and then throwing ‘hissy fits’ on matters he personally finds trivial. This tells me he is all in for nationalism—and apparently so does most of the church. (So, what are you whining about? You won.) According to Tim, those ‘sniffing armpits’ are sowing division in the church thus sullying our witness to the world. The actual source of the division does not matter; our commitment to and investment in nationalism must be defended at all costs. To the faithful, the people citing evidence pointing out the lies are the problem.

This the same kind of thing as occurred in all the coverups in the SBC; the people hurt do not matter—the mission, or more accurately, the appearances matter. Tim is covering up both the seriousness and source of the national lie, which comes from, essentially, one evil man who is backed by the GOP. The ‘Big Lie,’ to which the evangelical church is complicit (as it has deeply woven itself into the GOP,) is ripping this nation and the church itself to pieces. Again: Evidence be damned. Truth be damned. Tim, in all his projections and obfuscations, is implicitly saying that those who speak against him, and his church, be damned. Appearances are everything. So, everyone plays pretend as we cover this up—the mission is too important to bother with considering the evidence. The ‘truth’ of what we’ve placed our faith is greater than what the evidence (or lack thereof) may say otherwise. The evidence threatens our sense of righteousness and our struggle for political control—all to God’s glory of course.

This is so dreadfully hurtful to those who care about the evidence and the resulting destruction, all the people hurt and killed, the offence to the process of seeking justice, the undermining of the process which enables the peaceful transfer of power, the murder of honor and integrity, that lies and treason cause. But not to worry, the objectors will be driven out—the leadership will continue to tell all the faithful what they want to hear. Make America Great Again.

The chances are good that he will get a standing ovation at his celebratory service on June 12th. Dishonor will continue to be honored.

(But then, I live in an alternative, godless universe, don’t I?)

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Centralia First Church of the Nazarene, June 5, 2022.

My notes, observations, and thoughts on the sermon.

36:20 Surrender to the lordship of Christ. Jesus at the steering wheel analogy.

38:05 How do you know what Jesus knows? This leads people to believe that when they feel like the ‘Spirit’ is leading them, then whatever they are believing and doing at the time is sanctified in their own minds. This is the certainty which is so destructive. This teaching leads us to not look behind the curtain at the Christian political machine running us and just accept that we are doing what we ought to be doing if we feel okay. This feelings-based teaching makes slaves of the laity. Men like Tim enjoy being in charge and for the little people to not question.

38:30 no argument that God knows everything. Trouble is, we don’t. Again, we are being led into feelings-based certainty.

40:37 ‘The Holy Spirit knows where to tinker.’  Why is it then that the people who claim to be in the closest ‘apostolic’ conversational relationship with God are so much at odds with other people who claim the same thing when it comes to what we little people ought to believe and do? Just send money, and elevate me to your highest positions of honor no matter how contradictory (and tolerant of evil) we are? Spirit-filled people have told me that I must bend the knee to a political party (unofficially) led by an accomplished liar and con man.

41:55 ‘Live wisely among those who are not Christians.’ That’s just it, Tim… Millions are leaving the church; membership declining in the past 20 years from the mid-70’s% to less than 47% and still falling. You listen to the testimony of the ex-vangelicals and they will tell you it’s because of the political enmeshment of church and state, the nationalism (which well-encapsulates the following qualities,) xenophobia, the coverups of abuse, the authoritarianism, the exclusionism, the misogyny, the arrogance, the tolerance of lies as the ends justify the means of the ‘spirit-led’ church. The problem is often not with the teachings of Jesus found in the gospels.

44:19 What would God have us seek? To value everyone, to seek what is just and merciful, to be with ‘the others,’ to love, welcome, and help them without seeing ‘them’ as an existential threat to our survival, and to not try to lord over them using political power to make them ‘behave’ and remain in their proper place? The truth? Or power?

46:46 Pray with an alert mind. Agreed. 47:30 with gratefulness. Agreed

49:37 Pray for opportunities to preach. NewsMax, FoxNews and the GOP/Christian Right creates quite a context for preaching to those who do not think like we do. So much for living wisely.

49:48 We are God’s plan to reach unbelievers. How are we doing there? Teach them to obey? We are working hard that one—to obey us that is.

51:00 We understand how to love people? This is so self-centered. Do we suppose that non-Christian cannot experience, feel, and convey ‘real’ love? It is what is being implied, however gently. The shallowness and religiocentricity (my word) of this sentiment that only Christians can convey true love leads naturally to the ‘us’ and ‘them’ problem. The sentiment springs out of and in turn feeds ‘experiential Christianity.’ This short-circuits the path from fulfilling cares and needs at our expense to immediately move forward to ‘you need to think and act as I do’ first. (Fortunately, I think the Spirit teaches us otherwise since people who’ve been transformed will be ‘liberal’ in who they will help. This is where all the fear which drives us politically clashes with what the Spirit teaches the transformed heart about charity.) Deny it all you want, but this the history of ‘become as we are’ (submit to authority) colonial Christianity. The actions of the Christian Right are commonly perceived to be quite hateful to people (and to truth itself.) Again, so much for living graciously (and wisely.)

52:00 It’s clear to me what you are saying because I’m familiar with the code.

52:44 They see the truth lived out. Well, now that Christianity has crawled into bed with the political Right, the GOP, the American flag, a system of lies, obfuscation, coverups, xenophobia, force, and patriarchal authoritarianism, which all claims to fly under a banner of love with a laity who just blindly follow where they are led, the ‘lost’ are seeing our ‘truth’ lived out.

52:55 The qualities above are anything but winsome and attractive. You are deliberately obfuscating the fact that we are seriously divided over deadly (literally,) serious matters. You don’t get to say ‘not in this church’ because that isn’t true.

53:30 And this is where you say that people like me are the problem—who ‘inoculate’ people against the gospel. Sounds to me that you are saying that to be a good Christian one must submit to the leadership who is telling us to be submissive to the sin of nationalism, which is idolatry. The sinner is the one pointing out the complicity of the church to abide and support the many sins of the GOP and the Christian Right? ‘Walking around smelling armpits and choosing up sides on an issue.’ Is that what I’m doing? What we are currently complicit in Tim is wrong. This is not a dunking or sprinkling issue Tim. This is idolatry Tim. We are allying with a system of lies to force people to behave as we think they ought to behave. Does not God have the power to make us all behave? Why doesn’t He then? What did Jesus say to the Devil when offered all the kingdoms of the world? Oh… He wants us to grab political power so we can be in charge and do it for Him. Got it.

53:44 A ‘hissy fit’ over a serious moral issue which is currently destroying our witness to the world?

54:04 ‘Why would I want that?’ Going back to the notion that non-Christians can’t know real love or morality, the fact remains that Christianity itself has picked up a lot of values from humanism which did not spring out of the Bible. Fact. A lot of the ‘lost’ are morally appalled by the complicity of the church’s getting into bed with the political system to forward what the world sees as sins—complicity, coverup, xenophobia, misogyny, patriarchal authoritarianism, homophobia, and the use of violent force and deception to enact an increasingly fascist ‘theocracy.’ Could it be they wouldn’t want to bend the knee to what they see as being hateful? I think what that you find hateful is that some who have identified as Christian will not bend the knee to you and the way you think things ought to be.  Authority doesn’t work on me Tim. Arguments and evidence does. What you are doing here is using your authority to bully and shame people to submit. I will not. Nationalism is evil. I will continue to talk to whoever will listen.

54:20 Unity to a lie is not loving.

54:46 What is the Christian Right’s gospel? It is very different than the one Jesus taught; this is what confuses the issue more than the simple fact that people, all people, disagree, sometimes very strongly, with each other. So much for ‘iron sharpening iron.’

55:45 A wise walk is a consistent walk? What if you’ve been deceived and you’re walking in the wrong direction? Nothing to see here; just keep walking.

56:30 and how do you know it’s Jesus doing the tapping? We are assaulted with massive amounts of various claims and information telling us what ‘Jesus’ thinks we ought to be thinking and doing. This information is conveyed by men in a myriad of different human ways. It is impossible to consciously be aware of all of them. Fact.

58:45 ‘Preserve me from those who are plotting evil against me.’ This Psalm of David is what it means to walk carefully? That everyone is out to get you? Well, if you claim authority, and teach people in such a way as to keep them passive and unquestioning of the way the church is witnessing to the world, of what we are (at the very least passively) endorsing, and somebody calls you on it, are they ‘plotting evil against you’? Shouldn’t be putting it into people’s minds that we are being picked on here anyway—socially, we are on the top the heap.

59:30 People read the news—and many fear what the Christian political machine is going to do to them. They recognize the nice Christian lady across the street who brings them cookies and see nice acts as that happening despite what they see the church writ large is teaching.

59:50 ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.’ I understand our differences Tim will likely never garner such a response because in your eyes, and in the eyes of the nationalists, I am an enemy of the church.

1:02:03 No impact without contact. Yep. That’s what I’m doing. Boom.

1:03:04 Fear is what is encouraged by the Christian media machine, eschatology, apocalypse, crisis, immigrants, homosexuals, massive voter fraud, sexual immorality (but not frequent mass murders with AR-15’s, heavens no!) so we’ve got to act drastically now to ‘Save America’! Fear is our faction’s main motivator. Sorrow and anger are mine.

1:03:25 Just be you and the Holy Spirit will speak through you. Following the logic of the sermon: As I’ve been told, I’m a ‘hateful divider.’ A ‘divisive’ person cannot be led by the Spirit, right? So… Just a Pharisee. Godless. Lost. An enemy. So says the authority.

1:04:25 ‘Just plain rude.’ So, we trade ‘You’re going to hell’ for ‘we are accumulating the political power, through any ugly means necessary, to make you ‘others’ speak and behave according to our rules to lift our God’s glory’?

1:05:36 ‘What did Jesus say to the woman at the well?’ This teaching here contradicts the teaching of the Christian Right which seeks to shame, silence, condemn, and punish those who do wrong in our eyes. This is not a conspiracy. It’s in the news. It’s in the legislation. We want big teeth to back what we say is right.

1:06:49 We shouldn’t put people on a scale. This is another religiocentric thing to do. Just because I am hostile to the teachings of the evangelical church doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m hostile to God. When one equivocates the teachings of the church and the teachings of Jesus, that is divisive since it forces us into serious contradiction with the teachings of other churches of which, practically speaking, we must gloss over for unity’s sake. (Our history used to be much bloodier because in the past we had harder time doing this.) All your talk of unity must remain within each local body and denomination which sets up a hierarchy by necessity to have order. This is good for the people who run things. This hierarchy of authority becomes then the very structure and framework from which all ‘good’ Christian teaching flows. This leads to scales of perception in which you may assume a person’s hostility towards God in relation to your assessment of that person’s perceived hostility towards your own teaching. I’ve done my homework—for decades. You would not like my assessment of where on the scale I would place the teachings of the nationalists as compared to my understanding of what Jesus taught. If I were to join a ‘liberal’ church, one whose teachings are hostile to nationalism and all that comes with it, would I then be a non-divisive brother equal in your eyes? Or would I still be a heretic and/or a Pharisee? (Jesus never got angry with the Pharisees for misleading the people, right? Such is not possible for the ‘Spirit-led’ people today, right?) Either way, the main instructive to the masses is that the principle of hierarchy itself is maintained. This is good for people who want to be in charge and feel important. This upholds the God-willed Christian Right program to ‘Make America Great Again.’ Good Christians submit to this as we proudly salute the stars and stripes despite all the associations of that symbol with a plethora of very ugly things being done in God’s name under this red, white, and blue banner.

1:06:59 ‘They ask really good questions.’ As do I. I don’t believe you when you say you like to interact with the negative 10’s. It is unclear where I would fall on your scale. You’ve demonstrated what is important to you, order. You like the way things are. Getting to the root of what is dividing the church and the source of why people are leaving doesn’t seem to interest you one bit. What is important to you is that you are important; the scale helps with that. Good riddance to heretics and sinners like me—because we are a threat to the order.

1:07:20 ‘Jesus went to where people were.’ Once again, trying to have it both ways. Christian Right struggles for the power to use force. Jesus rejected the use of force while physically on this earth—which I believe serves as our example. But this is where pre-millennial dispensationalism, the ‘Left Behind’ tripe, reimagines Jesus returning as an all-powerful conquering warrior who literally (I read the whole series) melts His enemies with something like laser beams which come out of His eyes. This was very helpful to the Christian Right’s goal to acclimate the average Christian to the use of force and violence to achieve the conditions we think need to happen for Him to return. This attempt to force Jesus’ hand is akin to the sin of Iscariot.   

1:09:18 ‘Witness ought to be compelling.’ I admit that I am just plain intimidating. But, if given the opportunity, I will lead you to think deeply on matters if you should spend any time with me. Little, if anything, is simple. And believe it or not, and to what was my surprise, I have been called an encourager by someone who dropped their fear of me to then spend the time to get to know me.  

1:12:00 ‘Focus on what we have in common.’ A cross? A flag? We say ‘Jesus’ a lot? This is spoken by someone who is, again, not the least bit interested to even acknowledge the depth of the problems caused by the common call to be complicit with Christian/political nationalism. Tim doesn’t see any problem with it other than it causes people, who see the misplaced hope in political power as idolatry, to speak out against it—which disturbs his peace and, possibly, his certainty. There’s plenty in the OT about Israel religiously blending with other systems—the theological word describing this is syncretism. I know lots of you will be calling for my head—but nationalism is idolatry.

1:14:00 ‘3000 get added.’ This is my second to last salvo to serve my conscience that I didn’t remain silent, complicit, to warn the church I’ve spent 20 years into a little of what we’ve all been duped into believing is the will of God. The last salvo won’t be as dramatic as it will be in my resignation letter to Pastor Bissonette (since Tim denied me that courtesy) which will briefly outline why I am leaving. I know many will be deeply upset with me. Many will be relieved. Although upsetting, and contrary to all Tim had to say about divisive people, you all deserve to hear from the ‘other side’ another perspective on the deadly, destructive seriousness of our divisions from someone who has been a somewhat consistent troublemaker for almost two decades. I care, deeply. This will cost me as people will blame me, and people like me, for the divisions to avoid addressing the problem itself. The shunning will be sad—but I must do this. I won’t be darkening the door of Centralia First Church again, since (on principle) I will not pass by those flags at the front door. I told my wife that I would only accompany her if those flags weren’t up. Whoever put them up front, I got your message. That will do it. Take care.

In Sorrow,

Mark Jennings

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Initial thoughts of CentNaz’s May 29 sermon

Rom 13:7

7)  Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

And defend freedom around the world 22:54

And wherever you stand on the military, the church, and whatever 24:22

In the ramifications of that, we gather to pray 24:51

We live in a country, like no other country in the world, has more school shootings like we do. 25:06

Lost our moral compass, the breakdown of the family 25:15

We removed prayer form the schools, we have sons and daughter growing up in families that are dys functional 25:28

When we add them all together leads to the results…. 25:36

I pray that common sense could prevail 25:44

To do something to keep our children safe 26:02

Lord, I’m not here to debate but to express deep sorrow 26:07

Lord move into the lives of those who have lost children 26:47

People are going to look into all reasons why this happened, and try to learn from it, but Father we’ll just try to stay away from that to pray for your peace and presence and your hand to stay… Lord would you have your hand upon this nation, to change the course of what we’ve seen over the past few years , could the polarization that we are living with somehow be broken; could we not come together in a new fresh way 27:55

If I could do something to change the direction, I would. Amen 28:45

May God help us to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. 28:51

One of the keys to change in our country 29:01

Begins one person at a time, does it not? 29:06

One family at a time, and it makes its way into a neighborhood and into a schoolyard 29:10

! Corinthians chapter 3. I see very little difference between how you are living and those who do not know Christ are living.

 Before Pentecost, the 12 disciples lived in fear because they had no vision or power, or purpose for the future 32:18

After Pentecost, filled with courage and purpose to turn world upside down for Jesus. 32:51

Wouldn’t you love to see this for our church; I know we’re living in the end time folks 33:09

Empowerment: people look at you with total amazement. 33:57

There is credibility problem in today’s church 34:08 No shit.

If… we’ve been transformed, we should be transforming the world 34:51

But we aren’t, are?

An ineffective ‘primary’ faith easily swayed to what the world thinks 35:20

Way to comfortable with the lostness of everyone around us. 35:42

We move from a primary faith to a powerful faith when we relinquish ownership of our lives to God’s Spirit. 36:32

To purify and empower 36:55

The natural man has no appreciation for spiritual things 38:31 They will divide you. They may be refined and intelligent but have no understanding of spiritual things. They are just consumers 39:50

The natural man is unable to comprehend spiritual things 40:04 That has given a sensitivity to and to bridge and minister into their lives instead of building walls. (You are so full of shit.) We must go to where they are. 40:39 Your witness to me Tim, by your words and actions, is that you figure, because I am against nationalism and Christian centralized control of government power that I’m a natural man. You sure about that?

Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, they understand because they have the mind of Christ. 41:37

The spiritual man is capable of discerning spiritual things 41:54

The spiritual man is not necessarily more intelligent, but can appraise or estimate, assess, discern, things from a biblical, moral, or ethical perspective. 42:17 the natural man does not have this ability

The world is confused on this abortion issue 42:54 Is it? Things are complicated.

Justify the ending of a life, the stopping of a beating heart 43:04. That is, largely, a myth.

Of an innocent baby. I’m all for people having choices 43:08 Rape, incest, ectopic. Lots of disagreement amongst to holy ones Tim. A lot of states no exceptions. Contraception next to go. Many rights we enjoy today are in the ‘prenumbras.’ By Alito’s reasoning, rights for women and non-white people are next in line to be axed.

Say it from a biblical perspective, It’s not my body, my choice; the issue is that abortion stops a beating heart. 43:37

The natural man and woman struggles to see that 43:43. And so enters the issue of who is my brother and sister. War, rape, incest, murder, hopelessness, control, and a lack of mercy…

The natural man cannot see abortion as an ethical and moral issue, they only see it as a personal and legal right. 43:59. Or perhaps it is an issue that is none of your business (in terms of employing government violence to correct?) All of this here assumes the ‘spiritual people’ have the God-given right to use government power to make other people behave in a manner that assuages their own conscience. We are not a theocracy. You are assuming that it is (a theocracy,) and that this assumption is what God wants—us to institute a violent theocracy which oppresses the living to protect those who may live. Chapter and verse? We don’t put our flesh into it, only threat, force, and arrogance. Romans 13:7? Honor what you honor? Respect for whom you respect? Do you not see the damage you’ve done your credibility? You’ve sold yourselves to elitism and power—and call it godly. For the children…

The spiritual man is to be a cause for amazement. 44:37. They bother and baffle the natural man.

I pretty much terrify people 46:17. That is why I’ve been told that I am an ‘agent of Satan,’ because I oppose the nationalistic framework that American Christianity sits in right now. It is a total mistake to suppose non-Christian people are non-moral. Your sermon Tim, strongly implies that. Yeah, there are hedonists out there who don’t care one bit as there are Christians out there who don’t care one whit about those they regard as being lesser than them. People are people. Some good, some bad. My initial advice, Tim, is to not put into the church’s head that they, because they go through the motions, are not inherently morally superior to ‘the others’ because the church, Tim, has been seduced by power. The power to do ‘good’ things. The will to power is morality to the Christian Right. We are lost in this. And that is why we are so divided. (And will I succumb, as a member of the minority position, to the desire to submit and fall in line? No.) That is why we’ve lost credibility. Millions, like me, are leaving Tim. Just as you cut me loose, without argument or consideration (but with a threat, how cute,) so goes many who cannot reconcile the grabbing of political power with the serving of Christ.

I think there should be something about us that is winsome. 46:40

There is something about them… 47:00 Do you not see, in the guise of all you think is holy, that those formerly within the church who are now leaving, that there is nothing charming, or moral, in the likes of Trump, Gosar, or Greene? There is nothing winsome in a program of lies. Nothing redeeming in white supremacy. It is woven into who we are, and this is what the world sees in us because we will not separate from White Christian Nationalism and its promise of power. You simply demand that the unrighteous be as you as are. You refused to even offer the dignity of an opposing moral argument. Why would you? You are superior.

Is the way I live my life a cause for amazement? 47:15

If being called a weird dude who ‘marches to another drum’ (has literally been said to me) counts, then yes. I’ve been criticized for agonizing over what is right. Do I amaze people for my manners, appearance and decorum? Nope.

Do I sense power and insight in our daily life? 47:31

I claim no supernatural insight. But I can recognize an evil and dishonest man when I see one. And despite whatever practical reasons to forward the faith are given to follow such a man, I will refuse. The ends do not justify the means.

Do I see the world differently than the world sees itself? 47:37. In world comprised of billions of people, how does it see itself? That is an assumptive question Tim which allows the parishioner to image ‘how the world sees itself’ for him or herself. The shortsightedness and ignorant of this question which reinforces our own ‘right’ view of things, to the exclusion of ‘the others,’ is all too common. Aww, but doesn’t sound so righteous?

 Are my desires, values, and priorities noticeably different from the world’s?  47:45 Again, nationalism is assumed. It permeates everything. Nothing Tim said challenged the rightness of the desire, values, and priorities the machine of the Christian Right has put firmly into our heads.

You quarrel with one another; doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your sinful nature.  50:27 It all stick with the sermons about Genesis 3 & 4 about sin separating relationships. I am the carnal man. What decides? Authority. Of course.

Double-mindedness. 51:32- 55:05 Carnality remains a powerful influence. Difference between spirit-filled and spirit-controlled. What can you expect from the carnal Christian?

Immaturity 56:12 Caught up in what they think rather than what the scriptures teach. Jealousy and strife. Quarrelsome.

Spiritual people sow seeds of peace and harmony.

Carnal people do the opposite sowing division and doubt. 58:37 The worst is a ‘judgmental attitude.’ Once again, fall into line. Do not question the leadership. Do not question what we, the authorities, say is right.

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Putting on our genius hats to solve some problems

“Whenever we place a higher priority on solving problems than pursuing God, we are immoral.” Larry Crabb Finding God.

Just when I think we couldn’t get any dumber, under the guise of emptying self in pursuit of God’s blessing, our wise leader quotes the above placing the quote within the context of apparent immorality of trying to first better our circumstances rather than ‘allowing God to better us.’ I’ve heard this kind of thing before; on the surface it may sound good, but it bugs me every time I hear it. He continued by asking the question if we would like to see revival in us by allowing God to ‘better us,’ which would lead to revival sweeping across the globe. I’m going to unpack a few reasons why the good sounding idea of pursuing God to better us, because it is commonly understood within the context of Christian Nationalism, is driving people away from God and the church.

The Bible, from which the doctrines of Christianity are commonly believed to be drawn from, is a very human document. Reading any significant part of it literally requires the acceptance of an enormous number of contradictions. Even biblical ‘literalists/fundamentalists’ pick and choose what they will regard as ‘literal’ and blur the rest. The teachings of Christ, which even many non-Christians admire, clashes with a good part of the misogyny, racism, and sheer brutality of a good part of the Old Testament, and with the primary focus of evangelical church today to grab up as much political power to in turn force people to behave the way we’ve been taught by our illustrious leaders that everyone ought to behave—to God’s glory of course. Christian Nationalism, as we’ve been fooled into believing is ‘biblical,’ (preaching from the book of Nehemiah is a common local pulpit tactic; but this is lesser as FoxNews, the Christian media machine, and the echo chambers of social media do most of the rest,) is itself brutal and racist. Within our environment of nationalism, revival would be very beneficial to us personally; if there was worldwide ‘revival,’ so that our white-supremacist based faith would then be firmly placed in hearts and minds of everyone, ‘we’ would not have to deal with all the messy, violent, rebellion and contradiction-creating problems of employing force to make people behave while still preaching to them they have ‘freewill’ as a gift from God. Oh, how selfless we are!

Force is now our game. Don’t talk to me about doctrine; it’s a rare Christian who gives (or knows) two-shits about that anymore. Theology has been jettisoned for political action. Our illustrious leaders, hand-picked by God, in conversational relationship with Him, can, for example, now openly fraternize with the likes of the Unification Church and various other ring-wing organizations like Sean Moon’s AR-15 church without any risk of blowback—the only thing that matters is that politically we’re syncing up to fight what the right-wing desperately fears. This is pursuing God to the Christian Nationalist. Obviously, there are many factors involved but fear and a need to uphold a sense of supremacy serves as a motivator to morph the ‘gospel’ away from solving social problems (after all, we are a society in which people can choose to solve, or to create, problems for each other) towards something much more individual and personalized—hence the ‘better us.’

We are now ‘immoral’ for trying to solve problems in our ever so personalized faith. Ever wonder why we poo-poo science? Scientists try to solve problems; they focus their attention on them. How evil is that? Crabb’s quote didn’t pop out of a vacuum, but out a very self-centered worldview. According to today’s Christian worldview, problems are handled by the proper (patriarchal) authorities as established by God’s Word, which, funny enough, was compiled by men in power who included what was needed to provide divine authority to back the ‘natural’ order of things. The Bible answers everything, don’t you know? Oh yeah, if it doesn’t specifically cover a particular problem then the ‘bible’ says to obey those whose authority has been ‘biblically’ established. All the wonderful ambiguities covered by the simple saying, “Everything happens for a reason according to God’s plan.” All evil accounted for; case closed. Questioning the group identity gets you shut out quickly.

The ‘holy’ thing to do now is create problems for others. For example: ‘Purity’ culture, a multifaceted ‘standard’ in evangelical culture which establishes ‘clear’ roles and a plethora of prohibitions (and inhibitions) regarding anything related to sex, according to scientific data collection and analysis, not only does not work to achieve its various stated goals (to make a ‘better us’, i.e., virgins) but does serious long-term mental, emotional, and sexual damage to those subjected to it. Sensitive souls will be plagued by confusion, guilt, and shame by what are demonstrably false teaching concerning who we are; what and why we feel what we do and how we function as humans is to be ignored and/or suppressed. We are to pretend; that is holy. Sociopaths, those who don’t really care much for the well-being of others (but know how to pretend to do so,) can take advantage of these ‘purity’ teachings to suppose themselves to be ones who ought to be in power since they possess the ‘aggressive’ qualities required (in the Dobsonian universe) for leadership as they are less likely to held accountable for their ‘indiscretions’—by either their peers or those they rule. Hence, considering the almost daily scandals of our leaders diddlin’, boning, groping, molesting, screwing, skewing, covering for each other as they hide behind a veil of authority, the very sins our elites are guilty of are conveniently projected upon the demonic opponents of ‘God’s’ rule—the ‘groomers,’ and ‘child-rapists’ who would like to teach science-based sex ed (and liberals in general.) The science says that early sex education provides, for example, both the vocabulary and sense of self-ownership which makes it much more difficult for molesters to operate. This is an established fact. You Puritans out there may be well intentioned, but you have been fooled into supporting a predatory system in which those we are supposed to protect are deliberately being kept ignorant—and hence, helpless. Humans are not pure, period. We never will be. We hurt. We struggle. We question. We lust. Why can’t we just cut the shit, and refuse to judge, regulate, crush, stifle, obfuscate, posture, control, deny, and starve desires to just try to enter each other’s experiences and hurts to try to help a fellow human being? That’d be painful, wouldn’t it?

In our efforts to pursue God, a nebulous, subjective, feelings-based, highly personal endeavor (so we won’t be immoral,) let’s extend our purity culture, which fucks up our own youth, to employ the might of the government to heavily regulate the speech of everyone thus creating more demonstrably objective problems for the whole of God’s great country. Let’s move to freedom (for the elite few,) shall we? The harmful, arrogant idiocy of the various ‘don’t say gay’ bills being proposed is simply stunning. The extent and depth of the possible impact of the possible legislation is massive. (This isn’t FoxNews, conjured out of thin air bullshit about voter fraud, stealing elections, and Muslim take-overs; this a real, matter of public-record, examinable pieces of religiously motivated proposed legislation restricting the free speech of millions of people.) Where to even start? Without getting too deep in the weeds, one big thing the holy ones are clearly saying (one does not have to think too hard on this,) that only some children are worth protecting because you find it unholy to talk about ‘icky’ human things that many children are struggling with. The ‘holy’ thing is to refuse and deny, ignoring the massive suffering of many, all to make you feel better about yourselves. To assuage the holy fear of ‘the others,’ the Christians are telling a lot of suffering people that they are not even worthy of the dignity of an acknowledgment, let alone a conversation. Ignore a problem and it just goes away, right?

Shame and isolation are your weapon—this literally brings death. Refusing the humanity of a suffering human being alienates and isolates that human being making them even more vulnerable to abuse, bullying, and suicide. The ‘evil’ scientists working the problem to try to help the vulnerable, but your minds, what ‘they,’ the immoral, are thinking about what is forbidden and hence evil. Could it be that ya’ll not clever enough to figure out how to help in any other way? (Oh yeah, that might be painful too.) Reject me as a traitor all you want and keep ‘pursuing God’; I’m siding with the scientists.

Forbidding speech (and even thoughts) you don’t like refuses to even address the underlying struggles and problems real people have, much less caring enough to attempt to render aid. You are telling people that you find ‘icky’ that they do not matter and that they should just shut up. It’s inhumane. It’s elitist. It’s hateful. It’s authoritarian. It’s selfish. The holy ones are harming children, God’s children, to make yourselves feel better to sooth your fear, because a whole predatory system of ‘holier-than-thou’ elitists, who want to protect their power, taught you that this strategy of shaming and silencing is what ‘God’ wants. You even find utility in lying to kids in you own sex ed curricula to shame and scare them straight. Utterly despicable. Purity culture is an extremely harmful, human hating, racist, misogynistic, elitist, authoritarian crock of shit.   

I am trying to hold on the teachings of Jesus; the church is making it very difficult for me to do so. Jesus claimed to speak for the Father; how do I know He wasn’t blowing smoke? His values were generally in line with the values found in the gentile forms of humanism. He ministered to the sinners and outcast. He suffered and denied the use of political power. His followers suffered and died attesting to something they were able to know was an actual lie or not. But men love their power and so Jesus’ teaching has been corrupted to uphold the power of men. Should I be willing to give many of the authorized repeaters of the ‘Word of God’ the benefit of the doubt— ‘they know not what they do’?

It’s difficult to not think the program from the pulpit is not consciously aware of its support of Christian Nationalism. Week after week, from what used to be my home church (they still haven’t given me my letter of release,) the teaching from the pulpit can be easily placed into the nationalist worldview. We’ve been admonished, in the face of all the division in these days, to focus on our similarities rather than upon our differences, which means the minority should just shut up and get with the program. The last sermon’s point was that sin separates relationships. How convenient. The one, like me, who has passionate issues with the destructive aspects of the group’s identity must be the one who’s guilty. This would help the herd’s conscience in letting certain troublesome people go. No self-examination necessary; nothing to see or think about here. I am the one who is immoral. Simple. Dismiss.

There was a time when Christian Humanism wasn’t a dirty phrase. We today enjoy the consequences of adopting a lot of the ‘enlightenment’ values which includes the desire to solve human problems and increase human flourishing in all areas of life. Why would God have a problem with this? God went all out in trying to reach us, which should give us some clue as our importance—as depraved as we’ve been told we are. As far as solving problems goes, even little ones matter. Jesus, for example, made wine for a wedding.  Are there Puritans out there who might have some problems with the priority of this miracle? In what way was Jesus pursuing God when He solved this little social problem? Why was the problem so important? Was the action motivated by what Jesus believed about people and their problems?

Show me someone’s actions and I can get some general idea of what they believe. Show me someone in their Sunday best, dining out after church and being rude and cheap with the wait staff—that shows what he or she believes about people and the order of things. (Yes, this is a peeve of mine.) Show me someone who whines about immigrant invasion, and I have some idea that that person is afraid the immigrant may cost them something. May that cost, in that person’s mind, mean impeding the development of a ‘better self’ within that person’s identified tribe? Talking about a ‘better us’ leaves us vulnerable to what the culture’s image of what ‘better’ is. The idea of the ‘better us’ is nebulous and always at-risk—a fragile idea bouncing around in hostile, threatening environment. Our feelings about what God may be thinking about this or that in terms of our being ‘better’ or ‘best’ are not sufficient to fill the gap—people have done, do, and will continue to do terrible things because they honestly believe God told them it was for the best. It’s a trap.

Thinking about a ‘better us’ conjures up a reaganesque image of the ‘city on a hill.’ The vision imagined here is one of power and beauty which entices the world’s people to be like us. It is a demanding and arrogant vision which has born fruit to suppose what the ‘better’ is. The vision trains us to view anything outside of the realm of what the true ‘patriots’ and Christians (as the concepts have merged) claim as their own as being in the valley of darkness. For example: Men have their God-given role—masculine and aggressive. Women their roles—feminine and submissive.  The Roe leak shows clearly what the ‘better’ role of woman is according to Christian culture—submissive wife and mother. Men will decide how that is enforced. The ‘better’ is a world of enforced hierarchy to impose order, lest we give our ‘approval’ to what we deem is evil. I don’t see Jesus teaching this view of human interaction. Jesus, as God, had (and has) the power, being omni-everything, to make us behave. He doesn’t. Does this mean He gives His approval to all the evil men do? This should be obvious but sadly it isn’t. And sadly, we don’t realize all the evil our concept of ‘better’ brings to the world.

The ‘liberal’ attempts to escape the idea of the ‘better’ to some idea of equality among people who are profoundly different from one another. A mind which clamors for order and control sees the quest for diversity in equality as a recipe for chaos. Is it? Think of what Jesus did. He dined with sinners and tax-collectors. He valued women and children. He rejected political power. He criticized arrogance and mere religious observance. He took upon Himself the form of a servant serving others even to the point of suffering a horrifying death. This, to the liberal, is a path away from concept of the ‘better.’  

Many powerful discussions of what plagues Christian thought, which leads to ‘Christian’ action, occurs within the horror-drama Midnight Mass. The limited series warrants its own discussion, but in short, one of the themes is the (mis)use of religious authority to justify the bringing about of a ‘better’ world by using an angel’s gift to make a better immortal human thus defeating death. The most beautiful, yet horrifying, examples of love came from those who rejected authority, force, and control to rather sacrifice themselves to both death and the unknown to give others a choice and a chance. I cried several times. (How masculine is this?) The church has yet to escape the path to great evil as allegorically depicted in Midnight Mass. We do our best to bring about the future we want, under the cover of our understanding of what God wants for our future. Our certainty ensures us that it is indeed God doing the talking about what He wants us to do. This is a mistake with serious consequences.

Human existence is one of doubt and struggle—doubt is pain. In order to alleviate this pain, many of our leaders offer us certainty, making us extremely dangerous to literally everyone around us. The ‘better’ self is supposedly fixed by the obvious truth of scripture—so we are told. Some of this danger can become both physically and psychologically harmful as we become militant in enforcing our certainty; some of this danger involves risking our emotional investment in each position should we be challenged. There are strategies to address the threat. According to the Right, the ‘liberal’ version of the ‘better’ in equality in diversity is not only a recipe for chaos but also a call to depravity. This doesn’t make any sense to me, both according to reasoning regarding the availability of power (to God,) and according to the common dictum that ‘all things work to the glory of God.’ To which I reply, who oversees enforcing the ‘better’ anyway? Who really is in charge? Is God calling the shots or are you all? Who resolves all the conflicts regarding what ought to be taken literally in the Bible? Judging by all the infighting among those who claim to speak for God as to what His Good and Perfect Will is, nobody does. Who decides what God’s Will is concerning those matters where the Bible is completely silent? There is no shortage of hypocrisy on any side; considering this I still believe the ‘better’ is to reject the idea of the ‘better’ altogether in favor of just accepting what is different—and working to differentiate what is evil, and what is our business, from there. No easy task. Ethics are messy.

Relative power works into the acceptability equation determining if one is merely tolerating something he or she believes is a sin and applauding the sin (Romans 1:32) by showing active support for the practice of that sin. Example: Paul Gosar and Margorie Taylor Greene went to a AFPAC meeting (one of many Christian Nationalist organizations to funnel money from and channel supremacist rhetoric to the masses) and stood alongside Nick Fuentes, a very well-known white supremacist who is, among many things, a holocaust denier, and believes white violence on January 6th was justified while the BLM violence was unacceptable. The GOP leadership said that there is no place in the GOP for white supremacy and that Greene and Gosar would get a stern talking to. Wow. Lip service. Gosar and Greene are still getting money from the GOP for their campaigns proving there is room in the GOP for white supremacy. Another GOP asshat defending two sitting members of Congress cavorting with Fuentes sent a picture of Al Sharpton saying we’ll talk about Fuentes when democrats start talking about Sharpton—implying an equivalency. Greene defended her actions using ‘Jesus, God, and Country’ rhetoric identical to that employed by the KKK in their heyday in the 1920’s. (For the sake of brevity, look all this shit up yourself if you don’t believe me—it’s a matter of public record.) In other words, the GOP and the White Christian Nationalist establishment is collectively arguing that Gosar and Greene are justified in hanging out with these white supremacist sinners just as liberal democrats claims to be justified in hanging out with sinners at, let’s say, a Pride Parade. Let’s unpack this.

In the history of the United States, minority groups, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latin Americans (in other words anyone who does not look and act well enough to pass as white,) homosexuals and other queer folk, Jews (although it’s a common trope among white supremacist folk that Jews run the world,) Muslims, etc., and women have been pushed to the margins of ‘acceptable’ society. Our Constitution specifically empowered white men as central to the power structure; that same Constitution had to be later amended to allow non-white people and women various rights as citizens. Despite Constitutional amendments, we enacted Jim Crow laws, employed rhetoric concerning the proper order of things, and institutionalized a church supported system of white terrorism and predatory patriarchy to keep ‘the others’ in their place. Our history of systemic and institutional violence against marginalized groups is well established despite all the bullshit generated on the right to obscure and deny that fact. Historically marginalized (putting it nicely since the history includes truly horrifying terrorism perpetrated against them by the dominant group) people speaking of ‘Black Power’ and ‘Gay Pride,’ for example is not therefore the same as the white supremacist nonsense of ‘Jesus, God, and Country’ since the ‘power’ these marginalized people want lies in equal rights and recognition. They, for the most part (like the Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam for a possible example,) are not making the argument that they are inherently superior beings and hence ought to be in charge to make everyone shut up and obey them. The question and evaluation involve power—all this flak is over power. Period. Marginalized groups want to be recognized as equal human beings to live their lives as they see fit. If they aren’t making you do what they’re doing, or to believe what they’re believing, why is it your business to tell them how to live?

Attending a ‘Pride Parade’ for example may not necessarily be supporting the idea that everyone ought to be LGBTQ+. One may simply support the idea of the separation of church and state and openly say so by attending an event the Christian Nationalists say should be forbidden because of their religious belief. If, in some crazy reality, the LGBTQ community was politically dominant and claimed the divine right, by the authority of its LGBTQ God, that ‘straight’ people be silenced by law, have their private ‘activities’ outlawed, and to look the other way concerning violence committed against them, do you not think there would not be a bunch of caterwauling on your side about freedom, human rights, and what not? Damn right you would be. Freedom as the Christian Nationalist understands it involves maintaining the illusion that they are the superior beings who are divinely anointed to be in charge; all the ‘others’ are less than human. You and your politicians don’t even bother to hide your ‘subhuman’ language.

Exchanging truth for a lie, the Christian Right has drafted and promoted an extensive mythology about the United States being a Christian nation. A good part of the list of sins listed in Romans 1 revolves around idolatry, which involves, among many things, the deliberate attempt to invite a spirit to embody a thing in order to enjoy its blessings in exchange for something the spirit would want. (A flag could serve as a symbol easily enough to convey the required offering of loyalty—which is why I refuse to honor the flag.) American evangelicals have, in a shocking display of evil, covetousness, and malice against those not viewed as ‘true’ Americans who might cost them something, have become the applauders of malicious deceit as they’ve surrendered their minds to the untruthful, toxic, hateful, haughty, boastful, emotionally charged, play acting just pulling false inflammatory stuff out of their ass to stir you up, proposing idiotic solutions to show you that there would be hope if it wasn’t for the damn liberals, FoxNews, so they may be willfully dull their brains to be fooled into believing an insolent, faithless, sociopathic liar and inventor of evil is the ‘chosen one,’ the instrument to wield State power, so they, the faithful ones of God, the commanders of the instrument, can righteously carry out the heartless and ruthless plan to rule over those who are not the chosen ones of God. Who you are shows clearly in all the cover-ups of evil. The church is diseased.

Our refusal to distance ourselves from our acceptance of a culture based on lies, our acceptance of and calls to (white) violence, the evils of the patriarchy, our worship of our pastors (and our ‘Christian’ politicians,) not only forgiving them but applauding them even when they lie in their confessions, is the witness to the world you call evil. You consider yourselves ‘better’ than others to rule over them. Is this what Jesus called us to do?

A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.” Luke 22: 25-27

Do we suppose this command to mean it only applies to how we treat each other? Given our history of bloodshed not only against pagans but against those among us who’ve twisted the faith to the extent of deserving torture and death, I would say we have persistently nasty habit of not being able to agree upon who ‘each other’ is, who is acceptable and who is not, and worthy of consideration as full human beings made in the image of God. The rhetoric of the ‘better us’ in the sermon certainly does not challenge the teachings of White Christian Nationalists. The AFPAC was such a meeting to affirm the superiority of some people to rule over the ‘others.’ Our sins of pride are justified because our cause is just. You justify each other. You συνευδοκονσιν each other. To the pharisees Jesus said,

“You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” Luke 16: 15.

Jesus hung out with everyone—sinners, tax-collectors, and pharisees. However, I don’t recall any calls from Him to use political power to spread His gospel. I do not see anything in the gospel accounts concerning Jesus’ character to suggest He would have attended, in a manner to show public support (which is what Greene and Gosar were doing,) a political event whose purpose was to uphold the idea that Jews were loved by God more than anyone else, forwarding the idea that Jews should therefore be ruling everyone else. It would certainly be in character for Jesus to meet these people behind the scenes to offer them a way out of that hateful racist nonsense. But no public display of support for racism.

But here we are, not seriously bothered by the lies and bloodshed, the false equivocations, the lack of care and mercy, the double-standards. We (mostly) are not wound up by our leaders cavorting with open racists, using language and reasoning identical to that of the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920’s—it doesn’t bother us much at all. Even a bloodbath of little children is obscured within the politics driven by white men frightened by those who are continually heartbroken by the slaughter.

Are the righteous heartbroken by the slaughter? No, we are more concerned about our rights and an imagined cabal of Hollywood liberal, child-raping vampires (ignoring what is obvious in the SBC,) who are hell bent to destroy America. We openly promote the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ without shame. The people of color are being imported to take over so white people better unite lest they be wiped out. Tucker Carlson is more refined in how he has pushed the idea than the in words expressed by the Buffalo mass murderer. Fear sells. The shameless actors at Fox & Company know how to sell—right wing media pastors the flock. In the end, our affluence has led into yet another great circling of the wagons. The savages are attacking and we the righteous must defend what is rightfully ours.

This swings us back to concept of focusing on solving problems, instead of pursuing God, as being evil. History, statistics and science tell a far better story about what threatens us. But we are distracted by a concept of God-inspired ‘self-improvement’ program carried out and enforced by and through the expectations of our group identity. We have become so morally confused and misled about identifying right from wrong, that even, saying it again, when one of our leaders lies in their confession from the pulpit, we give them standing ovations. (Please read this link for the clueless depravity of this response; it is very telling and illustrative concerning who we’ve become.) There is little heartbreak, restitution, or restoration for the victims. Our endless worry of appearances over people to not sully our world outreach ensures that our cannibalism will not end. I’ve been following the Southern Baptist Convention cover-ups for years. Even when it finally goes to national news, the right-wingers refuse to cover it—just whispers here and there I suppose. Image is everything. Just have ‘faith’ and pray that God will bring about a better you. As for me, my heart is breaking daily.  

 It does not seem impossible to me to suppose that pursuing God can be concretely done by working to solve human problems. Bloggers and podcasters are trying to offer help in understanding and dealing with religious trauma. I’m learning, listening, and struggling through it, doing my therapy processing on this blog. Our church’s response is to play pretend that little if nothing is seriously wrong with the faithful leaving it open to suppose the separation of millions from the church is due to the sin of those who separate; sermons on Genesis chapters 3 & 4 reinforce this point. My home church, with its asshat interim pastor, did one just the other week (I know, repeating myself.) I would like to think he is just too stupid to realize what he is doing, but my head tells me otherwise. Tim is all in for nationalism. And so, I must save myself and try to help anyone who will allow me to help, to get out, go through the grieving process, and try to find a way to still hold on to Jesus. I am deeply wounded but I know what I must do.

It is wrong, and idiotic, to not only separate pursuing God and solving human problems from each other, but to put it into people’s heads that objectively, scientifically working to solve problems is immoral. This includes working on our own problems. Perhaps if my head were still dulled to suppose that the key to overall health involves my perceived connection with God, perhaps I could learn how to disconnect from the evil I see all around me to just focus or me and my (perceived) relationship with God. For all the trouble I have with doctrine of inerrancy, I fail to how this is biblical since I think of one story, after another story, after another horrifying story, of God’s faithful enduring great suffering and the perception of abandonment. What I suffer from is a moral awakening; and my repentance is costing me. Time to move on from my past sins to work the problem. The ‘better me’ does not exist.; there is only the me now. It is enough.

Peace be with you all.

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The house built upon the sand…

A few thoughts on yesterday’s sermon:

Prefacing the sermon was an appeal from the district leadership to unite in prayer recognizing the general state of division within the church. The appeal condensed down to an assertion that we need to focus more on what we have in common and not dwell on our differences. I see this as an appeal to the noisy few, the clear minority, to relent in their objections, shut up, and come back into the fold. Before getting too far ahead of myself, let’s move to the sermon which was about the importance of foundations to hold things up.

We, who do not listen, take to heart, and do the words that Jesus taught are as those who built their houses upon the sand. The tides rise, the winds blow, the torrent falls, and so the structure falls. Does this merely apply to the individual, or to the institution which instructs the individual? Our differences are severe; and yes, you are correct in saying the church, as a whole, is in deeply divided trouble. I see today’s situation as similar to that which Jesus observed 2000 years ago. The guidance people received concerning what ‘right’ is, and what God wants from us, was wanting; it still is. Where do we find reconciliation between the sorrow of Christ and those He saw as sheep without a shepherd? Did the leadership of that time assume responsibility for its failure? Will it now? As is, the failure of the edifice, is the sheep’s fault—according to many shepherds (and this sermon.)

How does leadership fail people? Lack of vision? Simple error and/or misunderstanding? Circling the wagons to protect itself? Setting themselves up as being the most important? What is the teaching of Christ? How shall we sum those teachings? There are some stark differences in how many of us interpret what Jesus taught. Shall say that the meat is the maintenance of our laws? (As that Trumpian nutbag from Georgia clearly said.) To the maintenance of borders and the prosecution of those who seek shelter from oppression? (Which is a central belief of Trumpism.) Our differences pastor have moved far beyond matters of left and right. In my mind, and as I’ve argued time and again, the diagram of what comprises the teachings of Christ and the teachings of Church have diverged irrevocably; those who stand in your positions of authority have abused that authority too long. I don’t believe you anymore—along with millions of others. The secular folks understand the teaching of Christ better than Christians seem to. People hate it when I say this; I understand the hostility.

The house crumbles as the leaders continue to call us to obedience. And what is the point? Shall we check our boxes? Go to church—check. Pray—check. Tithe—check. Fill sandwich bags for the homeless—check. It’s not that charity is bad, it’s that it is cover—a veneer over the fact that FoxNews et. al. is discipling the flock into believing what is antithetical to a life of caring for those who are not us. Kierkegaard lived, and said, this far better than I ever could. We live and feast off the blood of those lesser than us. Our media, our leadership, our massive edifices of disinformation, our echo chambers, have taught us to accept a system of lies to save America for God. The unification of church and state has finally come after decades of hard work and ‘sacrifice.’ A few of us are appalled at the thought of the church selling itself to power. And yet, from the pulpit, we are piously called to called to submit in obedience. Believing what I do, in how I frame the teachings of Christ, would it not be the rankest betrayal, of not only Jesus but also of my integrity, to submit to this corruption?

This is where I get angry…

Was there anything concrete in your sermon? It was fill-in-your-own-blanks according to the dominant Christian culture bullshit. Nothing revolutionary or challenging there. Are you aware of the depth of the separation between those who love the teachings of Christ and say, ‘yes’ but to the church say, ‘go fuck yourself’? (And yes, it is a moral assessment.) How did the teachings of Christ come to instruct us to grab at worldly political power? Millions of us are saying ‘no.’ We are saying ‘no’ to you and to all of the Christian nationalists and sympathizers who have even hijacked the flag for themselves. It’s your flag now, that’s why we rebels don’t want to look at it anywhere.

The Christian answer is to keep people ignorant and distracted lest we all come to hate America? Ever think that all the associations of hatred and bigotry, the wild, irrational love of a despicable man, the violence, the censorship of thought, the gaslighting, the patriarchy (purity culture and the mountain of James Dobson bullshit which has saddled millions of us with endless contradiction, guilt, shame, and relational dysfunction so we all can have the appearance of holiness to make the leadership look good,) authoritarianism, and the good ‘ole white boy terrorism to keep the non-white folk in their place might have something to do with why some people hate (and fear) America and its fucking flag? Of course, there are good things about the United States, many have suffered and died for noble causes, but we are in serious trouble because of all the lying and manipulation. Remember what was said in 1984 about history? It went something like this, ‘he who controls the past controls the future; he who controls the present controls the past.’ This is why people like me are shamed, denigrated, undermined, and ignored by those who think they can keep it all in hand by (today’s equivalent of) burning books. The Christian witness is very full of itself and projects an image of the fear of people finding out what the truth really is. What are you so afraid of that you all must be, and embrace, a bunch of assholes to keep people ignorant? The church grasps at power to soothe its fear as it seeks to silence its perceived enemies; that way, we’ll all believe America is the greatest nation on this earth.

FoxNews fills in the blank by stoking the fear and outrage over things that should not concern us (because it is none of our business) while rejoicing in your own toxic culture of ignorance and lies. In the interest of holiness (the appearance of anyway,) we are really, really concerned about who is fucking who. Yet, we think it is best to keep young people in the dark about sexuality. This posture demonstrably hurts them. No honest conversations here, that wouldn’t be prudent. The purity culture is harmful to everyone be they male, female, or, especially, non-binary. Leaving the bulk of argument against all the Dobson inspired destruction to another day, I’ll just point out yet again that appearance of good does not matter, people matter. Disempowering people by feeding them bullshit while at the same time promising to protect them is very harmful to the people being managed in authoritarian fashion. I’m siding with the science on what is harmful and what isn’t. I will not be compliant with the demonstrably harmful teachings of the church.

To be fair, I’m an asshole too. There is no riding the edge of the dime. There is no compromise—those days are gone. Shall we check numbers? Shall we check about how we feel about those numbers? The fact, brothers and sisters, is that people are leaving. Disgusted. I’ve gone over this time after time. Because I do not comply, which is what the sermon was all about, the whole question of ‘what is the good life?’ has been condensed by our Christian leaders into a neat little package of hygiene, obedience, attendance, tithing, and charity. Got to put some truth in there to make all the rest of the bullshit palatable. What remains is a call to ignore the elephant in the room.

I’ve been called a ‘hateful divider,’ and an ‘agent of Satan,’ but truthfully there is little which saddens me more than a right-wing ideology that not only obliterates but substitutes for those things we have recorded that Jesus taught us. I know the ‘righteous’ will have their panties in a wad about me using profanity. Got me? The Bible does not discuss or contain all there is to know about ethics. There must be a ‘mode,’ an ‘idea,’ or, heaven forbid, a worldly philosophy about things the Bible didn’t give us rote commands to follow. Do Christians not realize that in forwarding the philosophy of Fundamentalism/Conservative Evangelicalism which, among other things, promised answers to everything (supposedly contained in the Bible) has only built a system to maintain the power of the men behind the pulpits? This is a big part of what the ex-vangelical rebellion is all about; we object to the foundation the evangelical church has laid for itself.

Yes, I am in rebellion. But, to maintain order, and if I am to maintain my material prosperity, it is imperative that I be seen (and marginalized) as a madman. In this sense, I am completely disposable as just trouble. In our environment, saturated with lies, I pose no threat. This is heartbreaking for me. My toothless question to the ‘pillar of the truth,’ ‘why then does your house crumble?’ does not matter. But you can’t have me.

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Processing my hate

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” — Elie Wiesel

A couple days ago was Easter. I was a good boy, went to church with my wife and (thought I had sufficiently) kept my mouth shut as those who are aware of my recent retirement continue to groom me for increased service to the church. I don’t openly, personally fight anymore; the MAGA movement has won (although the visiting speaker did take a shot at the Church’s foray into politics by making the point that Jesus was not there (on Palm Sunday) to “Make Israel Great Again.” I appreciated that; but the people seem to know what they want.) This blog is where I vent; it is an effort to figure out how to care without being hateful. It has a miniscule audience—so what damage can I do?

There are a still a few people, some impending dropouts, who are interested in talking to me about what’s next. There is a lot of pain here which we are trying to process. And yet again, for voicing my case against the MAGA movement, I’m once again told, by someone that I love and respect, that I am ‘filled with hate.’ What am I to do with this?

There’s history at play here which provides some basis for my concern that I just might not be as nice of a fellow that I’d like myself to be. Being very brief, I had a violent childhood—but I didn’t carry on the tradition with my own family (not that I was perfect.)  I just retired from 28 years of service from the Seattle Fire Department. It left a few scars. The accumulated trauma, the memories, the sights and smells of blood, brains, bones, vomit, shit, burnt flesh, people screaming, spitting, in pain, insanity, and rage fills me with copious doubt about how those experiences may have made deep physiological and psychological changes within me. Scientists are studying how accumulated trauma changes people. It does. Is my perception of reality in trouble? Am I really this awful, hateful person? As I see it, I don’t raise my voice or call people names, I just state my case as the situation presents itself. Yet the accusation (of being hateful) still scares me. Why?

What gives? To keep myself sane, I constantly question and study. I grew up with gaslighting. Or did I? That ever remains the question to which I’ve even hired a few therapists to help me figure out if I am the one who is wrong and hateful. Or do I telegraph a message to mean people who can use this sensitivity to hurt me for sport? Physically, I can be intimidating—I’m aware of this. How do I maintain my sanity, when it is sometimes said that in the expression of my convictions that I am a hateful person? Just shut up, don’t rock the boat, and get to work. Just what is the work?

Circle the wagons? (Which is a big part of what I’m doing here.) Continue to collect ‘evidence’ of my right position to justify myself? Or do I give up on the whole notion of right and wrong? Is that what love is? Let’s list and examining a few (possible) ‘hateful’ excerpts from the bible…

“But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. Again, if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and you will have delivered your soul.” Ezekiel 3: 19-21

It is generally agreed that there is such a thing as sin and here we are being told that we are obligated to illuminate that. Plenty of landmines exist which require investigation into how Jesus went about doing this task. I do not recall Jesus’ thumping on ‘sinners’ but rather His harsh words were directed at the teachers of law—the righteous. But there is still an obligation to warn the wicked as well. How’d He do that? Did He use that term, wicked, against those who weren’t part of the club? I don’t recall that He did. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would convict the world of its sin (John 16: 8) which was affirmed by Paul in Romans 2:15 that everyone has a conscience. I think Elihu was correct in his rebuke of Job (chap 16) in which God is said to be the one who convicts. Does this mean that we are to remain silent? (At least at certain times.)

This question requires wisdom which we all called to seek. The way I interpret the matter of witnessing involves two entirely different modes of word and action for those who do not claim to have the light of the Holy Spirit and those who do make that claim—simply because the language is different. Any time we embark upon a new learning project, we must learn new vocabulary which requires context in which to understand the new concepts and interrelations. So, if the world is going to understand our language concerning the problem of sin and our proposed solution, we’ve been told we need to provide the context for that understanding by simply loving one another (John 13:35.) Right?

I have no idea how many times John 13:35 has been thrown in my face. ‘Loving,’ in the view of those who use this verse to silence me, is basically shaming me to keep my mouth shut and affirm whatever happens to be accepted by the ‘majority’ as our mode and mission. (‘A good time was had by all,’ except me, I suppose.) The trouble I see with this includes (but is not limited to) conveying the appearance of having to ‘join the club’ to be unconditionally loved while at the same time we (as we are now a serious political force to be reckoned with) are throwing stones and using world power to convict the ‘sinners’ to accept our superior way to the good life. Checks and balances accounted for.

Is this the proper way of managing the appearance of our witness loving towards those who are not us? I think not. And it isn’t loving towards those who are not as skilled, connected, and charismatic ‘within the club’ who are being peer pressured to submit to the ‘Make America Great Again’ program. Love must be something more comprehensive than just being silent and nice; isn’t it?

Things would be different if the MAGA movement wasn’t so deceptive, violent, vocal, connected, and motivated to save America for God. Since I believe the MAGA movement is neither Christian in method nor goal, would I have moral culpability (before God) for remaining silent despite my firm conviction that the movement is extremely harmful in our witness to ‘the others’? Or am I more culpable for my ‘hatred’ of the movement and for the rebuke of those brothers and sisters I believe are sullying the church with a program of spreading lies and authoritarianism? Screwed either way? Does the matter boil down to the question of truth and its importance? How do I deal with all the prophets (in the bible) bringing the people of God up on charges of fraud, injustice, and oppression? Or Jesus calling the pharisees out for misleading and abusing the people? (Matthew 23 for example) Yes, I know—I’m not Jesus, and I’m not a prophet…

Some more scripture and brief commentary:

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.” Zechariah 7: 9-10 

Singling out the word sojourner, that is, a foreigner, one big issue with the MAGA movement is its obviously hateful, fearful, and discriminatory towards ‘outsiders.’ It is blaring at jet-engine decibel levels, warning us of the plague of the dangerous and unwanted invaders of our dear country. I am not allowed to point out to my brothers and sisters that God judged Israel for (among other things) oppressing the sojourner? Not a prophet, shut up… (Amos 5:13?) Okay. Was it ‘hateful’ that the prophets pointed this out, (at God’s direction)? If so, do they get a pass? Back to the status problem?

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” Isaiah 58:6

We reject those obligations even in the following verses. The general rhetoric of the MAGA movement is that the ‘others’ will be a burden to us, taxing our resources, taking our jobs, if we should take them in to feed and clothe them, thus hurting people here. Our propensity for war, our hunger for drugs, slaves (yes, slaves,) even our eschatologically motivated foreign policy makes and keeps many places in the world violent and divided, as Trump callously says, ‘shitholes.’ Where is the mercy in this? As I see it, our silence to suffering makes us complicit to the crime.

(What is even worse is using the vulnerability of those who need help to put the squeeze on them for something you want. Vulnerability extracts a steep price to be paid to those who prey; it is very expensive to be poor. The people of Ukraine are paying dearly for this right now. The ‘squeezer’ (at least the most famous one) is still in the driver’s seat collecting money. Answering the call of our chosen cheerleaders, we still have ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’ (Tee-hee—well… I think it’s funny.) Screw those whose screwing we blessed… Is this Love? (Another tee-hee—groan. Must remember to be silly at times, lest I lose it…))

Moreover, the fact that our political get togethers are not places to debate facts and policy anymore but rather places to pledge loyalty to the movement and provide adulation for a person shows the ‘others’ that we do not care one whit about those who are ‘not us.’ This is hateful. The only yoke we really wish to break is the one referring to our own (imagined?) oppression. I think I think we have been seriously misdirected regarding who is oppressing us. We are being played. The difference of opinion of what comprises oppression, and who is doing the oppressing, might be driving me crazy (Ecclesiastes 7:7?) The inarticulable common belief in ‘The Big Lie’ has stoked huge anger in those who honestly believe the election, and their hero, was stolen from them. The barrage of lies is the oppression to which the MAGA crowd suffers. But much like the past, the farmable resource (that is, us) must be placed (by the manipulation of rumors and lies already existent within a society to guide it into constructive paths) within the hierarchal ladder to stave off a revolt. In other words, the big boys stratify people (in propaganda campaigns) so that ‘they’ can maintain order (and thus extract profits.) Throughout history this strategy to maintain order has been repeated over and over again. In our judgement of human nature, social stratification is viewed as a necessary evil because it is the lesser one (to anarchy.) Having been convinced (as directed and amplified by AI which keeps the monkeys engaged) that pedophile vampires, democrats, liberals, people of color, gays, socialists, atheists, etc., are our oppressors, the MAGA group, which has been obviously (at least to those who don’t rely on blind faith—as the only evidence the MAGA faithful can provide for why they believe the election was stolen is comprised of testimony like, ‘it doesn’t smell right’) jerked around by plethora of lies and political theater is demonstrating that they still have the power to make big things happen. The whole nation will continue to suffer for a belief that isn’t even remotely true; the big boys are cashing in big time. Shrugging your shoulders and saying ‘a good time was had by all’ is not love.

Passion doesn’t make things either true or right. Blind and/or misdirected passion is extremely destructive. The fact one is not being indifferent to a matter doesn’t necessarily mean they are being loving or acting in a loving manner. Being a stooge is not loving—no matter your passion. Truth matters big time—and not going to be bullied out of this.

“Again I saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power, and there was no one to comfort them.” Ecclesiastes 4:1

“Riots are the language of the unheard.” Are they always? Can they also be stirred up through rhetoric, falsehood, and imagined and/or misdirected oppression? Should we deny our extensive history of white terrorism which sought to keep certain people in their place? Is it possible that the dominant group’s grievances could be inflamed to such a degree that the historically dominant group would go so far as to storm the Capitol to set things up once again as they ought to be? It happened.

Those same grievances are being ever and again repeated by the figurehead of the movement until it is now become a permanent part of our collective psyche. Our preachers teach our proud tradition of the Nehemiad in support of this vision of holy rule. There is nothing new under the sun, for ‘on the side of oppressors there was power.’ Who is favored in this argument over who is being oppressed? After all it seems it could be argued that it is Lord’s people who are being oppressed just due to the fact of who they are (Psalm 9: 9.) A counter…

 “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” Exodus 22:21 

The fact that we oppress (both implicitly and explicitly) our own citizens in statistically demonstrable ways (as in statistical analysis of those most at risk of death at the hands of the police for example) shows me this is a cultural matter larger than the issue of mere citizenship. Telling people, human beings, ‘I don’t know what you are talking about. Sit down, shut up. All of that is over’ when prejudice can be scientifically and statistically demonstrated in our institutions, and in open, public displays of disrespect seen as in the jaw dropping displays of racist tropes and literally turning your backs to the first black woman appointed to SCOTUS, the Odal Rune embedded in the stage at CPAC, the marching of a Confederate Flag though the Capitol building, and an execution, etc, etc, etc, is just evil. In all this, I’m turning my back towards all I was raised to believe; I don’t want the approval (Galatians 1: 10) of the dominant group. If this makes me a hater, so be it. Let’s consider motive.

Romans 1: 18-32 lists a bunch of sins and concludes with the implication that it is a sin to give approval (Συνευδοκέω) to those who practice those sins. My Greek lexicon lists the meaning of suneudokeo as ‘to be pleased with, or to applaud.’ In conversation I’ve had, people have expressed a fear to me that they must actively work to get the government to forbid the practice of these sins else, they fear, they’d be giving their ‘approval’ to those sins. Let’s reason: First, the word means ‘to be pleased with, to applaud,’ it doesn’t mean ‘to allow.’ Secondly, God has the power to make it all stop; He doesn’t. Does this mean He is giving His ‘approval’ to those who practice these sins because He allows it? Lastly, we aren’t ultimately saving anyone by making people behave (salvation by works—right?) Contrarily, as I’ve shown in other posts, the rise of the Christian Right, its bent towards grievance and dishonestly to motivate the faithful to take hold of government power to assuage our fear to not give our approval to the sins of the ungodly, tells the very people to whom we are supposed to be a witness who we really are; in doing so we misrepresent God (refer to Numbers 20: 10-13) by setting ourselves up to lord over the ’others.’ Our means to ‘Make America Godly Again’ (A flag flown at the January 6th insurrection) is deeply corrupt.

My next question: Was Peter hateful when he said this of false prophets and teachers?

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.” 2 Peter 2

These are very harsh words. It is my firm belief false prophets and teachers are at the root of the formation of the Christian Right and its mission to return America to God. With this (apostolic) example, am I to suppose that there are two sets of moral directives, one for the original apostles and another for mere believers? That seems absurd to me. Why is it that Paul said in his letter to the Colossians (2: 16- 23) to ‘let no one disqualify you…’ This is a letter to the lay folk (Am I wrong?) I know I ought to be gentle (1 Peter 3:15) and do my best to be. I try not to get personal. But to those who claim to be ‘in the know’ I tend to be direct—the pushback involves the common accusation is that I am not very loving towards my brothers and sisters when outspoken. The default seems to be that the Holy Spirits convicts the faithful and the faithful in turn convict the ungodly to turn from their wicked ways; I think I think my ‘opponents’ have it backwards.

In processing my hatred, I ask, ‘What is love and how is it conveyed?’  Through violence? Is it justified to beat a child for something of which they have no understanding? (I have personal experience with this.) If yes, then we have no common ground from which to argue. If not, why then would it be justified to beat an unbeliever for his or her unbelief? It seems the only thing the beatings (in those cases) would teach is fear. Loves drives out fear does it not? (1 John 4:18) But we do love the rod, don’t we? (Proverbs 10:13; 13:24; 14:3; 22:8; 23:13-14; 26:3; 29:15.) So many things I do not understand but this is what we get in our commitment to inerrancy and literalism—contradiction and cherry-picking to suit our own desires. I do it too. I think that the rod is only applied to those regarded as less than; appeals to reason are made with those regarded as equals. Yet, we believe, sparing the rod is the hateful option?

 After all, we are called to warn the wicked. The disagreement lies then in how this ought to be done. The authoritarians believe in force and threat in the context of failure—hellfire and damnation are the motivator. Peaceful folk believe in a more empathetic approach,

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

I believe this is where we start. Incorrigibility complicates the matter of course (some food for thought on the difference between ‘bent’ and ‘broken’ can be found C.S Lewis ‘Out of the Silent Planet’) but mostly people want to feel that they are loved. The quote, ‘nobody cares about what you know until they understand how much you care’ is attributed to Theodore Roosevelt; it is a wise saying which is mostly true. Some people are just plain broken though—turned inwardly so intensely that nothing may penetrate. The reality of this necessitates the existence of hell. Which is,

“Hell is a state of mind – ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind – is, in the end, Hell.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

Hell is not a torture chamber where angels pour boiling water down one’s throat, but rather the abode of a lonely soul so wrapped up in him or herself that nothing may penetrate—even God limits Himself from violating the depth of this choice. Is this hateful? I have a hard time accepting that God would want this for anyone, and yet He allows it. Perhaps this gives us some clue as to the depth of the incarnational magic—to reluctantly agree with the depth of suffering He endured? In the end, choice must remain if there is to be love; and if there is love, then pain will follow; and finally, heartbreakingly, rejection…

There is no remedy for my ‘hatred’ but to strive to convince others that I care first; to be believable in showing that my hatred is for that which shackles us—and not for those shackled. I must accept my imperfection and doubt in the process without letting self-righteousness take over. It is hard to believe this is possible. I still must try.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Maybe I’m starting in the middle. I need to hear the advice of Teddy Roosevelt to first provide some evidence to the human I’m talking with that I care about them, and not about obtaining power, control, or status over them. The wisdom, and defense starts in determining if they care that I care. There is wisdom in knowing which battles to fight, and which ones are an obvious total loss.

I still think that I will be accused of hate regardless, and that I must become okay with this even though it hurts. If I can honestly say to myself that I’m at least thinking about the matter of pride and power, maybe then can I stomach the failure. Disappointment in myself is okay. Being Paralyzed for fear of rejection is not. I need to remember that ‘the opposite of love is indifference;’ and that love must always be governed by truth.

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Becoming The Monster

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

I’ve spent a lifetime trying to convince myself that Christianity is true simply because I want the Jesus described in the Gospels to be a real person. I understand the general trends and teachings of the church and how Christians in general try to ‘fix’ what ails the world, relationships, and our various and conflicting attempts to engineer our eschatological destiny. We are geared to make things happen. In my lifetime, the political force of the ‘Christian Right’ has poisoned the message of the gospel, polluting it with pious nonsense, pecking orders, and filled it with the hatred of ‘perverts’ and rebels. The strategic teaching from the collective pulpits has steered the ‘light of the world’ into blind authoritarianism as the ‘answer.’ This is no accident as it emerged out of the coupling of new technologies with gross arrogance and pompous confidence of those claiming a direct phone-line to God and access to a lot of money. I fail to see how Jesus’ teaching supports the way the church largely does business today. The process of making a monster involves the unification of top-down deception from those who seek profit and power, systemic manipulation by various ideological apparatuses which train the masses to recognize the ‘appropriate’ enemies, and the self-delusion of the masses to believe that they are free. Laziness, and the lack of the recognition of the need to escape, greases the wheels of the monster-making machine.

I understand that the average Christian is just doing what they’ve been taught to believe is their duty in relation (and in balance) to the obligations expected of those lower down in the social order. Jesus, to my recollection, did not seem to concern Himself much with climbing social hierarchies, obtaining political power, and with the condemnation of sinners, yet Christian teaching often revolves around hierarchy, and the contentious categorization regarding the social tolerability of certain sins. (Any debate in response is often cast aside as an attempt at ‘sin-leveling.’) Building upon this base, the teaching from the top is that we Christians ought to take dominion over basically everything—this is a huge part of the new gospel. (The documented evidence to this new gospel spread by all the religious frauds and showmen, their lies and desires, is massive and out in the open. This is no secret, but they are strongly protected by the shield of faith.) Consider the words of Pat Robertson…

“God’s plan is for His people, ladies and gentlemen, to take dominion. . . .What is dominion? Well, dominion is Lordship. He wants His people to reign and rule with Him. . . but He’s waiting for us to. . . extend His dominion. . . .And the Lord says, “I’m going to let you redeem society. There’ll be a reformation. . . .We are not going to stand for those coercive utopians in the Supreme Court and in Washington ruling over us any more. We’re not gonna stand for it. We are going to say, ‘we want freedom in this country, and we want power. . . .'”

The word from which ‘dominion’ is translated, transliterated as ‘Radah,’ has been subject to debate over the originalist understanding as to the type and degree of this dominance. Robertson voiced a very authoritarian interpretation of the word, and mandate, which is the direction the church has taken into the realm of politics—to make America great again. Do not suppose that individual churches are immune from the overall push of literally billions of dollars of expressed media power over time; as I’ve been repeating like a broken record, if you want to put butts in pews and money in the collection plates, the one who wants to preserve his job must not seriously cross the will and teachings of the big boys. So, we talk about ‘big faith’ and other ‘fill-in-your-own-meaning’ lazy talk while other players, looking to make a buck, complicate the whole mess by engineering an electronic drug, using AI to keep ‘engaging’ content in front of our eyes, to keep us pressing the buttons because every time we press the button our lords make money. We are the ever present ‘product’ to be exploited in the never-ending information war.   

Our ‘natural’ propensity to organize ourselves into affirming echo chambers has been amplified to the Nth degree by algorithms designed to keep us outraged by anything other than the fact that we are being immorally and emotionally manipulated by big players for big money. I’m still trying to fight my way out of the trap that a good percentage of us do not realize the extent to which we are being pawned. Whatever ability we had in the past to listen to people who differ from us, and learn from them, is being destroyed by outrage itself—the church is committed to the call to charge. We are now in the next ‘Babel’ event—war is upon us. No one is immune.

We have so many factions now, it seems the chance for reunifying is extremely remote since we’ve engineered a very effective means for keeping each other at each other’s throats. Yet, from the pulpit, I’ve heard that God has mighty plans for His church, implying that we can manage these factions by force, even as, since the time Robertson made his declaration of God’s Will, religious institution membership percentages of the American population has plummeted from the mid 70’s to 47% (and still dropping) today. I fail to hear anything from the pulpit seriously asking why. (The typical reason involves a claim to a general increase in wickedness. How convenient. Or is it?)

The scientific numbers do not matter as much as the management of the perception of what is happening. An aggressive understanding of the concept of dominion, which functionally requires hierarchy, provides the means to effectively convince the remaining parishioners that all is well with us, and our mission, as evidenced by the pushback from the wicked forces of Satan; just stay the course, work harder, and have faith in God and in your leaders. Through this patriarchal system, with its ‘purity culture’ cover, we have created a system through which everyone of lower status is being denied a voice by those of higher status. Racism? Sexism? Terrorism? Injustice? Genocide? I don’t know what you are talking about… (Maybe people are tired of this?) Gaslighting requires the perception of hierarchy.    

Denying the legitimacy of voice (to the ungodly) is a very effective, primary, and justified weapon in the Christian Right’s arsenal. Since our leader’s do it without much question and/or challenge from their own, as they’ve taught the rabble that they, the elite, police themselves (pointing to this or that scripture to prove their position to the faithful as that is enough to keep the little people on board,) the ordinary folk do not concern themselves too much with the reality and/or ‘rightness’ of the process either; it is just assumed that it is justifiable so that they may win a war for God. This provides convenient flexibility for defending our own sense of comfort and stability.

For example: ‘I don’t know what you are talking about because it doesn’t say that in my Bible.’ As the chosen know the will of God, who is supreme, those am ha­arets (as in Ezra-Nehemiah) who reject ‘God’s will’ are assumed to be of lower status and thus (like Sanballat and Tobiah) are denied an audience. In all the noise, it seems nobody listens much anymore—the ‘status’ problem, as taught from the pulpits and in celebrity culture, is why. Status is very important in determining the legitimacy of biblical interpretation. This posture works beautifully to provide the righteous cover for things we don’t want to confront or even consider. In our minds, this is war. (Is this what Jesus taught us to think?) The Culture War has reached such a level of absurdity that even a book with no mention of LGBTQ issues is silenced because it has rainbows in the illustrations.

The troublesome, lower-status person or group is silenced—for their own good and the good of society. With the ‘test of faith,’ one can make up literally anything (in alliance with their chosen prophet, whom they’ve been trained to obey through copious amounts of religious advertising bolstering the authority’s credibility,) and feel completely justified, in faith, in that they are correct and doing God a solid. It’s a great recipe for authoritarianism—which is what we have the Christian mob clamoring for right now. (The free folk are hornet pissed about this right now as well. I certainly feel trapped in anger.) The ‘Seven-Mountain-Mandate’ wolves love this. Indeed, this arrogant, godless, philosophizing, self-righteous blow-hard is telling you that this recipe for the good life is horrifyingly destructive and that most people have no idea that it is a serious problem—much less grapple with how we’ve incorporated the practice of both denial and raw exercise of favored political power into our daily lives. We have no idea that we are being played by people who, most disturbingly, have convinced themselves that they are on a mission for good and God.

For example: Moms for Liberty, a rapidly growing Republican Party funded inroad back into the hearts and minds of suburban mothers, are the victims of the Controllers (refer to C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man) who’ve cleverly designed, through AI direction and amplification in social media, and in televised political theater—the embarrassing spectacle displayed in the Jackson confirmation hearings is an excellent example) a strawman version of Critical Race Theory to which the mothers, in the righteous defense of their children, can become both angry (hence not prone to think about the larger picture) and mobilized (hence effective in getting the right people elected.) Invoking the words of Dr. King, our Controllers, playing on our ignorance of intellectual history, twist those words and shove them into an entirely different reality. The originalist (that is, understanding what Dr. King meant to say at that time; ‘patriots,’ for example, seem to be very concerned with the ‘original intent’ of our founding fathers,) understanding of those words is not even considered simply because it is not useful in the ‘Save America’ project.

Amoral opportunists looking to make a buck feeding the rage on certain ‘news’ networks add ‘legitimacy’ to the mountain of lies which trap us. Some of our ‘news’ is being broadcast in Russia to bolster the cause and reasoning of their dictator to proceed with his butchery—that should say something to someone with half a brain and a functioning moral compass. The moral and intellectual disconnects are simply stunning. (What gives me hope is that many are seeing through the tactics employed by the open cabal and increasing are saying ‘no’ to remaining in the cesspool of resentment and misinformation.) Truth is brutalized as the institutions which are supposed to guard the truth are being undermined constantly—and that, to me, is profoundly both sad and infuriating. The ‘pillar of truth’ (1 Timothy 3:15) is, in its complicity, behind these constant attacks.

“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
― Garry Kasparov

Even more difficult to process is the thought that our shepherds, at least those in middle-management, are largely pawns. The mockable downward shift in Christian practice towards meeting our entertainment demands, the engineered pressure away from intellectual debate towards the enactment of ‘simple’ solutions through the exercise of faith, has led to a situation where the threat of personal attack is always imminent if one should cross the accepted norm within the faction—this reality forces us into literally thousands of warring interests. Those with any balls to stand up with a reasoned argument against ‘the norm,’ which would call for painful, serious self-examination are quickly pelted by the hailstorm. (I am not free to offer a specific example.) The majority (at least within your chosen faction) decides truth in what we just know, right? We’ve moved well beyond the recommended process of ‘iron sharpening iron’ (Proverbs 27:17,) an interpersonal debate towards finding truth, towards mass mobilization to require the submission of an ‘offensive’ voice which disturbs the herd.

As a result, American Christianity (at the ‘rabble’ level) is extremely shallow and reactionary—we lowly are just pawns who’ve been trained to police each other so that we may remain individual pawns. The dangerous desire for serious moral reflection, the truth of which could free us, has been beat out of us by simply teaching us to rely in faith that ‘God’ will tell your heart what you ought to be thinking, supporting, and doing. (Don’t get me wrong, many people in the church do many fine, loving, generous, and charitable things. This provides good cover for how we are being played by opportunistic religious and political forces.) The message of that ‘god’ is conveyed through billions of dollars’ worth of advertising bombarding us every day. Thus, our pulpits at least passively blind people to the fact of a large-scale, open-air, investigable by means of evidence and reason as subject to the mechanisms of principled peer-review (not this disingenuous, secret squirrel Q-anon garbage,) manipulation by very greedy people. This is tragic and evil.

Trump didn’t engineer this mess. He hasn’t built anything but rather has made a career of looting, leaving paths of destruction in his wake. (And sadly, he isn’t done.) Political hacks, social media engineers, religious charlatans, and even well-meaning evangelists molded and formed a system into which the manipulator, liar, and utterly morally void man could step up and make himself the master and figurehead by promising to slay the monsters. He tells us that we are not the monsters, but as he continues spreading the unending message of fear and resentment, he teaches us that we are in constant peril from the hordes of monsters seeking to destroy our way of life—our heritage. We need to fight to ‘Save America,’ and follow him, the (perhaps) most honest fellow God ever created, to slay all the demons who oppose righteousness. We still believe his lies as he continues to loot and destroy any common ground with our fellow human beings which may remain. There is no middle ground to be had. This land is our land, this money is our money, the ‘others’ who do not think, or look, like we do are not welcome. I do not recall Jesus teaching the way of Christian Nationalism.

We looked to destroy monsters, and by not being morally reflective and investigative we’ve become the biggest monster because of our fear of losing (the perception of) control. We’ve become the monster because we are so sure about our righteousness and heavenly mandate. We jealously guard our illusory treasures (Matthew 6:19-21) as the evidence of our divine blessing. We grasp at, and trust in, worldly power. We’ve become reviled and hated as the lower people shrink from our wrath…

What a beautiful, magnificent beast we’ve become.

“Sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader”

In the ‘Dawn Treader,’ Eustace had to be shown (and then accept) his state before redemption could occur. Only then was it possible for him to escape the trap. Are we ready to listen to those of lower status who disagree with the certainty of our confidence? Or will we continue to rest in the illusions provided by our lords? The choice is ours.

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My Country ‘Tis Phony

“You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. “ Exodus 23: 1

This little doozer showed up in my email box today. As you can see, it claims to be from the RNC and begins with an obvious lie. As the Christian Right, the RNC, the Trumpers, sycophants, boot-lickers, all join hands together to spread falsehoods, I now turn to mock you all with a rewrite of a beloved anthem I sang about a million times as a first grader.

Enjoy.

My country ‘tis of thee, beating the libertines

Of this I sing

Land of my fathers white

Land that the pilgrims eyed, carved on Stone Mountain’s side

Let freedom ring!

My native country be, where the cabal will flee

The One I love

I love thy shocks and shills

Thy hoods assembled still, my heart enraptured thrill

Praise god above

Our music quell the sleaze

And bring them to their knees

Greet freedom’s song!

Immortal sons awake, god’s land bequeathed retake

Our Rock to silence, break, him crowned belong

Our father’s god to thee

White male theocracy

To thee we bring

Long may our land be bright

Wise prophet’s holy light

God’s will decide by might

Crown Trump our king!