After watching an informative and objective documentary on the Sundance channel, “With God on our Side – George W. Bush and The Rise of the Religious Right in America,” the other night, I hypothesized that born-again Christians are not fit for leadership. I feel this way not because I saw a preacher screaming so angrily about me, my friends, my family and the way we live and love that he turned beet-red, veins popped out of his face and sweat soaked the collar of his blood red shirt as he ranted about wiping America clean of the scourge of homosexuals, abortionists, drug users and – gasp – liberals; but because of the fact that if you believe that you can be born-again, you cannot accept responsibility for your own actions.
Another completely objective source of information on the Evangelical religion can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism
(Sorry, I don’t know html)
First, let me explain my theological history. My great grandfather was a Lenape Indian, born on a reservation, but then grew up on a dirt farm in Jersey. He married a Jersey girl whose family was not particularly devout, so my grandfather and later my mother were raised essentially without religion. On my father’s side were Irish Catholic immigrants. The Catholic part was only political to them, at least when my Dad was growing up. Sometime when I was in elementary school, my parents decided to take me and my younger brother to a smorgasbord of religious services. We hit the Unitarian Church, the Catholic, a Lutheran, and I remember being somewhat interested in what they said in English at the Synagogue; but in second grade, in light of sitting around on a wooden bench and listening to old men drone about some miserable stuff, soccer and Transformers seemed a much better way to spend an afternoon.
We celebrated Christmas, and the point was always that giving is more important than receiving. We celebrated Easter, and the point was always.. umm.. candy, I think. Regardless, we were always raised under the Golden Rule. I learned to live by it not because an invisible man in the sky said to, not because a bunch of authors wrote stories about a Jewish martyr for the cause, but because it just makes sense. I remember winning a fistfight and my Dad asking me to remember the time when he had to pick me up from a mud puddle with a black eye. I’m still friends with the kid I fought and had to call and apologize to when we got home. It’s almost become cliché to say it, but my liberal upbringing gave me morals closer to Christ’s than most folks that I know who had to go to Church every Sunday and to CCD on Tuesday evenings despite their desperate pleadings as they were dragged off the street-ball field. I have a few specific examples, but rather than listing them, I’ll just say that never getting in fistfight and not getting laid before you get out of high school makes for a ton of built-up libido. Just like the floods in Johnstown, PA and recently New Orleans, nature always wins over man despite what we do to hold it back. It’s only moral to help avoid any harm to other humans when it does.
Now, I’ll get to the point. Thanks for bearing with me. Watching that documentary was followed up our “Day of National Prayer” yesterday, and I just wanted to beat my head off a wall. Two weeks after BushCo’s homicidal negligence in New Orleans (where some friends of mine were living), they are going to pray for the victims. I won’t ask what this is supposed to accomplish. I’ll just assume that those praying are trying to help the souls of those who died and practice the same religion get into heaven. Fine. But why is it “National”? As an atheist, this sincerely does offend me. I can relate to the lawsuit about the Pledge. What if my fiancé and I decide to bring a child into this world and they come home from school and ask about this “under God” business? How do you explain that without a tone of oppression by theocracy? Maybe that’s what prompted the Preachtour84 that my parents took me on. Maybe these people in “our national cathedral” were praying that the flood affected families get back on their feet and New Orleans is successfully rebuilt. There would be a fifty/fifty chance of these prayers and any other prayer coming true. Same as flipping a coin.
This is not to say that all prayer is pointless. I acknowledge the power of positive thinking. And if anyone needs to use a little imagination to get in the right mind frame, do it. Often. I meditate. I do so probably too often to leave time to be a good capitalist. It is not religious to me because I am not seeking powers from the outside to help me, but it is almost always spiritual as I am seeking to balance, harness, and enhance the powers inside me. I use my imagination to picture shakras lining up and emitting warm glows and bubbling springs. While I can attest that mediation usually has a positive effect, I know that it is my imagination forming these images. The feelings, motivations and inhibitions that result are indeed genuine, though, and it is my responsibility and moral obligation to not only stop myself from using my life to harm others, but to use it to help others. Doing so makes me feel good, and reinforces my “mojo” if you will. Therein lies the rub – my spirituality came from within ME and I am responsible for the actions that result from it. I not perfect, nor will I ever be, but I am always responsible for my own actions.
When George Bush launched his Operation Iraqi Freedom, this was an action that has resulted in 2,000 American soldiers’ deaths and an estimated 25,000 Iraqi citizens’ deaths. As governor, he executed 155 people. When informed of the impending disaster in New Orleans he AND (not or) his cronies choice to not take immediate action and this resulted in deaths that could have been avoided. These deaths are a direct result of his leadership. “Thou shall not kill” is a Christian commandment, which George Bush has sinned against.
And yet he prays to his God often. He was reborn from his youthful ways of drinking and womanizing without providing an equal and opposite reaction to counteract the harm he committed. Karma. His transgressions since he’s been in office surpass his growing pains in their severity exponentially. But he does not need to account for them because he can be reborn again and again. Catholics can repent again and again, and far too often the person receiving confession is a sinner themselves. Maybe George thinks that he is not sinning. That he is actually part of God’s plan and doing God’s work. The Rapture is coming, and after that it’s all gravy, anyhoo.
To quote Bill Maher – “yes, George. God does speak to you. And he’s telling you to take a hint.”
I don’t know if George actually believes in the Evangelical faith or if he is just blasphemously acting as he does to gain political power. Regardless, who in their right mind would elect him, any Evangelical, or any person that thinks that there are forces more powerful than themselves controlling what humans do? An alleged majority of the voting public did.
Get off your knees, true Christians. Pray, get motivation to really accomplish what Jesus would want America to do and get off your knees and make it happen. Our fellow Americans need you to help give them a responsible, effective government. This example of an Evangelical-lead goverment clearly has no morals and has been fatally negligent to its constituents. Americans and all living creatures deserve much, much better.
