This last week has been a real eye-opener for me. As many of you know, my husband and I took our names off the rolls of our Southern Baptist church because they supported the Iraq War from the pulpit. They called us unpatriotic. I thought that would be apex of my disillusionment with the religious community.
No, it was not the apex. This week, while my husband was in the hospital I encountered something new.
Groups of young people roamed the halls of the critical care units, and they all wanted to pray with me. I pray in my own way, and I told them no. That led to their attempts to fill me with guilt over my lost soul. I was very upset and rather sickened at their numbers. More came along after they moved on. One man came carrying a bible with a flag stuck in it. He wanted to pray as well, I said no. I then said are you a minister approved by the hospital, he said no, he was doing God’s work.
When the man who delivers our bottled water came he was very nice, he put the bottles inside for me, very kind. Then he wanted to pray with me. I said ok, and he did. It was quite long, and very emotional. Then he gave me a huge hug in the name of Christ. I guess I should not disapprove, but it sort of bothered me since I don’t know him.
I was really not prepared for all those people roaming the hallways and wanting to pray. It apparently happens all the time. I know the water delivery man meant well, but that is mixing his religion with my grief and my needs. It is just not quite right.
Two incidents also stand out of a tough guy type of thing. A parking lot attendant yelled at me and came threateningly toward me for parking off to the side under a tree. It was not in the way, but he said it just was not done. I told him my husband had been brought in by ambulance unconscious, and asked him to back off. He kept yelling until others intervened and calmed him.
In ICU I arrived a few minutes late for visiting that night as I could not find parking. The huge male nurse told me I would have to wait two hours. I said the nurse had called me to bring some things he needed, and then he yelled even more….and he said he would report the nurse. I said report her, all my kids and I will report you. Finally he came back out and said I could have one minute. I said good, kick me out. Go ahead. He didn’t.
When did we get this tough guy mentality even in hospitals? When did this happen? Why?
I started to watch the NBC special this week on evangelical Christians. I had to turn it off as it disturbed me so to see young people jumping down and waving their arms. I hear Franklin Graham is on CBS tonight, but I don’t think I will watch.
We may have begun getting the truth out of this administration, per the Libby indictment. But that is only one battle we face. I think the fiercest one will be with the all-encompassing movement of the types I saw this week. I don’t think we have started this battle yet.
I think some of our own Democratic candidates are aiding this movement along with the anti-choice stances, and their lack of understanding about separation of church and state. I think that battle is going to happen sooner than later.
I know all the Baptist hymns by heart, I still cry when I hear Amazing Grace. I have all the music from when I was the church organist and pianist. But it is different now, not the same at all. I have the sheet music for the “Blind Ploughman”, and also for “How Great Thou Art”.
I determined this week that we will never donate to candidates who do not respect women as they should. I see the dangers lurking in all this pandering to the religious right. I will not donate to nor will I vote for any candidate who will not tell me he believes in separation of church and state. No equivocation, just plain answers.
I saw too much of the new religious right and their fervor this week.
Is he still in the hospital. I am glad I did not encounter those folks while my husband was dying. I had enough trouble with hospice. Nobody I know has trouble with hospice but I did of a sort. They wanted my husband to own up to the fact he was dying. They said they couldn’t help us unless he did. Denial was the way he WAS dealing with it. Maybe if I was a tougher nut I would and maybe should have confronted him. But I thought that he had lived the way he wanted to and I thought he should be able to die the way he wanted to.
I don’t see why demanding someone acknowledge that is productive at all. How sad. We all have our ways of coping, I think.
It does not all have to be the same way.
you and your husband had to deal with that — as far as I know, that was never an issue with my mom at her hospice. Of course, I think they also understood that by the time Mom entered hospice, the cancer had moved to her brain leaving her pretty confused.
I think the purpose of hospice should be to make the patient comfortable for as long or as short as their time may be, and let them deal with their reality in their own way. That’s pretty much how hospice handled Mom in her last month…
I hope your husband is doing well and your family also.
Being in a hospital setting and when people are most vunerable seems to me a terrible time to be harassing people for not wanting to pray with someone who is a complete stranger. Certainly trying to force someone to pray or make them feel guilty for not praying would seem the opposite of any christian ideal that is being espoused.
I had this happen to me during my first operation for fibroids in the late Eighties.
I was in Stanford Hospital in a ward. I had gone through several hours under anesthesia and the surgeons had done their work, cutting and lasering the boogers. I was on a drip but I was still uncomfortable. I didn’t even know where my glasses or my purse were located. I was waiting for my Buddhist friend to come and pray with me. There was a curtain around me where I could be at peace. It was enough that I could hear the television. I had closed my eyes but I was not asleep.
Some black preacher was ministering to a sista. I thought that this was okay. That I didn’t mind. But he had to go over to a sista who had lost her leg through some misfortune (who seemed somewhat open to his bringing ‘solace’) AND the came over to me.
He parted the curtains like he was the doctor and scared me. “Oh, how are you, sista? Do you need my help?” And then he started praying over me. I kept saying, “Sir, sir,” “Thank you, but someone is coming to see me soon,” and the idiot just continued as if he wasn’t hearing me but the angel choir. No respect at all for people’s feelings. He was in another world. I was angry as hell.
What some people don’t seem to realize is that while there is a sizable number of blacks who are evangelicals or traditional black churches like AME and Baptists, there is a growing number of blacks who are not Christian, but are Zen, Nichiren, or Tibetan Buddhists or Ba’hais. This fuckhead ASSUMED that because I was black, I must naturally be a member of some church.
I urge people to continue to insist on their rights and privacy as individuals and as religious or non-traditional religious or agnostics. Because frankly, more and more I believe that religion is supposed to be private. All this dancing around, prayer and witnessing is simply provoking, creating unease and causing disturbances and breaking down and destroying the commonality by which we all have to live together in relative peace in this country.
just the same.
When my dad was terminal and in the hospital, some pastor of his and my mom’s church came by for a “comfort visit”. For some reason, he was sure I needed a hug. I didn’t know the dude, so WTF? I developed a need to be on the other side of the bed from this guy.
Did I really need some asswipe making a pass at me in the same room as my dad is dying? Guess. Now, in case anyone thinks my “female pass detectors” were on overtime, the following REALLY happened.
A few years later, someone walked in on this pastor and his secretary having sex in his office at the church, on the desk. The church suggested they “take it to the motel”, and BTW, don’t bother to come back….
(Folks, we all have those urges, you just have to WAIT a little while.)
Don’t you know he was just trying to cast out the demon that would make you listen to the prayers to a pagan god?
/snark.
It’s really hard these days…lots of my friends are in church–and into church–and my Mom just can’t understand why I’m not.
It’s not that I’m not religious. I am. I believe in God very deeply. I just happen to have little patience for some church folk: demi-god pastors; boys’ club Deacons; stereotypical “sanctifieds” (women who are just as holy as they are gossipy, manipulative, passive aggressive, etc.). And there are churches who obsess about sex and feeling high and mighty to gays and lesbians and worshipping themselves and their church and I swear, I can’t take it.
And I’m supposed to show up every week and give money for that kind of nonsense? You must be kidding.
Right now, we’re attending a church that seems pretty progressive. We’ll see how it goes.
It’s about them, not about God or faith or comapssion.
What I say to people in need is that I will pray for them, but I don’t insist that they watch me do it. I leave them to deal with their distress in their own way.
People who impose their “prayers” on others are neither compassionate nor faithful.
I pray your husband will be well soon.
And I agree with you 100%. These fundamentalists are the new stormtroopers.
I think you may be right about that. I pray for people, but I don’t have to do it in front of them with my hands raised. That is not necessary.
All of them, just Pharisees. It wasn’t about your needs or your husband’s at all, but only about their own emotional needs, about how it made them feel. They’re just as oblivious to your own distress as the teenaged antiabortion crusaders outside our clinic are to the feelings of the women who are our patients. I’m so sorry that you’ve had to deal with all that when you’re already under so much stress.
I wonder what would happen if you told the hospital admin office that these people are violating your personal privacy and that of your husband, that they are offending your deeply held religious beliefs, that you find their uninvited and repeated intrusions most disturbing, and that you hold the hospital responsible for ensuring that it doesn’t happen again.
There’s something profoundly wrong when you, as spouse and next of kin, can be barred from access to your own husband, while apparently any street criminal could gain access to your husband’s room just as long as he had a bible in his hand as a full-access hall pass.
Perhaps this situation could be presented to them as a security issue for which the hospital could be held liable. Just a thought.
They sent the forms for us to rate how things went there. I intend to mention every one of these issues fully, attaching separate sheets.
It is a very good hospital, but it is more like a city now than a medical facility. I doubt they even knew this was going on.
This is still such a religious area, I am afraid any complaints will fall on deaf ears. They won’t understand.
Discuss the people roaming the halls as a privacy issue. Say they were “accosting” you and didn’t want to take no for an answer. Ask them if they authorized these people being there. Ask them what right these people have to have access to you and your husband?
Tell them you expect the right to privacy of the particulars of which wing, which floor, which medical emergency your family is involved in. Ask them if these people are authorized to have that information. (Because they DO glean it, if they’re wandering, and see which area of the hospital you’re in. In one ward I was on recently, really anyone could pick up and read charts on the outside of the door, tho most didn’t.)
Ask them about hygeine, potentially bearing infections into the hospital. Tell them you were horrified about that, and sick with worry that one of these people was carrying something that could further compromise your husband’s health.
Ask them what procedures they have set up to educate these people about hygeine, and to register them, in case one of them, say, lifts an item belonging to a patient or visitor. Ask them for a copy of the rules that govern these people’s conduct while in the hospital.
Tell them you will contact an attorney about it, and ask if this situation is legal, because you suspect it is not. You would consider legal action, because of the constant parade of people, the constant barage when you needed to be responsive to your husband and family.
(If you don’t have a friend that’s an atty, and no one volunteers here, call up the ACLU and ask them if they know this is happening legally, ask what the ramifications are re a) infection b) harassment c) privacy.)
Tell them that if you’re ever in the hospital again you expect this situation to be remedied.
And contact the AG (atty general) of your state about it — or at least, let me say this. If you WOULD do that, I’d be eternally grateful. Just cc the AG with the letter to the hospital, asking, “Is this in the best interests of the health, safety and privacy of the people at the hospital??” IF the AG’s office is highly fundie, they might not care, but if I were in that office, I’d see potential suits staring me in the face, and act.
As you might guess, once I get riled, I stand up for what I believe in. And this pisses me off, big time. People do NOT need to be harassed by idiots when they are dealing with the stress of having someone in hospital.
And yes, this is sitting on a nerve for me, yes it is.
Might also be worthwhile to mention, kind of in passing, that HIPAA Privacy Rules might well have something to say about allowing strangers to wander the halls of the facility looking for souls to save…
If anyone is ever in that situation again, pick up the phone, dial zero, and ask for hospital security. Tell them you’re being harrassed (even assaulted), and it’s an emergency.
If you have a problem with that, ask to speak to the administrator on call. That person will see the hospital is in legal jeopardy and will help you.
No way that should be allowed in any hospital. (Though I have to admit it happened to me at a Catholic hospital. I stepped outside my dying father’s room to shed a tear, and here came this nun. Within seconds she was telling me about her awakening.)
I don’t even think it’s about them, exactly. It’s about how OTHER people see them. It seems like they want everyone else to see how pious they are, how selfless and wonderful, and isn’t she a great person? It disgusts me, because religion becomes all about the acting and not about acts and faith.
The most sincerely religious people I’ve ever known never try to force their religion on anyone. They don’t make a big swaying, arm-waving production out of praying. They don’t talk about Jesus (or whomever) all the time. They simply set an example by the way they live their lives.
Personally, I’d like to see a few more acts and a lot fewer actors.
Yes
That’s it in a nutshell.
Jesus had a story about it. Don’t be like the man who prays out in the open in front of everyone so all can see he is a pious man. Say your prayers in orivate.
The lesson? Be humble before your God.
before the rest of us, while you’re at it!
(Not directed at you, commenter, but directed at those pray-ers. Sheesh. The climate in this country is really getting on my nerves.)
was a hospital chaplain; when I asked her once about her ministry, she told me that when she visited a patient and family, she always did what she could to fill their physical needs (get a cup of coffee, find a magazine, etc.) before asking if they had any spiritual needs that needed attending…and respected the patients’ privacy if they said no.
Sounds like these “ministers” need to learn a bit of humility…
I was raised Baptist, and left the church a long time ago over attitudes similar to, but much more subdued than the ones you describe. I can still remember some of the teachings of the church I went to as a child. They do not seem to be compatible with the actions of the people you encountered this week. Those who seek to force their belief system upon others may have a variety of reasons to do so. Spreading Christianity cannot be one of them. Hope your husband is on the mend.
Oh dear. This is why I am thankful to live in a liberal city. I can’t even imagine what I would have done, but it would have been far louder and more mean than what you did.
Why, oh why, do they believe that they can do this!?!
My thoughts and silent prayers to your husband and you. I trust he is or will be home soon.
My sympathies for you and your husband. I’ve run into people like this, too. Only last week it happened to my mother, and she said she felt like she was slimed.
I always appreciate my brother, who crisply told one intrusive evangelical who offered to lead us in prayer the night my father lay in critical condition in the ICU.
“No. We hold to Matthew 6, that is, we prefer to pray in private, not here in this public place. That shut the man up, and I memorized the reference and have used it a few times since then.
I feel like some of these people are jackals, corruptors of real faith.
Only last week it happened to my mother, and she said she felt like she was slimed.
Your mother hit the nail on the head for me. I feel unclean after dealing with such people. It’s like they’re feeding on you.
Whatever god they worship, I want nothing to do with.
… there is nothing wrong with people having faith in their lives.
Blind and/or fanatical faith on the other hand….
They want me to have their faith. I understand them well, because I was like that in high school. I was raised going to religious camps and so were my children. But it was not like this.
There is faith and true religion, and there is the forced faith and religion that is going on now. Some are seeing it…two Baptist churches in our area have split along conservative/moderate lines.
The divide is very great, and the two groups have not been able to bridge the gap.
ye shall know them.
The good news is that they are doomed to failure… in the long run.
The bad news is that that run might be long indeed and the even worse news is that history is full of examples that this sort of abusive use of religion never seems to go away.
The best we can do is be a living example of our faith moment to moment, strengthening ourselves and each other as we go.
Have you checked out the Street Prophets web site? You might find a safer place for sharing faith there then that hospital apparently was.
Peace,
Andrew
There are 3 pretty fundamentalist bible colleges in our city….plus one is a “preaching” college. Most actually are called bible colleges.
Plus there are a couple of mega churches and many other very large evangelical churches just in the city.
I am a deeply religious person in my own way, not making fun of anyone. But they cared little for my sadness, as some have said in this thread. It was almost as though they were “practicing” their missionary skills. There is a big difference, and it truly shows.
I hope your husband continues to feel better. The pain of illness is enough to bear without these misguided idiots intruding. Incredibly, some of them are doing even worse, like this incident at a funeral for a southern Indiana soldier recently killed in Iraq:
I believe that is Fred Phelps’ group that was responsible for the hateful atrocities committed during the Matthew Shephard events. They are the lowest scum.
There is no excuse for that.
I’ve been approached by aggressive proselytizers more over the last couple of years than in the entire rest of my life. This is very trying for me, in no small part because I am a very private person and generally dislike being approached by strangers for any reason, much less for something I find as disgusting as organized religion.
I should note that I am deeply religious, but my religious beliefs are between me and their object, and are really none of anyone’s business. I find proselytization abhorrent.
Of late, though, I am being approached by people who will not take no for an answer. It doesn’t matter what I say to them. I can try everything from polite refusals to screaming blasphemy, but whatever comes out of my mouth arrives in their fetid little brains as, “Please, shovel some more of your bullshit at me.” The only thing that has kept me from pulling out the pepper spray is the certain knowledge that it will feed their persecution complexes and egg them on even more.
These people are fucking psycho. Worse than that, they are fucking scary. Someone who will not individually respect your personal space will not hesitate to vote for politicians who won’t either.
We had some biblethumpers come up to our house once while we were cutting up firewood. My husband greeted the car with the chainsaw running and our dogs barking away. They didn’t even get out of the car, just turned around and went back out the drive.
The number of “callers” we get dropped considerably after that.
As a kid we had Jehovas’ Witnesses show up at our door at 10AM Christmas Morning. My dad was so upset he answered the door after grabbing a couple of the family heirlooms, (Civil War Musket w/bayonet and Officer’s saber). They did not stay long enough to say hi.
The second event is a more recent:
My neighbor owns a piece of land next to a very large church. He’s an older guy, 70+. So anyway, this used to be country around here so he never mows the lot. In July, he gets this notice from the city that the church complained about the grass and he must mow the lot or be fined, so we load up the tractors and mow the lot. A week later, he shows up at my door, about ready to have a stroke, one of the church groups placed 700 white crosses on his land with banners and signs and right to lifers marching down the road. He was apoplectic, so we had a beer and smoke to calm him, loaded up the tractors and mowed the lot. I put the chipper/shredder/vac on the back of mine. Turned all those signs and crosses into a fine white mulch. A bunch of these super moral churchy folk were screaming the vilest filth, it was great, we were about a third of the way done, then the cops came. The cops made us stop, so we had a beer and smoke while they talked to the right to lifers. They came over to us rather pissed, asked my neighbor what he thought he was doing and all that shit, he just pulled out the letter from the city and said he was just trying to clean up his lot to avoid a fine. The cop looked at him and said,”Wait a second, you own this lot?”, “Yes, Sir.” He replied. “Well, goddamn it finish the job.”
We had to pull mower blades out and sharpen them, but it was well worth it.
I’m a pretty sanctimonious and pious Catholic, but I deeply believe in the Golden Rule, and all the assholes lampooned in this thread just don’t get that at all. This story here is hilarious. My wife and I are pro-life (and don’t necesarily assume you know what that means to me), but we loved this story. You’re a very good storyteller!
Oh Floridagal, what a time you have been having! I hope things are on the way to getting better. And if I send some prayers your way, you need never know. 🙂
I think you are right about the fight ahead. I got a letter from progressive Senator Dick Durbin the other day in which he was hedging about whether or not all pharmacists have to dispense all legal prescriptions. I started to write him back, but I keep losing my composure every time I try. Maybe in a day or two.
My minister-in-the-hospital experience happened nearly thirty years ago in the very liberal town of Ann Arbor. The event was quite benign compared to yours and, with the perspective of time, actually makes me laugh to think about it.
I had gone to the emergency room because I had broken my leg. I was there by myself, being single at the time and no family living in the city. A minister saw me and felt that I really needed his support. Being young and polite and intimidated by religious figures, I didn’t really know how to decline his “help.”
He came with me while the doctor set the bone and he held my hand all the while. Everytime the doctor manipulated my leg to get the bone aligned, the minister would flinch or moan. After about 10 minutes the doctor said everything was okay and he put on the cast. The minister was satisfied that he had completed his mission and went to find someone else he could assist. The doctor did an xray, then removed the cast and reset the bone. He said the minister’s performance had so unnerved him he had not gotten it right and therefore we had to start again!
Considering I had broken my leg trying to buy a bagel, it was quite a night.
Hope this story makes you smile. Take care.
Emergency rooms fill up on Sat and Sun mornings with bagel incidents. They should be outlawed ;).
I believe that qualifies as worse than mine, as I did not have to experience the pain. Ouch is right. I used to be unable to decline help, and felt I was obligated to take it. I have changed a lot now.
Help is one thing, real help for someone in need. Maybe those young people who wanted to pray so much could have taken me up on my offer to drive me up there for visiting hours so I would not have to race around looking for parking spaces.
No time for that, though.
Oh that brings back another incident from my life. A relative of mine converted to a Fudie-ism cult-type organization while at college. Same college as myself. I knew a gal who lived across the street from the house where they had their Weds. prayer and bible study meetings.
This was in the Midwest where it gets colder than heck and snows lots (or used to) in the winter. One day her car wouldn’t start. She went across the street, knocked on their door, and asked if someone could give her a jump.
No, they replied, they were in the middle of bible study.
You simply can’t make this stuff up.
As the pastor who married us said to the congregation one Sunday:
Some of you are so heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good.
That clearly applies here…
“Pray to God, but tether your camel first.”
This is really concerning me. It is almost like going back to the dark ages of medicine, and the dark ages for women.
That concerns me he is not clear on the issue.
with one i.
; )
Indeed.
Ooops. I ment about Durbin not spelling. : )
Thank you for your post. When someone says “Southern Baptist” down here I flee. Not everybody has lost their mind though and you are proof of that. I graduated high school from a private Christian school and not because anybody made me, I chose that. I was not a perfect child, I gave the principal the full treatment. I liked going to school there though because there was a code of kindness that we all treated each other with. I was not a religious kid and didn’t care for the monthly bible verses I had to memorize but I could endure it because I wanted the peaceful loving atmosphere around me while I was learning. Things have changed though drastically, haven’t they. In Alabama also people seem very rigid and uncaring of others, almost military. That seems to be the new Christian way. I stopped going to church here because they sang Onward Christian Soldiers and related it to what was happening in Iraq, that’s when I say bye bye. Whatever sense of community the kids and I could find here isn’t the community I want to belong to! Boy is their Jesus going to be pissed with them when he gets to deal with them!
I hope your husband is feeling better. The scary side of religion is definitely on the rise here too, it’s truly sad that some people want to force themselves and their beliefs on others. It does feel like a kind of vampirism, spiritual vampirism?
Lately several groups have come to my house, I step out to greet them, never let them in and just state firmly that I have my own spiritual beliefs and have no interest in theirs. Then I go back inside.
Not as flashy a ploy as a friend who, when greeted with a group going on about the value of “old time religion” enthused right along with them and then added:
“Old time religion is the best, Thor cured my hemorrhoids.”
They left.
LOL! That’s so funny!
I find that four barking dogs keeps a lot of people away.
I know you have HAD IT with people offering their religion, but I’ve found there are parts of the Bible never quoted by the sort of people you encountered, and they might be of some assistance.
One is Matthew 6:5-6 which says (paraphrasing) not to pray in the front row of the temple (church, nor on the streetcorner, but before you pray, first enter in to the closet, and pray IN SECRET. For those wo pray in public for show, (that is their reward (the show in public). For those that pray in secret, their reward is in heaven.
The other is I Corintians 13:13 which says (paraphrasing again) that Love is greater than Faith (“Love” is also translated sometimes as “Charity”)
Both of these are quotes from Jesus, not opinions by Paul or someone else.
Hope your husband is doing better.
I was going to quote this same chapter and verse from Matthew. Thank you for being there to quote it and for pointing out that Paul’s ‘opinions’ are not the same as Jesus’ direct words.
And no matter what your religious beliefs, Matthew 6 and also Matthew 7 is a good read. Those are two chapters that those prayer-people spoken of above have not read recently, if ever. In fact, these two chapters are not just a “good read”, they are the direct instructions of Jesus, who whether you believe he was God or not, his wisdom is honest and huge.
p.s. I’m not a Bible thumper, but I respect wisdom wherever I find it.
Few weeks back:
I bought a book called “Wizardology” for Danni for her birthday. It’s a series of books that have hidden goodies in the flip out pages.
When I bought it at the bookstore/coffee shop, this man with a JESUS belt buckle asked if he could look at the book. I was all fine with it.
I did not know I would get a fucking preaching to over it.
He started in with talking over my head to his seated friend. “Can you imagine the filth they sell here?” that sorta of thing.
Then he told me he once was a drug addict and Jesus saved him. I was all, “well that’s nice for you.”
Then he went into how I needed to be washed of my sins… and that my daughter needed guidance because I’m “confusing” her with “smut” and “devil ideas”.
More was said but I can’t remember it all. I got tunnel vision as I just wanted to get the fuck out of there. The owner was even trying to tell the man to “calm down”.
Who the fuck are these people and where did they come from???
I mean, I’ve had run in with the radical right wingers here… but I always feel “dirty” after having a brush up with a fucking Jesus freak. Not that there’s anything wron with Jesus… I love the idea of Jesus… but I don’t think these people really know anything about Jesus.
Danni loves her wizardoolgy pitcure book, her friend has the Egyptology one. They also have the same American Girl books.
All those books are so cool (I am especially in love with Dragonology). I love getting them for kids — almost as much as I like looking at them myself.
Dragonology! I couldn’t think of the other one 🙂 The girls love them.
What’s next? Some zealots over at the make up counter hollering that we are whors??? Oh wait.. most of those fundies wear more make than I do on Halloween 🙂
a worldnut daily article on the evils of halloween.
i hope your husband is well and the two of you get out of that hospital soon. please take care.
There are more and more of these aggressive zealots all the time.
They’re so damaged by dogma that their ignorance is weaponized and turned toward the rest of us n a vain attempt to sustain the illusions they been duped into believing.
It’s people like this who become the cannon fodder for the Crusades, impaling infidels on theirswords or burning Jews in furnaces.
Prayer is the flimsiest of charades behind which the relentless pressure of fear and anger slowly builds, eventually erupting into the sort of cataclysmic violence of the soul that only religious fervor is capable of producing.
All religion becomes dangerous and spiritually bankrupt the moment it becomes aggresive. This is something that wingnuts since the dawn of man have never quite understood! Hence, more people have been killed in the name of God than for all other reasons combined.
Dear Floridagal,
I’ve been cruising the blogs lately for all the recent news regarding the ‘righties,’ and then I saw your post.
This is the first time I’ve felt compelled to log-in and post a comment on any blog, but yours is one of the most aweful and yet wonderful stories I’ve heard yet.
First, let me say I’m glad to hear your husband is doing better and I hope he’ll be home soon, if he’s not already.
I must confess that many years ago, after becoming a born again Christian, I would beat everyone I knew over the head with the bible. God… what a shameful thing it was too, until I walked away from it all. I got to see, “up close,” the types of folks who you’re talking about, both at your church and at the hospital.
There are a few things that I learned from those years. First, you will almost always find that type of activity in groups of two or more as that is how most of these folks go out… to minister?
The reason they go out in groups is two-fold… first, they gain strength from one another (and as someone noted, there is a guilt / feeding factor) and second they get ‘approval’ from one another. If you agree to their ‘prayer requests’ they get validation… if you don’t they can pass ‘their guilt’ on to you, but only if you accept it.
These folks ‘need’ approval more than anything else, because they really don’t know anything else. Heck, who doesn’t want to get ‘approval’ from your ‘brothers and sisters’ in Christ. Because if you are ‘not getting approval’ there, you’re probably not a good Christian… and therefore, you’re probably going to hell. So approval is an absolute ‘must.’
Many times these folks are only out there because ‘they’ are made to feel ‘guilty’ by their pastors, or shepards, or their peers if they don’t go out and evangelize, or ‘minister,’ as ‘every’ ‘good christian’ should!
Guilt is like ‘sh*t,’ it rolls down hill… But because they really don’t know what being a Christian is, from the inside, they have to ‘act’ from the outside. If you reject their methods, they will feed on the guilt… ‘look how righteous we are…,’ ‘look how aweful that person is…’ and they can talk about it later and feed each other with it. The vampire analogy someone used is really quite an apt description. They must ‘drink the blood’ of the guilt for their food, because they’re not really drinking from the ‘Wellspring of Life.” They have the ‘letter of the law,’ but not the “Life of the Spirit.”
So, why is this both aweful and wonderful? Well, obviously its aweful because you got ‘guilt upon’ when you should have been “lifted up” in your time of need, but its ‘wonderful’ because you’re one of God’s vessels… a crystal clear vase though which the Spirit of Truth shines forth. You saw the Truth when it was being attacked in your church and you left, and you saw the Truth in this situation and you spoke the Truth to us at this site.
Floridagal, God is in you, speaking the truth, and he is shining his glorious light (through you) into dark places… and the darkness cannot hide from The Light… it is dispelled by The Light, and the darkness comprehends it not, for where there is Light, there is no darkness.
So just keep standing on that Hill and Keep On Shining your Light!
This is Wonderful!
dabamps
That made me feel better about things.
The renewed religious fervor describe here and the coupling of certain sects with the political leadership is finally getting moderate religious people upset.
Here is an editorial by John Danforth a former US senator and an Episcopal minister. The first amendment protects people from forced religion, but also protects religion from other religions.
The stories here are a natural consequence of too much power accumulating in a small group of believers.
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_63345_ENG_HTM.htm