I am always angry when I see stories like this one, because it reminds me what a hypocritical society we really are:
Last June, 76-year-old Burrell E. Mohler Sr. seemed a perfectly reasonable choice to give the Father’s Day sermon at his tiny Bates City Community of Christ Church.
After all, he was a family man. Proud of his four sons. Loved all those grandchildren. […]
He’s in jail now, after allegations from at least three grandchildren that “sleepovers” on his farm at 3067 Old Concord Road often meant incestuous rape, and that when granddaddy sang “Itsy-Bitsy Spider” his hands ended up in wrong places.
After allegations that their uncles wedded and bedded first-graders in a chicken coop and that their father did unspeakable things to them less than a mile from that little white church.
Once the charges — 42 so far — were filed, it seemed the Mohler family was shattered as irreparably as the bad-memory jars the little girls purportedly buried and authorities earlier this month hoped to dig up.
It’s a dark and ugly family portrait, causing dismay and disbelief among relatives and friends. They paint a starkly different picture — one of people who took joy in their children, their churches and friendships.
I get angry because you see this sort of hypocrisy all the time. He was a good church going, God fearing man. He believed in traditional morals and values. So how could this possibly be true? Too many people in our society don’t want to believe that good Christians could ever be guilty of such heinous crimes. Read the article a little further down past the paragraphs I excerpted, and you will see testimonials from Mohler’s friends and fellow believers decrying this vicious slander of a good man. No matter it is his own grandchildren who have brought the accusations of incest and abuse.
Just like the stories of all those children abused by Catholic priests had to be lies and had to be swept under the rug for years and years while the abuse continued unabated. Just like the “smears” against the Good Christian businessman and his wife who operated “boot camps” in which teenagers were abused and tortured on a daily basis. No one wants to believe that “men of faith” could be this monstrous. Because it doesn’t fit the official narrative, and besides, it might make their faith look bad, too:
In the 1980s or early ’90s, at least some of the grandchildren reportedly went to their mother about the abuse, according to police documents. Instead of going to law enforcement, she told the head of her Mormon church. And nothing happened.
And nothing happened.
These are the same people who, no doubt, are quick to accuse gays of a propensity for pedophilia (without any factual basis for that belief) and of having an “agenda” to seduce their children into the “gay lifestyle and who believe gay marriage will destroy their marriage.
The same people who believe “secularists” and “atheists” and liberals in general can’t possibly have any morals or values because they don’t believe in God, or they don’t believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and the Evolution is a lie straight from the Devil’s lips.
The same people who are quick to shout for wars of revenge and the murder of innocent people halfway across the world because they practice a different faith and some of theirs killed some of ours. Who proudly called for the nuclear annihilation of Muslim countries. Who think torture is a good thing.
There are many, many decent, honorable people of faith in this country. Decent people who oppose the actions and hateful rhetoric of those who proclaim themselves to be the only True Christians and condemn anyone else who suggests their interpretation of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth might be the least bit wrong, or that their apocalyptic extremist theology is cruel and immoral. The good Christians understand the damage that has been done to our country by these grandstanding hypocrites in our midst.
Unfortunately, these are not the “Christians” whose views dominate the news media coverage and who have achieved political power all out of proportion to their numbers. They are not the Sarah Palins and John Hagees and John Ensigns and Pat Robertsons and James Dobsons of this country who are worshiped as idols and whose sins and crimes and immorality is excused or ignored by the faithful idiots who follow them. They are not the people of the National Organization for Marriage who, because of their bigotry, go to such lengths to deny other loving couples the same right to marry that they have.
Thanksgiving begins the traditional American Holiday Season. A time that reaches its climax with Christmas. Someday, I pray this country will be free of the grip of all these zealots and religious hypocrites who think that only they know what is right and good and true, and who are quick to condemn and spew hatred against people who are different from themselves whether in matters of politics, religion, race, culture or sexual orientation. That day, if it ever comes, will truly be a day to offer thanks. And it can’t come soon enough.
