Government by Deus ex Machina

Recently I received a spam message complaining about the lack of mentions of God in the daily life of Americans. As with many of these types of messages I was enjoined to defend God in some way, as if He needed defending, and put "In God We Trust" on every piece of mail I sent out, or message I created. Well, what if I don't agree? And I don't. Emphatically.

I was raised in the tradition that my religious beliefs were my business and my business alone. If I was to demonstrate my faith, I could act on the principles in public, but it would not be necessary to stand on a street corner and shout the "Good News" to passersby. That, as Jesus said in the New Testament (The Christian testament), is just showing off. Showing off doesn't count, so, I would consider, would be all that testifying, witnessing, and "Praise the Lord's." What about actually doing stuff, like visiting the sick, building homes, and the rest of the working in the vineyard.

So it really pains me to see these temples to Christian prosperity on every street corner proclaiming that "my mortgage is bigger than your mortgage" while millions go hungry. Didn't this Jewish carpenter Christians are so fond of calling by name say, "sell all you have and follow me." I think that all that is at work here is not Christian practice, but sanctuary envy.

Speaking of Christian practice, and it is a practice, why all the Old Testament Bible thumping? The old is the old and the new is a very short document. Christians are supposed to do stuff, not name buildings after the Prophets (although they can). So while everybody is in Sunday school learning about David and Goliath and trying to disprove evolution by taking the Bible literally, Jesus is sitting at the well telling the woman drawing water that it is the Spirit that gives life, not the Word. Yet every Sunday in Church and all week long on the public access channel, sanctimonious men and women constantly refer to the words in the Bible as being inviolate and direct from God. I guess they forgot about things like barely literate scribes rewriting material they can hardly read themselves handing down mistakes through the ages. And besides, I believe it is damned rude to use the Jewish testament and books of the prophets to prop up Christian beliefs. It should be able to standon its own if people acutally exercised it in every day life.

It is this spititual illiteracy that bothers me. A failure to look beyond the Word and grasp the import of the message. It is not what Jesus may or may have done, but what people today need to do. Just writing "In God We Trust" will not do it. Besides, that was inserted into the Pledge of Alegiance in 1953 a the height of anti-Communist hysteria (Those Godlesss Commies!). And we do it now in the face of Islamic fundamentalism as well, trying to claim the high ground by raising up an altar to the Book instead of actually practicing Christianity. It is just like putting ribbons on your car but refusing to join the Army to serve in the Iraq War you support because it isn't convenient.

Those very kinds of people also said they wouldn't go to the marriage feast because they had other things to do. So the countryside got drafted and the snobs were left to run their errands.

Worshiping symbols, yellow ribbons, the flag, a golden calf, does not come an inch closer to the practice of the principles you espouse. Shout from the altar or podium all you wish, but unless you can write your own letters from the Richmond jail, or stand in the rain to oppose torture by our own government, you don't do anymore than add to global warming.

If we are going to trust in anything we need to trust in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, since they guarantee our rights and outline our responsibilities in this country. The president is not, by any stretch of the imagination capable of doing that; the man who said he wanted to be dictator because telling evreybody what to do is easier than negotiation and diplomacy. By hoping that somehow Jesus is going to deliver us from our own failure to govern ourselves, we will surely get the authoritarian theocratic government Islam is so proud of. Under a theocratic government you don't practice the religion of your choice, but that of the State. We had that once and we rejected it for what it was, an excuse for powerful men to seize control of the State all the while claiming they did it in the name of God. Baloney!

Under the Divine Right of Kings and signeurship of the Middle Ages (a mind set of fundamentalists evreywhere and acutal practice in the Middle East), here is what you get: conformity. Slavish adherance to a rule of men who claim an authority based upon belief rather than merit or the will of the people. The so-called prophets in polygamist colonies go for the 14 year old girls first, just like the lords did in the Middle Ages - first night rights. The right to deflower the virgins in the village. Slavish devotion to Jim Jones got 900 mindless people drinking cyanide laced kool aid. When Marx said that religion was the opium of the people, I believe he was asserting the principles of the Enlightenment; specifically that we should think for ourselves, question the sacred cows of authority, and practice the principles of living we so glibly toss around, but never get around to putting into action.