First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. — Mahatma Gandhi

Christian Right Commandment #4: “Thou shalt maintain status quo at all times”.

I don’t know, but it seems that little Christian Right Children are taught from a very early age that “That which is, is to remain as it always has been, and to think differently is blasphemy.” As my two children grew from infancy to adolescence one of the main things I have tried to impart to them is the necessity of independent thinking and critical contemplation at all times. I still remember with pride how my son came home early from school one day (I think he was 10 or 11) and announced that he had been sent home because he had refused say grace before lunch in the cafeteria. I might be an agnostic, but I am also a very religious man and we say grace before meals and have done so since the beginning. My son’s announcement therefore puzzled me. Why had he refused to say grace before lunch? Answering my question, he explained that as he was not certain there even was a God, it seemed hypocritical, even blasphemous, to offer prayers, especially in public. Not the average pre-teen thinking for sure! Probing further I tried to ascertain what lay behind this thinking. His answer to THAT query sent me reeling: “You have always said that “if in doubt, don’t” and “don’t insult God by pretending!” My tender Father’s soul and heart were bursting with pride! At 10-11 my son was able to think for himself, draw conclusions and act in accordance with his convictions. Never mind that his convictions went au contraire to my own. THAT was completely irrelevant. My son wasn’t yet a teen-ager and I knew there and then that he would grow up to be a fine man. My son still, four years later, maintain that he is not certain of God’s existence, and all I require of him at meal time is that he be respectfully silent while the rest of us say grace, I am not worried about the status of his soul or where he would go should he, God forbid, die tomorrow. After all, doesn’t his own father claim that we cannot KNOW and claim the right to forgo any beliefs that does not please his mind and still have a close relationship with whatever Divinity is on duty this moment?

This kind of interaction, this kind of thinking, would be completely impossible to imagine in a Conservative Fundamentalist family. Why? Because in a Conservative Fundamentalist family faith and doubt are fragile matters that cannot withstand scrutiny and challenge. That is why the Christian Right need to maintain status quo at all times. Their faith is weak and their relationship with God is based on fear (as in being scared of) rather than love and trust, and they teach the same to their children.

So what does this have to do with the quote from Mahatma Gandhi? Well, the inability to think out-side the Conservative Fundamentalist box leads those dear Christian brothers and sisters to attempt to ignore, laugh and finally fight the out-side of the box. It is when you have steadfastly endured being ignored, ridiculed (or insulted) and aggressively expelled from what they consider “their” territory, you know that not only are they frantically scared of you, you have in fact won the battle. The only reason they bother any of the above is the fact that you got to them, and you are a burr under their saddle.

It is the same with their political leaders, or actually any political leaders who claim possession of the ONLY TRUTH, left or right :-D (such as Bush and Chavez…). The Patriot Act would have no meaning in a Liberal (Christian) America, because a Liberal (Christian) America would know that war, foreign and domestic, is not the solution to “national security”. A Liberal (Christian) America wouldn’t have gone to Iraq, or anywhere, intending military conquest in the first place. These confused and fearful Conservative Fundamentalists are so inundated in Christian Fascism that they truly believe that people are truly converted if they are held to the sword. Or that the truth can be truly silenced by expulsion. It’s sad. Because most of these people are honest, decent people, firmly convinced that what they teach is the Gospel of Liberation, when it is in fact the Gospel of Serfdom, Imprisonment and Self-delusion.

My good friend Dov use to say “Christianity is a religion for Slaves. Most Christians are totally content living in Egypt, and they wouldn’t know what to do if God suddenly decided to liberate them and force them to grow up.” I fear he is right. I know for sure that it’s true about the vast majority of Conservative Christian Fundamentalists. They don’t realize that Christ came to LIBERATE them, they think Christ came to make them His slaves, condemning them to eternal serfdom in Egypt.

Advertisement