Things I've Learned In The Last Week

With the Marriage Amendment on the ballot in North Carolina last week, and its passage at a 59-41% clip (in my county, over 80% voted for it), I decided to challenge some non-thinking. Normally I don't post blog-related stuff on my personal Facebook page. I deal with enough angst and controversy in the emails I get here at the blog. I've always figured why pour more fuel on the fire? The problem was, as last Tuesday approached, my FB newsfeed lit up with some outrageous, ignorant, emotional, numb-nuts comments from fundamentalists. You have to understand, my "friends list" on FB was largely built before I ever wrote a word at CoM - largely populated by people from my old world - the Christian music industry - and by their fans and supporters, most of whom are extremely fundamentalist, even if their brand of fundamentalism is different than the VF, Gothard, Christian homeschooling form of fundamentalism. Most of them have likely never heard of Vision Forum or Gothard, for instance, and if they have, they don't really know who or what they are.


There was only so much I could take before I started posting a few status updates of my own, including one where I made it clear why I voted against the amendment. Some were mere questions - no more, no less. Some were emotional parody. Some were observations couched within questions. All were meant to make people think and maybe, just maybe, recognize their own levels of hypocrisy, and even more, if they engaged me, meant to give them a platform to expose themselves as hypocrites (as a couple of people did beautifully). For all of the action some of you guys saw on my FB wall, my message inbox filled up with people asking me "Why are you saying these things?" and "You need to get back to the bible" and "You're saying the bible isn't true?" and "I don't know what's happened to you, but you need to be careful" among some other choice nuggets. They all assured me how concerned they were for me, they were praying for me, yadda yadda yadda.


In one instance, a guy who is a pretty recognizable figure in my old circles was ranting and raving (on his own wall - not mine) about "taking America back", spouting crap about a "Christian nation" and 2nd Chronicles 7:14, congratulating the "brave Christian warriors in NC" who had "taken a stand for the bible" and voted for the amendment, and bragging that his own brave stand for the bible (on FB) was serving to clean out the liberal junk on his friends list, what with a bunch of people who disagreed with his "stand for God and the bible" unfriending him. "Good riddance" was his attitude toward them. There were 30 or 40 comments, so being curious I began to read. The levels of ignorance were staggering. He was, as gospel music people do, preaching to the choir. Every single comment fed the ignorance. "PREACH!!!", and "This is the TRUTH!!!", et cetera. About half a dozen comments in, one guy went so far as to say that "If our country is to be saved, conservatives are its only hope", and he meant this in the spiritual sense. That's right. Conservatives. Not Jesus. I couldn't let that pass, so I left a comment that said "Good grief people. The gospel itself changed within the course of this comment string, and no one even noticed. In fact, a bunch of you "liked" it when it happened." With that, the guy unfriended me, which says a good deal about his other unfriendings. Not quite the martyr he was making himself out to be. He also doesn't help himself on a question of hypocrisy by weighing 500 lbs (literally) and preaching against gays.


Here's a list of things I've learned from Christians in the last week...

• If you voted against this amendment, you aren't a real Christian.
• If you don't "believe the bible is true" (whatever that means), you aren't a real Christian.
• America was founded as a Christian nation, therefore it's the patriotic duty of Americans to stamp out sin. Otherwise, you're a traitor and you aren't a real Christian.
• The only sins that matter are being gay, having abortions, or being a Muslim. If you don't "take a stand" against those, there's no way you can be a real Christian. The rest really aren't that big of a deal, or at least not big enough to ever prevent this from being a Christian nation.
• You can't be a Democrat and be a real Christian.
• If you voted for Obama, are you frickin' kidding me? There's no way, whatsoever, you're a real Christian.
• Obama is, obviously, not a real Christian.
• The bible is "God's Word". If you say that loud enough for long enough, it'll be so. It's ok if you can't substantiate it or don't really know why you believe it - that simply doesn't change the "truth of God's Word".
• Being a martyr is when you preach to a large choir which supports you enthusiastically and probably isn't equipped to challenge you, and one guy asks you a question you either can't or don't want to answer or just disagrees with you. Being "brave" is largely the same thing.

Some other things I've learned or observed in the last week...

• Most Christians are actually worshiping a religious culture, a conservative culture, which they confuse with "the bible" (which they confuse with God).
• 95%+ of Christians have no idea why Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. They really don't know what their own bible says about it.
• 95%+ of Christians don't realize that NO sexual act, straight or gay, is documented in the Genesis account of the incident. They read that into the passage, because it was read into the passage by the religious addict that taught them.
• 95%+ of Christians have never heard of the Book of the Secrets of Enoch - which serves as the proof that they really don't know what's in their bible, don't care enough to research it for themselves, and just believe whatever their church tells them.
• When Christians don't want to have to answer the questions you ask (because they can't), or when they don't like the observations you make (because they can't counter them without empty cliche), this makes them uncomfortable, so they try to make the issue about you, suggest you're getting too uptight, need to relax, et cetera.
• A good sign that your faith isn't healthy: Diving headfirst into a conversation that's waaaay over your head, and doing so entirely from a place of emotion.
• People with a healthy faith should never, ever feel threatened by any question or observation concerning it...which means that about 3/4 of Christians have become immersed in a religious system rather than practicing a healthy form of personal faith.
• The lines between Christianity, conservative culture, and Republican politics have become so blurred that you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. In practical application, those things are the same for 3/4 of all fundamental and evangelical Christians.
• Christianity doesn't need Jesus to accomplish its genuine end goals. It's pretty much running on Jesus fumes already.
• Based on the theology they believe and follow, most Christians really don't want Jesus to return. If they did, they wouldn't be so emotionally determined to go to the polls and vote to prevent it (if you do the math).
• Christians want people who disagree with them to have the same American freedoms and liberties they do. Gays, for instance - Christians want them to have these freedoms, so long as they "get saved" and stop being gay. Otherwise, religion and popular votes should determine those freedoms.
• For most Christians, man was obviously made for the Sabbath, because they value their religious system over people.
• Few Christians have any understanding of the spiritual chronology of the books of the bible, little understanding of the differences between the old covenant and new covenant, and NO understanding of what that means to them. However, this doesn't stop them from "standing on the Word", misusing and misapplying it, especially the parts they don't understand.
• The majority of the "brave Christian warriors" who "took a stand for God and His Word" last week will go to the polls this fall and vote for a Mormon, which should tell them a TON if they'll think about it a bit...which they won't, and they'll continue to be hypocrites.

Quite a week.