To My Politically-Charged Readers

[Over the last few weeks and months, really going as far back as last spring with the marriage amendment issues, I've received some very passionate emails regarding political issues, as well as witnessed and engaged in some heated social media discussions (not to mention the real world stuff), from people who claim Christianity - and frankly would be fighting mad if you questioned their Christianity. The following isn't aimed at any single person, even if I've encountered many who fit every scenario within. It's a generic, yet serious, response to the entire animal of conservative cultural Christianity.]


I really don't know quite how to talk to you these days. What's odd about it is that I fit so neatly into your world not all that long ago. Once I determined to no longer be a sheeple (while remaining a spiritual person), that fit wasn't nearly so neat, as I could no longer base my course on emotion, pet issues (while excluding all else), "the bible says", or worst of all, where the herd who wore the same jersey was headed. It certainly isn't because I have all the answers and you don't, because I have few answers and tons of questions. I've been fortunate to arrive at a place where the questions no longer frighten me, but rather interest me, and I feel in no way threatened by them - knowing that any belief system threatened by questions isn't worth its weight in fear.

While much of what I'm writing today is about sociopolitical issues, I wanna look at it, ultimately, through a spiritual and practical lens, because it's the spiritual + political math that I can't make work when I consider your professed attitudes about one and your professed attitudes about the other.

I watched you often froth at the mouth against gay people last spring, railing about the "sanctity of marriage" and "God's design", when more often than not your own personal experience with marriage would demonstrate that you don't give ish about its sanctity nor God's intentions. You were being "faithful" to your political paradigm, and God be damned if necessary. When called on this, you usually fell into the ignorant "love the sinner, hate the sin" spiel, which I'm sure made you feel better about your spirituality and all, but aside from being freaking impossible in application, isn't even something "the bible says". Pretty sure the bible talks about your own sin, and not your American right to officiate the sins of others, but you've seldom allowed a lack of knowledge about what's actually in the bible prevent you from telling me what's in the bible.

When you go into the voting booth, the entirety of the bible becomes nothing more than the three Super Sins: abortion, gays, and Islam. You no longer seem to care whether we feed the hungry, take care of the sick, et cetera. "That isn't a government issue" you say, while apparently abortion, gays, and fighting against Islam are entirely government issues. I'd call that a politically convenient argument. I'd also call it bullshit in a form of purity rarely seen.

I've seen you write off half of your countrymen as moochers, freeloaders, leeches, and people who vote for Santa Claus because they want free stuff and are too sorry/lazy to work for it, et cetera. Many of those people are the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the hungry, and people who work harder than you've ever worked in your life.

Every time a natural disaster happens, you call it "God's judgment" on America - largely because of abortion, gays, and Islam. First of all, if that were true, your God really sucks at being God, and second, in most cases, I think you want and need it to be true just to show those evil liberals how right you are and how wrong they are.

I've seen you talk about your patriotism...while desiring the failure of our current President (who I didn't vote for, btw). I've seen you call him a Muslim, when there's ZERO evidence to support it, and when challenged on this lack of evidence, I've watched you dig your heels in deeper, unwilling to see the man as anything but a Muslim regardless of fact. Truth is, you're so thoroughly committed to your hatred of the man that you willingly adopt even the most delusional "truth" about him pulled from the innermost sanctuary of some lunatic's ass. According to your own bibles, your attitude about your President is founded almost entirely on something called "false witness". For instance, you're convinced that he's coming for your guns, and believe all kinds of blatantly delusional things about it, saying brain-dead stuff like the old "pry it out of my cold, dead hands" mantra, when he's never so much as hinted at any intention of disarming you in any way. You're so committed to it that you grieve the brutal murder of 20 children by rushing out in record numbers to buy the exact same weapon used to kill them. Your solution to America's problems would quite often seem to put you behind the sights of your gun with a finger on the trigger.

My response to you is as follows...

You don't get to talk about Jesus to me.