In other words, be Reasonable...
and get to the margins. When we're ready, we'll ship you off where you belong.
Reasonable people abound. They understand that Christianity is "a force to be reckoned with". They get that Christianity alone stands between people and progress. They wring their hands over how so many Fools can oppose such wonderful Reasonable ideas that all people need. If only they'd get out of the way. The world would be a much better place.
Yeah, we fools sure know how to ruin a good party, don't we? We just won't shut up. We just won't go away. They're right about us standing in the way of Reasonable progress, of course? What's a Fool to do when he sees the train racing toward the cliff's edge--and knows the bridge is out?
So they reasonably wax poetic, as in this fine piece of
Just consider the testamony of this sincere scribe:
The news is full today of stories about radical Islam. It has also become a bewildering force for us westerners to deal with. A terrifying force. A force which justifies itself on the basis of its certainty that its worldview gets things right. Americans often find it difficult to imagine how anyone could get so caught up in their religious beliefs as to become a radical and act destructively in the name of God.
Wow! You know, if he just did one edit-replace, why, he could be talking about all of those scary Christian Right-Wingers! Sort of like how that cylone babe in Balthasar's head--in the new Battlestar Galactica series--says God is Love. While her AI people commit genocide on their creators. Yeah, We sure know how bad those genocidal Christians were. They surely killed their tens of thousands compared to atheists like Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot! So watch for the scary buzzword...
If you’re a non-Christian in the United States, however, it’s easy.
See, that didn't take long!
We see it almost every day in the certainty of Christian on TV – both in our news and in our casual programs.
Casual programs? Oh yeah, he must mean that wholesome entertainment like Desperate Housewives, or Sex in the City, or Will and Grace, right? Yeah, heartwarming beacons of the power of Christ's love. Imagine how many conversions they've lead to! Priceless. Where would evangelization be without them?
We see it almost every day as the American political system struggles to reconcile itself with its Christian influences
Like the way every citizen, regardless of race, gender, religion and status of develop--oops! Oh, that's right, preborn means pile of cells. So, they can be done away with for a mere $300. What a bargain! Let's not forget those PVS people. You never know when someone will "remember" that they didn't want to live.
– those of its foundations and those of the army of righteous Christian conservatives seeking to do right in the world by making it better – more Christian.
(Imagine the following is sung to the melody of Clemintine)
Count the strawmen, count the strawmen, count the strawmen, all the time! They are marching, tortures burning say you're sorry all the time!
And yet, the Christian Right and their associated politics have lately began pushing the audacious claim that in our society Christians are being oppressed!
Why is that, I wonder? Is it because unelected judges read rights into the constitution that no one sane ever saw before? That such practices have allowed thirteen-year-olds that can't attend a school field trip to the Bronx zoo without parental consent to walk into any NARAL abortion clinic and kill their unborn children? Without parents even knowing? Is it because one judge can rule that gays can "marry" when even half of one of the most liberal states in the country oppose such a "right?" Is it because activists call for the IRS to strip the Catholic Church of her tax-exempt status whenever she preaches her teachings at moments inconvenient to the Great Agenda? Is it because a man can place a crucifix in a cup of urine and have his display called art, while a false story of a Qu'ran being flushed down a toilet leads to universal condemnation of religious persecution--not to mention fifteen dead in muslim lands? Funny, how those Christian Rightists see oppression behind every
The culprit here are “forces of Secularism” - often capitalized in order to make it ‘just another ‘ism’, rather than a neutral force of the state.
Funny, if secularism is so "neutral", how come it's insisted upon as the default state appropriate for the public square? Why is morality relegated to the sphere of the "personal"?
I can certainly understand why some Christian Americans may feel this way, but it was also understandable how some slave owners bought the notion of the “white man’s burden”.
Bring on the non-sequitors, please! Glad to see that Mr. Sher is serious enough about his argument to juxtapose mortal sinners with Christians as though the latter practiced the former as an article of Faith. Great job, sir! You cleared that up! Brilliant!
In both cases, privilege blinds one to the real oppression – even if one is actively acting as the oppressor.
Amazing, how powerless those oppressed people are. They only control so many purse strings in America. The Ford Foundation. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The Pew Charitable Trusts. Mr. Soros. Theresa Heinz Kerry. Wow, just imagine the frustration of them all! If only they could make their voices heard!
On and on Mr. Sher weaves his gentle diatribe. He bemoans a conference that purports to objectively address issues of Faith, but winds up a covert apologetics for conservative Christians of the host campus. This leads to his most imporant observation about those right-wingers:
“What is Jesus to us? A force to be reckoned with”
This quick breath allows him to truly begin to foam at the mouth:
If you’re queer, Christianity is a force to be reckoned with.
After all, Christians just don't accept the One Thing That Matters.
There are no arguments against homosexuality that any reasonable person can take seriously, expect ones which base themselves on Biblical references.
Funny how taken up those Catholics are by those biblical references. Oh, wait. That's right. Catholics have 2,000 years of Spirit-inspired Tradition and a Magisterium that also condemns homosexual activity. Perish the thought! Next thing you know, those crazy Catholics might argue that there is some sort of truly human anthropology that justifies this.
Christians that take these seriously are the one major obstacle to Gay Rights.
Strange things happen when one stands up for the truth. Reasonable people throw hissy fits at how unreasonable Fools are. Therefore, slander, calumny and desecration are the least Fools deserve. Those so unreasonable that they refuse to join the collective ought to be banished from society under suitable hate-crimes convictions!
Every progressive advance on the issue is possible only if it is able to overcome the Christian opposition.
That's why they have to set up those inconvenient re-education camps, as soon as they can. Just don't call them gulags. It's only a gulag if it's Gitmo. 'Cause, you know, Amnesty International said so. Even though it's leaders had no evidence, and didn't believe it themselves.
Moreover, the Christian Right is ready and willing to strip away any rights already possessed by Queers.
Yeah, that's right. every prominent Christian has called for the huge manufacture of a giant Closet. Everyone demands that gays be thrown out of jobs and houses. Sure. Right! And the black helicopters are rising over the tree line right now! Quick! Change the electronic frequency on the tin cap before those nasty Christian indoctrination waves hit again!
The Queer battles the Christian in order to be treated like other human beings – that is a force to be reckoned with.
Yes, what a goliath! What nobility! In a society where Queer Eye for the Straight Guy can lead Bravo's Primetime Line-up and Pop superstars can kiss on an award's show and make page 1 on the tabloids, how noble it is for the oppressed Gays to challenge the churches! Bravo! Good show!
On and on this could go. But you get the idea.
This is what a world divorced from God looks like. This is the mission territory. To drip sarchastic serves the purpose of shattering the so-called reasonableness that such children of darkness hold as an appropriate worldview. It can't end there, of course. It's one thing to laugh out loud, lest we cry and become rolled over. Once our laughter has rekindled our spirits, however, it's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
There's seriously getting the calumny out of the way:
If you’re a woman, Christianity is the major force you must deal with if you want to retain the right to an abortion, which plays a tremendously important role in the opportunities and status of women. More directly, if you want to live as a non-traditional woman – e.g. work outside the home, it is the Christian church that you must contend with. It’s the Christian Church you feel as the force pressing down on you.
No one has the right to murder. Opposition to abortion serves the last and least defended of the civil rights of our nation, the basic right to life of every unborn boy and girl. No opportunity and status is worth killing over. As for the role of the Church in non-traditional woman's life? Evidence, please. Document where such overt or covert oppression takes place.
If you’re a Jew or Moslem, Christianity is a force to be reckoned with. In the United States Christians burn our temples and mosques down, not the other way around.
Again, evidence please. I doubt he can find a single case of an officially sanctioned burning of a synagogue or Mosque. Overheated rhetoric erodes credibility.
If you are a non-Christian anywhere in the world – from deep in the Amazon to the secluded Siberian steps, Christian missionaries are pursuing the conversion of you and your community. Traditionally and often still, such missionaries do great things to help the poor and needy, but with the implicit (if often no longer explicit) demand that beneficiaries express their gratitude by adopting the Christian faith.
Evidence, please! Cite the studies where this is the case, especially in contemporary times.
Koreans, Africans, Latin Americans – all people with indigenous faiths who have had their entire spiritual culture changed through the work of Christian missionaries. The powers of Christianity here sometimes intimately connect power, financial resources, political access, and a sense of cultural insufficiency.
Just ask Mr. Soros. Or Bill Gates. Or Warren Buffet. Again, let's see the facts, not the unsubstianted and sweaty opinion that does not pass the smell test.
With some basic honesty introduced into these proceedings, it's time for true education to take place. Therefore, let's address the facts.
The fact is that the progressive Agenda is championed by the money, power and influence of elite secularists. Meanwhile, atheists make up only 2% of the US population. Many of their endeavors fail at the ballot box. Eleven pro-gay marriage referendums failed on election day in 2004. The President won a high percentage of those religious that stand for Traditional values--and their side of the electorate brought Mr. Bush back into the White House. If Mr. Sher seriously wants to reckon the "force" of Christianity, he would do well to understand how real Christians view the world. Then he might try to persuade them that his ideas have some validity. Straw-men tactics and stereotyping, along with unsupported suppositions, will not do the trick.
Christians follow Christ. He followed the Father. This is the God that so loved the world that he sent his son, that they who believe in him might have life to the full in his name. Society has a long way to go in order to transform itself into a civilization of Love. This is what Christians strive for politically. If policy supports the inherent human dignity of all people, supports the common good, institutionalizes solidarity with the poor and subsidiarity with the associations of humanity, and provides participation in civil life for all, then true Christians will support it. Perhaps the Reasonable people that Mr. Sher and his ilk believe they speak for could try to grasp this simple concept.
Dare a Fool hope that the Reasonable might begin to think more foolishly? A Fool can only hope so!
posted by A Holy Fool at 10:02 PM
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