I'm really sick, sick enough that I didn't teach today, that I'm not at Parent Conference Night, and that I've been lounging around in the living room watching the news. I wasn't going to write an entry today but...
ABC News tonight included a report on the Christian Right and the belief of its constituents that they are responsible for the President's re-election and, as a result, want to see payback in the form of, among other things, Supreme Court rulings against abortion and gay marriage.
Sigh. I turned up the sound and pulled out a pen so I could take notes on the soccer catalog lying next to me.
Several ladies stated with conviction that they believe that God was at work in the election and that he put Mr. Bush in the White House.
The Catholic scholar and priest who teaches my graduate class said last night, just as an aside, that Jesus is not interested in government.
One gentleman responded to a reporter's questions by saying that he doesn't want to go to a school ball game and see a gay couple there being affectionate with one another.
Yep. Pretty awful stuff. Those ladies I saw holding hands as they walked by the -- oops --local high school -- today: you better believe they are out to rend the place asunder, and our entire community, too, while they're at it. I know that because they stop by here every night with pamphlets urging my husband and me to get a divorce.
The church where these Christian folks were interviewed is the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church of Fort Lauderdale. I looked it up and I just want to clarify that it's a PC Church of America, not a PC (USA) -- the church which I'm proud to call home. It's got a pretty interesting website, and states that the third prong of its Three-Purpose Ministry is as follows:
"Reforming the Culture - Protecting religious liberty and America’s Christian heritage by encouraging the application of biblical principles to all spheres of our culture and to all of life."
In case you do not want the PCA's version of Biblical principles applied to all spheres of your life, you need not fear. The senior minister of the congregation also leads the Center for Reclaiming America, which among other aspects of its mission seeks to "enabl[e Christians] to defend and implement the Biblical principles on which our country was founded."
By the time these people are through with us, we will have a theocracy of the highest order. And how do I know this? Because the minister said tonight that what he preaches is "The Truth."
A little earlier, I was curled up in bed hoping to die and increasingly bored by the process. I called to my daughter to come and talk with me for awhile after she got home from school. We lay there in the dark, maybe for an hour, trying to figure out why some folks have such a deep-seated need for rigidity in belief and intolerance in politics and others have such an equally deep-rooted belief in the importance of space and acceptance for all of us. Personally, I think my beautiful daughter (who, by the way, is not the least bit religious) is a good deal closer to an understanding of The Truth than the gentleman from Coral Ridge PCA.
Just my .02 for tonight. Now, there have got to be some crackers in this house... .
7 comments:
I don't really go along with their argument that THEY put Bush in the Whitehouse...but if they HAD, I wouldn't blame them for expecting something in return, since Reagan talked them into voting for him twice, and they never got squat from him.
I'd love to know...why does God's man in the Whitehouse have to be so...shall we say, intellectually challenged? I would think that God would choose someone a little smarter... Lisa :-]
Sorry you are not feeling well :0 I don't understand how people can harbor such deep feelings of righteousness... its truly maddening and quite frightening. Pamela
I think this is selective Christianity....what about divorce, shacking up together, and remarriage...all condemned in the "good book". And the South ( the chest beating leaders of the C.R.) lead the nation in all those things? Why not run a campaign based on those platforms? Did Christ ever once say anything against homosexuality....I do not think so. I am throughly disgusted........
Lets have pie!
You wrote: A little earlier, I was curled up in bed hoping to die and increasingly bored by the process
Oh, that is the funniest thing. Thank you for that description. It's perfect. I have "been there." As for the religions right and the election--I know, I know, I know. It's a phenomenon that must be acknowledged and, hopefully, stopped. Failing that, it will run its course in due time, I hope, (unless they take over like Margaret Atwood portrays in THE HANDMAID'S TALE!). But how many rights will erode in the meanwhile? I saw on the news that some (Christian) pharmacists won't fill perscriptions for birth control pills now.
very sad.
Our illnesses coincided as neatly as many of our opinions. I'm glad for you that you found a comfortable place for religion. I never did, and now I dont want to.
It scares me that these fanatics do not see any corelation between what they are aiming for and what some horrible regimes in various countries around the world have perpetrated upon their citizens, usually to our safely-distant horror.
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