Random Acts of Nihilism

Dear Evangelicals:

In 1993, Conari Press published a little book called Random Acts of Kindness. The book ignited a movement and, not incidentally in America, an international industry. There are sequels by the score, websites, blogs, and social media accounts. There's even a National Random Acts of Kindness Day next month.

Never mind that people used to do these things for each other without a self-congratulatory social "movement" to prod them along; a world that was already vicious and self-serving has only gotten meaner since the birth of the RAK movement. And you helped. In direct contradiction of Jesus's teachings, you helped.

Not only that, but you're proud of it, because, hey, we're all gonna be raptured before the Great Tribulation, so you might as well paste yourself into your easy chair for family time, because all those grievous sinners who haven't been blessed with families are out there helping. You have better things to do.

Yeah, husband of one wife? Price above rubies woman? That's not what the Bible says.

No, the Bible orders you to take up your cross daily. To die daily. To do good, correct oppression, seek justice for orphans and widows.

Oh, but you, you, you. You always have an excuse. If you don't get your me-time, someone (Read: widows, orphans, the poor, and the oppressed) is gonna pay.

On alternate days, you grant yourselves a luxurious, emotional spa day, marinating in guilt, and telling yourself that your oppressed acquaintances bear so much ill will toward you, for refusing to help up to now, that they'd never accept help -- even if you did offer it.

Which you won't because, as you've already discovered with these weaklings, suffering is a marathon, not a sprint; and a glorious lambkin of God like yourself ain't got time for no grubby, anonymous marathon. You'd rather pay for the half-caf soy latte that the guy behind you -- who looks just like you, and not the icky poor -- is sure to order.

Voila! A random act of kindness! Aren't you the godly one?

No.

See, God says you extend kindness to those who can't afford to pay you back. No, He says you invite them, so you're looking them in the face, in all their poverty and hardship and suffering and shabbiness. In all their un-awesomeness.

But, muh glory!

As Jesus said of those who spend their lives slobbering after the approval of others, "They have their reward."

But wait; there's more! Of course there is, because God always has more for people like you.

Are you ready? Here we go.

At the end of time, when everyone is being judged by Jesus, He will look at the awesome life you had because you're so in love with Him, and He will say something to you that everyone who's ever been born will hear.

How's that for glory?

What Really Happens "Without God"

Dear Evangelicals:

Oh, hey, good job, Christian meme-maker! Especially the biblical illiteracy part. See, the Bible says rain falls on the just and the unjust, so there goes your argument that non-Christians have crap lives.

Then there’s this delusion that we Christians always have great weeks because we’re Christians.

There’s that pesky biblical illiteracy again! There’s not a single righteous person in the Bible whose life was free of trouble.

When you say that life’s problems would all go away if we only had enough faith, you spit in the face of every Christian who is dealing with a mental or physical disability, sickness, job loss, infidelity, death of a loved one, homelessness, abuse, abandonment, bullying … I could go on.

How about, instead of spewing un-biblical, unsubstantiated nonsense about people you’ve never met, you break out of your conservative, evangelical bubble; start following Jesus instead of Americhrist (You, too, rest of the planet. Have you heard the kind of un-biblical filth they're spewing on your evangelical TV programs?); and learn what the Bible actually says instead of what your pet preacher keeps cramming down your throat?

Open Your Mouth

Dear Evangelicals:

Funny thing about you: Invariably, the only reason you open your mouths is to put something in them. If you're speaking up at all, it's for yourselves and the imagined oppression you're going through. Not being able to pray in school is not does not count as oppression.

If you're slightly more evolved, you're speaking up for the oppressed, but only as long as they're living on the other side of the world. Only as long as all you have to do is send money. God forbid you should have to take a risk. God forbid you should have to open your mouth for someone whose religion, ethnicity, gender identity, financial situation, or disability will embarrass you in front of your powerful friends and colleagues.

Only, God doesn't forbid it. He commands it, with no exceptions.

If you don't look out, He'll put you in a position where your very life and health depend on someone speaking up for you. But, don't believe me; ask Christians who've been through it. Seriously, go ahead; I'm right here. All you have to do is comment on this post.

Cooties and the Scales of Justice

Dear Evangelicals:

What. Is. Wrong. With. YOU?

Have you honestly never read the following passage in the Bible?

"I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person.
 
"For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 

"But those who are outside God judges. Therefore 'put away from yourselves the evil person.'" (1 Corinthians 5:9-13, NKJV)

Oh, it's in there, all right. Yet you persist in doing exactly the opposite. You judge non-believers like there's a reward for it, yet leave professing Christians to commit the most heinous crimes imaginable, rallying 'round when someone actually dares to call Christian sinners to account.

Another thing -- and hang on to your hats because we're about to get intellectual up in here -- the subtext of this verse damns you all the more. 

The subtext is what the apostle Paul says without saying it. You'd have to go out of the world to avoid sinners who don't profess Christianity, he says, and his implication is that we cannot and should not go out of the world. In fact, Jesus said to go into all the world (You know: Great Commission. I'll let you Google it).

So when (gasp!) an unbeliever asks you to hang out or -- heaven forfend! -- offers to help you with something, don't be the high-handed jackass who quotes John 15:19 or Romans 12:2. The former is about how the religious establishment would feel about you if you were really following Jesus. The latter is about your behavior; not the behavior of non-believers.

Non-believers don't have some sort of spiritual cooties. And you don't have the authority to either judge them or spurn them. Get right with God!

Oh (spit take), that's what non-believers are supposed to do? Well, let me send you off with a quote from Frederick Buechner to help clarify just exactly who non-believers are:

"Many an atheist is a believer without knowing it just as many a believer is an atheist without knowing it. You can sincerely believe there is no God and live as though there is. You can sincerely believe there is a God and live as though there isn't."

Which camp do you fall into?

Sideshow Freaks

 Dear Evangelicals:

"And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?

"Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace." (Matthew 6:5-6, MSG)

So, those sweaty, scream-y, hysterical church services? Praying at the top of your lungs? Making a big show of asking the blessing on the meal to impress your unchurched -- or too churched -- guests? Babbling in a 'language' no one can understand? Jesus says the attention you get by pulling those stunts is all the reward you'll ever get. He's on to you, and He's not a fan.

Sure, that's a very modern translation up there -- a paraphrase, in fact. 

Funny enough, it sounded just about as contemptuous of your self-absorbed sideshow antics in 1611, the date of the first King James edition.

Folks, when an English king signs off on a passage about the dangers of putting on airs, you know you're in trouble.

Ubuntu

Dear Evangelicals:

Christ's kingdom is not America, and America is not Christ's kingdom.

That means whatever "it" is, you can't do it alone. With the great commandment, Jesus calls us to cast off independence, self-reliance, and going our own way. He calls to to join with him and with others to live, not co-dependently, but inter-dependently, the way Bishop Tutu describes in his definition of the Shona word, ubuntu.

I'm American, too, and I don't like it. Personally, I'd give my eyeteeth not to have to ask anyone for a favor. Nevertheless, there it is.

So, here's the deal: If someone has to ask you for a favor, and you can do it, you'd better. If Jesus is "watching" anything, He's watching that.

If you've had to ask for favors, and been rejected by lazy, complacent, greedy, narcissistic, and self-satisfied people, don't give up. Those people will be punished, and you will be uplifted, one way or another. If you believe the Bible, believe that, because that's what the Bible says.

As for my non-believing readers, I see you and I love you, and I ask you to call to mind that old, familiar saying about karma. You know the one.

What Would Jesus Say About the Distortion Of His Teachings?

What Would Jesus Say About the Distortion Of His Teachings?

Dear Evangelicals:

This article from The Huffington Post will surprise you, and just might suggest a new mission field to those of you who are really concerned about following Jesus' teachings.

I have never heard anyone say what Bernard Starr says here about the alarming disconnect between the teachings of Christianity -- and Judaism and Islam, for that matter -- and the actions of their adherents. This is mind-bending, life-changing stuff.

The Full Menu

Dear Evangelicals:

In Matthew 20:25-28 (NKJV), Jesus says this:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave ^-- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Yet you bow down before idiots, thieves, and deviants, and expect baby Christians to bow down before you. 

When he wrote that quote up there, Bishop Tutu was thinking like Jesus thinks. Jesus died so we all could and would be treated the way Bishop Tutu rightly demands to be treated in that quote. If you're not giving and demanding the full menu of human rights, you're just plain wrong.

Riffraff

Dear Evangelicals:

How biblically-illiterate to you have to be?

Jesus did not call us to hang out with "our own kind".

Cage Fight: Justice vs. Karma

Dear Evangelicals:

Isn't it strange that the Bible says this, while you say that the weak, the fatherless, the afflicted, and the destitute are in the mess they're in because they weren't living right?

No, the weak, the fatherless, the afflicted, and the destitute are in the mess they're in because you won't give them justice.

And you wonder why everybody seems to be turning on you in this election cycle.

Counsel For the Defense

Dear Evangelicals:

If there's something you should be talking about, it's this -- not yourself.

GOP Lawmaker Botches Bible To Punish Poor

GOP Lawmaker Botches Bible To Punish Poor

Dear Evangelicals:

The fine, well-meaning folks who produce Religion Dispatches for the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism deliver this headline sort of breathlessly, as though it is news.

Indeed, it should be, but it isn't. Americhrist-worshiping posers like Tennessee's Rep. Fincher have been using the Bible as a weapon of mass destruction since the Religious Right rose to power in the 1980s.

This piece makes short work of Fincher's biblical illiteracy, pinpointing the origin and meaning of a favorite fundie clobber passage, used with numbing regularity to oppress the poor.

It is true that the apostle Paul did have a certain group in mind when he admonished early Christians that anyone who wouldn't work shouldn't be fed, either. This piece tells us exactly who those people are in today's economy, and it's not who you think.

Wake up, evangelicals; the poor aren't the only ones being oppressed by this privileged group.

That's A Sin!

Dear Evangelicals:

"Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin."

If you think Paul is just talking about eating pork and shellfish, you're wrong, and legalistic, besides.

If someone is doing something from faith -- something you don't like -- you're wrong to condemn them, full stop. Such efforts on your part are pure idolatry. You are not God; it is not your job to manage, restrict, and control other folks.

That's right, you're breaking the first commandment by making yourself a god and putting self-worship above worship of the Most High.

Don't believe me, though. Persist in your efforts to control, restrict, and possess others, and see how far it gets you. If your efforts to be God "proceed from faith," you need to take a course in biblical literacy.

Or, are you one of those "Bible-believing" Christians who "revere the Bible but don't read it"?