Lord God Please Deliver Us From The SuperChristians

If you read the papers you’re likely to learn about all kinds of strange outliers and unusual happenings. Amidst what we know for sure is an unending War being waged upon Christianity there will be occasional stories about how Christianity is waging holy war on people who’d rather be left alone.

Slate reports on one such case in Louisiana.

And there's also this story from RawStory.

Some helpful perspective from blogger Zack Hunt.

Here is a little known fact (or maybe a carefully ignored one): Showboat religion actually runs counter to what the Gospels teach. Jesus said pretty clearly that praying loudly in public was wrong besides being annoying and in bad taste. Here's the Bible book and verse on public show prayer.

Still, many Americans believe Christianity is under attack even if all we're doing is asking them forgodssake to just tone it down. The folks on FoxNews keep their alert flasher going about this for hours a week, between wringing their hands about the decline in the military budget which isn’t declining and worrying about the hordes of foreigners who keep coming in adding to the U.S. population which is almost entirely descended from foreigners who came in decades earlier, some of whom weren't even Christian at all...some of whom were even (Unitarians). In some columns the greatest threat to Christianity is the threat to our God-given right to carry machine guns. Other columnists think it’s the liberals trying to feed the poor out of the taxed incomes of rich people who are already worried sick about how unlikely it is that they will ever get into heaven unless it becomes a lot easier to fit camels through the eyes of needles.

But the greatest unifying fear among the writhing, fretful Christians out there is the danger that they will lose their sacred American right to marry someone who’d much rather be married to someone else. They feel it’s wrong that gay men might be allowed to marry other men rather than marrying their sisters or daughters, or that lesbians might marry other lesbians rather than being obligated to enter a sacred union with some good Christian man they feel zero attraction to. This holy right to an unhappy, frustrated and unfulfilling married life seems particularly sacred in the South and in the rural West.

Still the Right Wing columnists seem to think free choice is a bad thing in the land of the free.

The best argument for the superiority of their faith among today’s superChristians (the supercharged variety of Christian that is fully armed and believes in the sanctity of lower wages for working people) is that Christianity makes us better people. That going to church on a weekly basis makes us kinder and gentler and more generous, which is most definitely NOT to say that it makes you Liberal. Apparently, though, churchgoing and praying and feeling closer to God than all the other less devout losers you have to rub shoulders with every day does not, in fact, make people more generous or kinder or gentler. Quite the reverse. Of course this new information isn’t a reliable revelation handed down by some godly preacher in a $5000 suit who received it directly out of the sky. No, it turns out this information comes from scientists who did careful verifiable research on human behavior while they weren’t otherwise busy worshipping Satan.

Here's an article about this latest research from that unholy bastion of godless Communism, the Economist Magazine.

And, if you'll forgive me, some more science news on the topic from the LATimes.

Religion sometimes makes us better, sometimes worse, sometimes stupid. I give you Ben Carson, an interesting example of how a seemingly intelligent and well-educated man can come off looking like a damn fool because he refuses to acknowledge that science might be right.

Wealthiness is next to Godliness

Jesus became a serious pure-market capitalist in the 1930s. Before then most Americans believed the Bible nonsense Jesus allegedly said about the wealthy man and the eye of the needle and about how we should feed and clothe the poor in His name. Boy did Jesus fool us! An excellent piece in today's NYTimes explains the history.

For a while not many people believed the truth about Jesus in a three-piece suit and expensive shoes. Eisenhower, who was a Republican, kept FDR’s New Deal in place and went right on taxing top earners more than working stiffs. American prosperity was broad and stable. Working people lived in nice safe neighborhoods with decent schools.

That changed with Reagan. Reagan had allies among the TV prophets who earned millions off of faithful viewers living in mobile home parks. The Reagan revolution, with Jesus’ almighty help, put working people back in difficulties, flattened working incomes, forcing families to have two earners to get by. Taxes on top earners went way down. Government help dried up for most of us but ballooned for special industries preferred by Republicans and Jesus, like weapons manufacturing and predatory lending. Who said you couldn’t worship both God and Mammon? (Hint: it was Jesus. And he was apparently wrong.) Christianity Today has an interesting piece explaining the so-called Prosperity Gospel. (Do you see any mention of Jesus weeping?)

This right wing alliance of wealth and Christianity is downright unholy. Its home is in the Republican Party. They’re the same ones who funded the Citizens United lawsuit making secret million dollar political donations sacred. (They’re also the ones funding the fight against affordable healthcare, because––as Jesus said––sickness and fear of death are best managed as a business model, a source of profits.) The Theocracy Watch website tracks this creepy phenomenon.

An interesting example: Joel Osteen, who lives in a $10.5 million property in Houston, which is a step up from the $3 million property he still owns. Jesus must really really really love him and not like the rest of us much. There's his house, on a map of the star's homes in Houston.

John Hagee is another one of these Elmer Gantrys. Less handsome, but mesmerizing. Intelligent responsible people used to laugh at charlatans like this. The powerful have learned these preachers are a good way to keep a leash on the working masses. American Prospect tells Hagee's story of Jesus-Went-To-Business-School.

There are a lot of busy churchy people out there who’ve carefully revised the Revised Standard Version of the Bible to explain why wealth and money and getting ahead of your neighbor is a true sign of God’s blessing. All of us would rather be Saved and own an expensive car than be Saved and live hand to mouth. People are very good at rationalizing themselves out of being kind to the poor. It’s much more rewarding and pleasant to ignore them. It’s nice to be rich without feeling any obligation to anyone else. The easiest way to do this is to believe the poor are wicked. Even though Jesus said the opposite.

There's no shame in vulgar wealth anymore. It's holy. It's a sign that Jesus loves you. Nobody hides it anymore. Why should they? Their tax rate is so low. Wall Street pros make more in a day than most people earn in a year. Which might explain why the bonuses given out in 2014 — $28.5 billion worth — were twice the combined earnings of all full-time minimum-wage workers in the US.

The Just World Bias

There's an excellent column in The Guardian by Oliver Burkeman. You probably know a lot of positive thinkers. Share this column with them.

There is a belief out there that people get what they deserve. That rape victims asked for it. That poor people deserve to be homeless and hungry. As Herman Cain says to cheering Republican crowds, "If you don't have a job, blame yourself!" The people with money and power like the "just world bias" because it justifies their good luck. It turns them from lucky people into nobility.

In today's StarTribune a column by former Strib business reporter Mike Meyers describes how the Republican Party shapes our tax system to help the rich and punish the poor.

If you go to one of those new, very large, very successful "Christian" churches, I suggest you raise your hand and ask about this. I'm sure your pastor has a ready answer. Maybe Jesus was wrong about the less fortunate. Or maybe He really preferred rich people.

The Rule of Accumulated Advantage

The Wall Street Journal, usually the megaphone of Wall Street's more devout worshippers, has a very readable cranky counter-argument today. It seems most of what you read about stocks and investments is tailored to please the large company offering them. This happened with the private rating agencies who tailored their assessments to their customers' demands, which is like an oncologist asking you whether you'd like him to see cancer on your x-ray or something nice. Financial analysts and journalists have been far too nice to Wall Street for years. This is how bubbles are made.

Love, money, admiration, credit ratings, applause, sexual favors, media coverage, protection, immunity, security, and (apparently) the blessings of God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost all increase as you move up the scale. The bigger and richer you are the more you get, the more help you get, the more sympathy you get, the more everything. (The Queen always gets the most presents, not only because everybody wants to please her but because, unlike other mortals, she has two birthdays every year.)

The rich today are handled with the gentle concern the vulnerable once could beg for. The poor and vulnerable are increasingly scorned. Is this because of the Prosperity Gospel? It's strange to think that Darwin and Herbert Spencer's bleakest thoughts are now the guiding principles of the followers of Jesus. (As Herman Cain says "If you aren't rich, blame yourself!") The most popular churches say that riches are a sure signal that God loves you more than other people. No wonder they're popular; they tell their biggest donors exactly what they want to hear. Churches kiss up, not down like they used to. We always knew the rich really inherit the earth, but now it's part of the gospel, preached from the pulpit and included in the holy decrees from the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages.

The Vatican's careful protection of its shepherds is nothing compared to the protection financial journalists and analysts give to the enormous banks. They praise bad investments and cover up dubious ones. They praise those who reward them for their praise. Is this their job? Is the priesthood meant to interpret and warn or is it there to uphold the almighty? It's a sad and dangerous fact that all favors and advantages accrue upward unless something corrects the system. Peer review applies the corrective rigor to the scientific community, where even consensus has its contrarians who insist on the alternate possibility.

Competition used to apply this rigor to free enterprise. Competition gave the entire system greater stability. Failures, a natural event, still happened but they were smaller. Now we have Too Big To Fail. Now failure and consequences are only dished out to regular people––whose only mistake was believing a corporation's annual report or the admiring words of a financial analyst who privately wanted the love of the CEO and the board. Increasingly, rewards are privatized upward while risks are socialized to everybody else, to ordinary people, less exalted people, to laid off employees and to us as taxpayers.

In a quarter when Goldman Sachs announced a half billion dollar loss it also announced ten billion dollars in bonuses to the executives who delivered that loss. How many billions did the US Treasury throw at Goldman during the recent crisis? Did Goldman absorb any losses from the havoc it helped create? What is wrong with this picture? We once had restrictions on this kind of thing; we demanded them and they served us well. Until we forgot why they were there, and began believing the Reaganite fairy tale about the self-regulating genius of Wall Street. About how our economy was magically protected by fairies and elves. The bigger they are the more regulation they need. It would give the rest of us more freedom and less to worry about.

The Familiar Anti Christ Rumors

When logic and good sense fail you can always call up the bogeyman. The Republican Party has been working this theme ever since Obama began his run for president. It's one of their dog whistles.

There have been posters of Obama with a Hitler moustache. Obama, the first black president, is "the Other", "Not like us", "Obama isn't an American", "Obama isn't a Christian." (He's both Christian and American born, and having risen from working class roots he's more like us than the patricians running for the Republican nomination, but truth is as irrelevant as logic and good sense.)

Last week someone in the audience shouted that Obama is The Anti-Christ. Which raises the End Times rumors, another useful dog whistle. When Republicans don't want to deal with real problems––joblessness, climate change, financial insecurity, extreme wealth disparity––they call up scapegoats. They blame immigrants, Muslims, African Americans, socialists, communists, Christians of other denominations, unions, children, old people. Satan. The bogeyman. They call the president of another race and political party The AntiChrist (as reported in this NYTimes piece.) They can't handle the present time, so they bring up the End Times.

Is this craziness catching? Is it religion or science fiction? L. Ron Hubbard advised other science fiction writers decades ago that the best way to get rich was to found a religion (as reported in this Wall Street Journal article from 1997) and there have been a lot of strange new "Christian" sects and factions in the past few decades. Many emerged as a way to make money, and fell when the money disappeared, often with the religious leader. But the ride will last as long as the money lasts. (This LATimes article from 1987 will recall the charlatans of that time, Swaggart, Bakker, Robertson and Roberts. Oral Roberts tried to extort $8 million from his followers, saying God would kill him if the money wasn't given to his ministry.)

One of the loopier religious loops out there is the Prosperity Gospel, which preaches worldly riches. (This article from BeliefNet discusses the flaws in this fringe of Christianity.) It appeals mostly to people worried about their security in a time of financial crisis. "If God loves you He will make you rich." The pastor might as well say "rich like me" because the pastors pushing the prosperity gospel are always very prosperous themselves. Big cars, expensive suits, private jets, fancy homes unlike the spartan parsonages most conventional churches provide. These pastors are living proof of their gospel and look prosperous indeed, prosperous out of the pockets of the flock. Michele Bachmann's biggest religious backer, Mac Hammond, has had his own run-in with the IRS which only makes him more beloved by his mesmerized parishioners. Imagined persecution is good for money-raising.

But why preach earthly prosperity when the world is going to hell around you? Why is God making you rich if He's about to take it all away? This is what thinking rational people, even Christians, call a contradiction.

Because the prosperity gospel's flip side is always Armageddon. These demagogues have a private line to the holy truth, a bit like stock touts have an inside line on the next winner. If you've ever heard Michele Bachmann's cooing, bedroom voiced prayer about the End Times, you have to wonder what planet her secret messages are coming from. "God loves the poor––Send me money." It is always tied to a demand for money, for her campaign or the very special pastor who prays for it on radio and TV. Those pantsuits and hairstyles her husband art directs are not cheap.

Why do we take any of these people seriously? Money from heaven in one breath and the rain of fire in the next. I suppose it's good television just as creepy movies about demon possession and secret messages in Da Vinci paintings are good television. Whipping up end times fears gets people talking, and fear gets them into the fold. The prospect of these GOP choices puts the fear of God into me.

If he wasn't being sarcastic in the Gospels, Jesus favored the poor and condemned the rich; so why do these "fundamentalist" "Christians" turn the Gospels on their head?

And again, why if "the end-times are near" are these so-called "Prosperity Christians" piling up money they can't take with them? All the GOP candidates cater to the notion that "Jesus Preferred Rich People", either outright or in code. Creating a false picture of Jesus may be the worst kind of blasphemy.

Actually, to give Bachmann proper credit, many leading Republicans worship a goddess rather than a God, and her name is Ayn Rand. You want values? Hers are definitely HOT. It's all about getting what you want, whatever cost to the people around you. If you want the Anti Christ it won't be a centrist liberal like Obama, it'll be someone toting a copy of Atlas Shrugged, with a cross and a flag on his or her lapel.