This is the fifty-eighth installment in the Sacrilegious Humor series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a comedy bit that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please email me the name of the bit or a link to it.
Today’s video is a compilation of Bill Maher’s bits on Islam and Christianity.
Susan-Anne White, an aging British Fundamentalist politician and blogger, has decided to hang up the spurs she uses to ride homosexuals bareback. No longer will she bless the world with her anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion screeds. No longer will she parade before all the world her bigotry and hatred for anything and everything that doesn’t align with her narrow Evangelical worldview. Susan-Anne — dare I be so familiar? she hates it when I am — has been featured several times on this site, and she has graced us with her comments on more than one occasion. Please check out Susan-Anne White Thinks I’m a Despicable, Obnoxious, Militant, Hateful Atheist, British Fundamentalist Susan-Anne White’s List of Politically Correct Words, and The BRCA1 and BRCA2 Gene: Susan-Anne White Condemns Women Who Have Preemptive Surgery.
For those of you who are not familiar with White, here is what Wikipedia has to say about her:
Susan-Anne White (born 21 April 1959, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a Christian activist in County Tyrone. She stood for election to the local council in the Fermanagh and Omagh District Council election, 2014 and only got 67 votes. She contested the West Tyrone constituency in the 2015 General Election, but came ninth out of nine candidates with 166 votes, behind Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol.
Originally from Newtownabbey, she moved to Trillick in 1997. Her campaign is based on 10 principles drawn up by Dr Alan Clifford, a Norwich based minister whose anti-gay and anti-Islam rants have led to police investigations in the past.
She has aroused attention because of her strong and isolating views. She describes herself as biblically correct, not politically correct.
She says she would “recriminalise homosexuality”, given the chance and claims that gay people “are not born that way, they are out to recruit. We are in danger. One demand after another.” She is opposed to the idea of gay people being allowed to donate blood. She would also make adultery a criminal offence, and is critical of rock music because “The lyrics are promoting immorality, the noise is deafening, and they also promote anarchy.”
Her 2015 manifesto promises to “oppose the global warming fanatics and their pseudo science” and “restore the concept of a family wage with the father as the breadwinner.” She told the Belfast Telegraph: “I don’t consider myself extreme – not at all. “It is society that has moved. Not so far in the past, most people would have shared my views.My views are extreme because society has moved away from God’s principles.” She opposes feminism “with all her might”, and says it is to blame for the recession. “They [feminists] are responsible for the economy – they destroyed the whole concept of a family wage with the father as the bread-winner and the stay-at-home mother. Women feel they have to be out in the workforce.”
On 25 October 2017, White appeared on Nolan Live in which she expressed her opinion regarding abortion laws in Northern Ireland. White was criticised in the press following her appearance, with the BBC also facing criticism for giving her a platform.
In 2015, White released her Manifesto — a statement of religious and political beliefs :
Here’s the text of her Biblically Correct, NOT Politically Correct Manifesto:
White and I do agree on animal cruelty. Woo Hoo!
In 2016, White shared her thoughts with The Newsletter — a British (Northern Island) publication. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
An evangelical Christian, self-styled moral crusader and would-be politician, Susan-Anne White is on a mission to stem what she sees as the polluted tide of the permissive society.
Mrs White became a target of ridicule when she stood as an independent candidate in the recent Assembly elections with a manifesto which featured pledges to jail gay people and adulterers, oppose abortion, uphold parents’ rights to smack their children and abolish the Equality Commission and the Human Rights Commission.
It also reflected her opposition to sex education in schools, the ‘Islamification of British culture’, the LGBT agenda and her support for the reintroduction of capital punishment for murder.
It’s an eyebrow-raising list which many found outmoded and inflammatory; at the time social media went into overdrive, portraying Mrs White as a meddling, narrow-minded, Bible-thumping, battle-axe. I was intrigued to meet this seemingly formidable lady and she agreed on certain provisos: that I would ‘‘dress modestly’’ for the interview (make-up and revealing clothes are major bugbears); I would not paint her as a ‘‘figure of fun’’; and she wanted assurances that I was not out to promote a feminist agenda (the name of this section, ‘Woman to Woman’, caused her some concern).
Dressed demurely in a floaty, ankle-grazing skirt, Mrs White, 57, welcomed me into her modest Trillick home with tea and biscuits. She lives on a small farm with her husband Francis, a helpmate in her campaigns, and 17-year-old daughter Abigail, who is home-schooled and passes the time doing jigsaw puzzles and drawings of Disney characters.
….
The White’s lead a modest, quiet life, with no television, only a screen for DVDs, and no alcohol. Sundays are sacrosanct, although they rarely attend a church, preferring instead to listen to sermons on the internet. ‘‘Once strong Bible-believing churches are more often than not going the way of the world, they are watering down the message to please people, not to cause offence, they are so afraid today of telling it like it is because of hate crimes laws,’’ she says. ‘‘If I was worried about people’s delicate sensibilities I would never open my mouth.’’
Of the Catholic church, and others, she is unequivocal.
‘‘I do not consider it a Christian church and yet it was the church I was born into. But I am not singling out the Catholic church, there are many so-called Christian sects or denominations, but they are not Christian, because they have deviated from the Bible. Mormonism is not a Christian church, they are a cult. Jehovah’s Witnesses are not Christians, the Seventh Day Adventists are not Christians.’’
….
‘‘For people to treat me as some dimwit and to laugh and mock and think they are going to get some collateral out of me by poking fun at me, I feel righteous anger at that, because I am no fool.
‘‘I believe I’m in a war, a spiritual war and I believe there are enemies out there, they are enemies of God and because I’m on the Lord’s side they are my enemies also.’’
Mrs White said she would ‘‘recriminalise homosexuality tomorrow’’ if she had the power, adding her stance is quite soft compared to some.
‘‘I can point you to pastors and ministers in the United States of America who are calling for the death penalty.’’
Is that something she would like to see?
‘‘No, but it actually was a death penalty offence. In the Old Testament under the law of Moses adulterers were executed and homosexuals were executed.
‘‘I wouldn’t call for their execution, but I would call for their imprisonment,’’ she says firmly.
Mrs White does not believe someone is born gay, but that people are ‘brainwashed’ or ‘recruited’ into homosexuality, or have even been ‘‘molested as children’’.
‘‘I don’t like that word ‘gay’. To me gay means happy. They have hijacked that lovely word; they have ruined language.
‘‘Behind closed doors they are killing each other…..the sexual proclivities of homosexuals is so abhorrent and damaging to the human body that it hardly bears description. Sodomy is such an unnatural act, the body was not made for sodomy.’’
Despite these fervent views, she says she does not hate homosexuals.
‘‘No, I don’t hate them, I pity them. I know they hate me. I actually have tremendous compassion for them, especially the young ones caught up in that lifestyle.’’
You can read the entire article here.
White has what I call the “Elijah Syndrome.” I mentioned her in a 2016 post titled Evangelical Preachers and the Elijah Syndrome:
Every time I think of this story [ 1 Kings 19] I am reminded of the fact that a lot of Evangelical preachers see themselves as some sort of modern-day Elijah. And like Elijah, each thinks he is the one remaining prophet in the community standing up for God, the Bible, and Evangelical morality. Such preachers delude themselves into thinking that they alone are standing true, that they alone are preaching the right message. Some of these preachers, men such as Robert Lyte and AW Pink, think that the Christian church is so morally compromised that they can no longer in good conscience be a part of it (Susan-Anne White would another example of this, even though she doesn’t claim to be a preacher).
Please do take the time to watch the video. It’s only 3 minutes long, and it perfectly explains what I write next.
Much like twentieth century Evangelical preacher A.W. Pink who secluded himself in a coastal British community because he couldn’t find a church pure enough for him, White rarely attends church, finding fault with the lot of them. White will go to her grave believing that she was right; that she was a standard bearer for Jesus; that her beliefs constitute THE way, THE truth, and THE life. I truly feel sorry for her, missing out on so much of what life has to offer; missing out on befriending wonderful LGBTQ people; missing out on the wonders and pleasures of life, all because she thinks an ancient religious text (the Bible) and a little voice in her head (the Holy Spirit) tell her not to.
White started blogging in 2012. In a July 7, 2018 post, White said she was ending her blogging career:
We are closing our blog with immediate effect.
We will, from now on, watch with aching hearts God giving society over and giving it up to vile affections.
Society is doomed and divine judgement is sure.
We will no longer “cast our pearls before swine.”
We trust our labours in the Lord were not in vain.
We will now take our leave.
White has given up, choosing instead to stand on the sidelines and watch as God judges a world given over to vile affections. (Romans 1) According to White, people such as myself are swine and she refuses any longer to cast her wisdom-filled blog posts our way. White hopes that her “labours in the Lord” were not in vain. This is what Evangelical preachers and Christian zealots say when their works have had no effect. Well, Praise Jesus, God’s keeping record, and come judgment day he will reward me for faithfully preaching hate and bigotry. Countless Evangelical Christians wrongly believe that their God is going to reward them for being nasty, judgmental people. Look at me Lord, I stood true as rail for your Word and your cause. And Jesus will say to them on that day (Matthew 25:31-46):
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
The late Keith Green said it best in his song Matthew 25:
Bruce, aren’t you an atheist? You don’t believe there is a God, judgment, or afterlife. No, I don’t. But, White does, and I want her to think about her life from a Christian perspective and how she has wasted it hating and trying to harm people different from her. White wasn’t born this way; her religion turned her into what she is today. All too soon, White will go the way of all men, joining atheists, LGBTQ people, Catholics, Episcopalians, liberal Christians, abortionists, and Muslims in the dirt of the earth, serving up food for the worms that will slowly eat her body. Left behind will be White’s nineteen-year-old daughter. She has, I am sure, been deeply affected by her parent’s violent Christian Fundamentalism. It’s not too late to keep her from turning into her mother. If Susan-Anne would only repent and change her ways, she could put an end to her abominable legacy — much as my wife and I did when we left Christianity. The Evangelical curse was broken, and now our children free. To Susan-Anne I say, think of your daughter and set her free.
It is only in this life we can effect change. Once we die there are no second chances, no do-overs. There’s no God, no afterlife, no eternal rewards in Heaven or judgment in Hell; just eternal, endless death and nothingness. White admits her words and behavior have not elicited societal change. Perhaps there’s a messaging problem. Maybe, just maybe, White is worshiping the wrong God. I understand her not wanting to be an atheist like me, but there’s all sorts of Christianities out there that promote love, kindness, decency, and respect. Susan-Anne, for the sake of your daughter, please change your ways.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
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This is the one hundred seventy-eighth installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.
Today’s Songs of Sacrilege is God is On Our Side by Roxanne Cote.
Lyrics
Can’t you see the starving child?
Can’t you see the corpses piled?
A comedy of dirt and blood
And God is on our side
Sex slaves and trafficking
Broken homes are for bidding
Love at a price to buy
And God is on our side
Day and night
I yearn for you
by the dimmest light
And I know
I’m bearing my greatest fight
Where religions were made to divide
My brother and I
For all the love we tried and
Prayers we lied and
God is on our side
Monks and kings are born heartless
Living in wild circus
But your myths are here to guide
And God is on our side
Governing a red madness
Fruiting a black sadness T
he faith in me has died
And God is on our side
Christopher Hitchens Monologue
Is it good for the world to appeal to our credulity and not to our skepticism? Is it good for the world to worship a deity that takes sides in wars and human affairs? To appeal to our fear and guilt, is it good for the world? To our terror, our terror of death, is it good to appeal? To preach guilt and shame about the sexual act and the sexual relationship, is this good for the world? And asking yourself all that while, are these really religious responsibilities, as I maintain they are? To terrify children with the image of hell and eternal punishment, not just of themselves, but of their parents and those they love Perhaps worst of all, to consider women an inferior creation, is that good for the world? And can you name me a religion that has not done that?
Are you gonna hide forever?
Are you gonna hide forever?
Are you gonna hide forever?
Are you gonna hide forever?
Are you gonna hide forever?
In 2018, human rights are neither a topic of public discussion nor an apparent interest of American government policy. Both the president and his secretary of state think that torture is an acceptable practice as a part of our global military endeavors everywhere. The president really seems to like the North Korean dictator, a killer of his own people and his own family. President Trump “sword dances” with the new leader in Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, while both give orders to dispatch warplane sorties that are destroying the poorest nation in the Middle East with bombs, blockades and ensuing famine.
Salman, the crown prince of oil, sand and a very decadent Saudi royal family, is on the offensive these days. Support for this effort comes from the United Arab Emirates and the United States. For the skeptical reader, yes, this war on Yemen was started by President Obama. The war is now three years old and being waged against a sect of Islam that is close to the Shia sect of Islam. The Saudis first tried to raise a pan-Arab coalition, but that melted away faster than ice cream in the sun. The Saudis next turned to the Americans, and with their help in the form of aerial fuel-tankers, Saudi warplanes were able to refuel and to do double duty on destruction of Yemeni targets.
For an historical perspective, Salman ought to read the Pentagon Papers. Relentless bombing in Vietnam and Cambodia did little to bring the USA a victory in Vietnam. Saudi supporters are looking for the light at the end of the tunnel just like President Johnson did, but there may be none. During the Vietnam War, the light at the end of the tunnel ended up being the Tet offensive by the North Vietnamese Army. Within a few years, the Americans were going home after losing billions and billions of dollars and losing at least 69,000 brave and wonderful young men and women. I believe that a similar quagmire could happen to Saudis in their war on Yemen. Not so much in terms of the pointless loss of young Saudi pilots’ lives, but in terms of lost capital and political embarrassment as killers of over 10,000 poor in Yemen.
Make no mistake. This war in Yemen is truly one of the rich against the poor. The combined resources of the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are almost beyond count. Yemen, on the other hand, has virtually no wealth and a currently dismal future because the country’s small resources are all practically leveled by now with the Saudis bombing mosques, hotels and factories. Famine has ridden in along with the Saudi onslaught. According to the United Nations, the only way to avoid the famine is to successfully move the “three amigos” of the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates into a peace agreement with the Yemeni Houthis.
— Jack Healey, Alternet, The Trump War No One Talks About, June 22, 2018
A Guest Post by ObstacleChick
What is religious fundamentalism? Typically, it is an unwavering and unapologetic belief in the absolute authority of a religious text or texts. Adherents believe their religion is the one true religion and that its precepts should govern all aspects of life. The ultimate goal is the governance of everyone’s lives under the rules and standards of the religion’s holy book(s). Rules are comprehensive, encompassing behavior, dress, gender roles, and access to information, media, and technology. Adherents believe that their religious beliefs and practices should be exempt from criticism, and any form of criticism is labeled as heresy or persecution. There are many types of religious fundamentalists throughout the world, but here in the United States we are most familiar with fundamentalist evangelical Christians, fundamentalist Muslims, orthodox and Hasidic Jews, and Old Order Amish (which are fundamentalist in their adherence to their religious text, but not with regard to forcing their beliefs on those outside their community).
As disparate as these groups may seem on the surface, they have much in common. Each group believes that its holy text is an absolute, inerrant authority for all aspects of life. It is not uncommon for these groups to separate themselves from their surrounding communities, focusing almost exclusively on staying within their religious communities with regard to their worship activities, leisure activities, and even employment. Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, for example, must be work for an employer that is flexible with regard to Jewish holy days and for leaving work early on Fridays for Shabbas. Not in all cases, but frequently children are sent to sect-approved/operated schools. In Amish communities, education is forbidden past 8th grade, and in communities that have their own schools, the teachers are young women within the community who have no education past 8th grade. For Hasidic Jews, girls and boys attend gender-segregated schools. Boys attend yeshivas where the focus of education is on studying the Talmud. Little attention is given to other subjects, and evolution is not taught. Among Evangelicals, it is popular to either home school one’s children or to send them to a fundamentalist Christian school, where, again, evolution is not taught to children. Fundamentalist Muslims often send their children to madrasas where the focus is on religious education. In some Muslim-controlled countries, girls are not educated.
Fundamentalists of all stripes give great authority to religious leaders who often dictate the rules of each separatist community. In Amish communities, there is a bishop, two or three ministers, and a deacon. Each must be nominated, but lots (similar to drawing straws) are drawn to determine which man receives which position. The leaders are responsible for the spiritual education of their congregation as well as making sure the Ordnung — the set of rules specific to each community — is followed. Each church district’s leaders set specific rules for its community, which is why there can be slight differences from one Amish community to another. In Evangelical sects and churches, great authority is given to pastors. Bruce has spoken about this a number of times, so there’s no need for me to expound on the matter here. In Orthodox or Hasidic communities, the rebbe is the authority, and he sets the rules specific to that local community. Rules may include color of stockings women are required to wear or what books are allowed in the Hasidic libraries. In fundamentalist Muslim communities, the imam is the ultimate authority, and he may issue fatwas or rules specific to his community. (Please note that all leaders are male.)
In each of these fundamentalist religions, gender roles are specifically defined in traditional ways. Men are considered to be the leaders of the family, the breadwinners, the final authorities in the household; the ones who commune most closely with their deity. Women are considered to be the nurturers, the caretakers of children, submissive to the authority of their husbands. Typically, women are not allowed to work outside the home in many fundamentalist sects/churches. Amish women are, however, permitted to sell their goods at markets or operate roadside stands for home-grown and home-baked goods. Women are not allowed any positions of leadership beyond teaching women or young children. Marriage is considered to be between one man and one woman, and these communities are not known for acceptance of LBGTQ people.
Dress codes are important among these communities. The Amish are easily identified as their clothing styles have not changed in centuries. They are referred to as “Plain People” because their styles are simple, solid colors typically limited to black, brown, burgundy, blue, purple or green (though some communities may allow other colors). Women wear dresses and aprons secured with straight pins (no buttons, which are considered vain), and they wear a white kappe (head covering) so they may pray at any time. Men wear dark suits with hook & eye closures (no buttons and no fancy belt buckles), suspenders, and a black or straw hat.
For fundamentalist Christians, there is often no exact standard of dress other than “modesty” for women, though many fundamentalist Baptist churches have complex, exacting dress codes. Many fundamentalist Christian women wear skirts or dresses at least knee length, no low-cut tops, and they typically wear sleeves. Women will be shamed for showing too much skin or wearing something too tight.
Hasidic communities have strict hair and clothing rules as well. Married women must keep their hair short and wear a sheitel wig; women wear dresses or skirts; their sleeves must be at least three-quarter length; they must wear thick, opaque stockings (often black, occasionally flesh colored though that is forbidden in some communities); and a lot of black, loose clothing, though blouses or sweaters may be colorful. Married men must sport a beard and side curls (payot) which they can never cut. Most men wear a white button-down shirt and black pants and jacket. A yarmulke must be worn at all times, and when praying, men wear a tallit, or prayer shawl, with tzitzit, or fringe, to remind them of God’s commandments.
Fundamentalist Muslim women must be covered in mixed company, and the culture determines how much covering is required. The most extreme version is the burqa with the niqab (face covering). Men may wear a taqiyah or cap when praying.
Each of these fundamentalist religions believes secularism is the greatest threat to their sect, churches, and beliefs. Access to secular libraries or media may be prohibited, restricted, or discouraged. Often, only books approved by church leaders are permitted to be read. The Amish prohibit technology altogether, though they are allowed to check out elder-approved books at public libraries. Fundamentalist Christians are generally admonished to limit their media access to “G-rated” or Christian-published format. Many Hasidic communities forbid access to secular libraries. In fundamentalist Muslim-controlled countries, all media are controlled by the religious leaders, thus preventing people from accessing any non-approved content. Each of these groups limits media access for “moral” reasons, but they also want to prevent community members from accessing any knowledge that may contradict their sect’s teachings.
While some of Amish people vote, they do not seek public office, and their pacifism prevents them from joining the military. They also are not visibly active in campaigning. Myriads of articles have been written — particularly before and after the 2016 presidential election — concerning the political activism of evangelical Christians. Orthodox and Hasidic Jews are known for their political activism for candidates sympathetic to their communities, particularly as it is an “honor” for Jewish men to collect welfare and food stamps so they can exclusively focus their time on Talmudic studies. As far as fundamentalist Islam is concerned, there are many countries in which fundamentalist Islam controls government.
In Bruce’s recent post Life After Jesus: Moving from a God-Shaped Hole to a Knowledge-Shaped Hole he talks about restrictions that fundamentalist Christian authorities put on secular influences. Indeed, venturing beyond fundamentalist-bubble-approved media is considered a temptation by Satan and demonic forces, potentially leading someone to everlasting torment in hell. Pastors try to scare their flocks into not watching the latest season of “Cosmos” or “Game of Thrones”; that rock music leads to the “Highway to Hell”; that evolution is Satan’s greatest deception. Amish and Hasidic communities threaten members with excommunication if they do not adhere to community standards. For the skeptical or curious in these communities, fear of being cut off from family and friends is a real concern. In addition, many members (particularly women) are poorly educated and lack job skills, so escaping these communities is, at best, a risky venture. Mission to Amish People (MAP) and Charity Christian Fellowship are organizations that help Amish people leave their communities, and Footsteps is an organization that helps Hasidic Jews leave theirs. Organizations such as these offer practical and emotional support to deconverts. Those of us in the real world realize that knowledge is power, and fundamentalists do their best to limit knowledge, thus limiting the power of their flocks.
I look at all these groups and think, there’s no way I could live in one of those communities. After I graduated from high school, I did my best to escape the clutches of fundamentalist Christianity. Fortunately, I possessed a college degree from a highly ranked secular university and developed marketable skills, so I was able to support myself financially. Many in these communities, particularly women, are purposely raised without these skills, ensuring reliance on the community. It is my firm conviction that any group that purposefully restricts access to knowledge and education and discourages contact with outsiders is inherently harmful and potentially abusive. Those in power may thrive within these systems, but the systems themselves are designed to benefit those in power at the expense of the powerless.
(If you are interested in finding out more about the Old Order Amish, I recommend the book Amish Society by John A. Hostetler for a comprehensive examination. For those who have access to Netflix and are interested in deconverts from Hasidic Judaism, I recommend the documentary One of Us regarding the Hasidic community in Brooklyn and in Rockland County, New York. Both are communities with which I am familiar as I live in proximity to both).
Now, for a bit of levity: Amish Paradise by Weird Al Yankovic
A guest post by ObstacleChick
Mrs. C: Recently, you posted on social media a statement to which I really wanted to respond, but I chose to refrain. Why? Because I know that social media is a poor place to debate political, religious, or social issues, so I remained silent. Your post is as follows: “How to fix America….put Jesus back in all the places you asked Him to leave: Home, School, Government, Church and Your Heart.”
For four years, you were my high school math teacher at a K-12 fundamentalist Christian school. Starting my senior year, you had just retired, yet when your replacement — a former student with a master’s degree in math — could not handle five preparatory classes and quit after six weeks, you came back to finish the school year. In fact, I heard that you continued to teach for fifteen years after your originally planned retirement date. You were committed to teaching students, and I’m sure you could have told us a lot about your religious beliefs had women been allowed to speak in chapel services at school. As it was, all teachers were required to be Christian and to follow certain rules of conduct even outside school (like not going to movie theaters), so there was no doubt that the “witness” of the teachers for Jesus was apparent to students both inside and outside campus boundaries.
With regard to your post, I’m sure that the sentiment makes complete sense to you, living in a suburb of Nashville where the majority of your neighbors identify as some sort of Christian – specifically Evangelical Christian. Sure, you may disagree on finer points of doctrine such as whether musical instruments should be used in worship service, or whether women should wear skirts/dresses to worship services, but I suspect that the vast majority of your neighbors would agree (or at least state that they agree) that Jesus should be present in all aspects of private and public life, and that America is going to hell in a handbasket because the Evangelical God is not a mandatory part of public life.
I would like you to think about other areas of the country, areas which are more diverse in population. For example, I live in a town in New Jersey, just 20 minutes from Manhattan. Our town was settled by mostly Italian Catholic families. As time went on, more and more residents moved in with names like Torres, Patel, Silverstein, and Qureshi. Today, about thirty percent of the town is populated by families with names like Kim, Takahashi, and Chang. While the majority of residents are still Catholic, there is a large demographic of protestant Asians, a smaller demographic of Jewish residents, and a handful of Hindus and Muslims, as well as a few non-religious or atheists like my family. Our elementary school used to start teaching Italian to students beginning in third grade, but parents petitioned the school to begin teaching the arguably more useful Spanish instead. Our school district is made up of seven towns with demographics similar to our town, and we have a large enough Jewish population that the school district is closed on Jewish holidays.
Mrs. C, you speak of bringing Jesus back to the schools, and I assume you mean you would like to see mandatory prayer in the schools. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that mandatory prayers would occur during homeroom, and the prayers are supposed to be prayed to generic “God” and not specifically to Jesus. Under this scenario, Mrs. Shapiro or Mr. Elqariani could lead prayers to a generic “God” and not necessarily feel offended. However, I’m not sure to whom Ms. Patel would pray as Hindus have many gods. Would she just pray to a generic “God” even though her gods have many names? Maybe I’m overthinking this. Maybe just a generic prayer over the loudspeaker system each morning would suffice. But, I’m not sure that solves your issue of putting Jesus specifically back into schools.
Definitely, I AM overthinking this. Since I’ve been out of Evangelical Christianity for twenty-five years, I almost forgot the number one rule of Fundamentalist l Christianity: that it is imperative to proselytize anyone who doesn’t believe in the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That is, no matter how devout or moral people of another religion or no religion might be, if they have not made a confession of sin and profession of faith in the life, substitutionary atonement of Jesus and his resurrection three days later, they are lost and require evangelistic intervention from believers. Without Jesus, they are destined for eternal torment in hell. I was going through different scenarios where prayers could be given in public schools, thinking of allowing Muslim students to pray to Allah, allowing Buddhist students to offer prayers as they wish, and for Hindu students to pray as their belief allows. But that isn’t what you want, is it, Mrs. C? When you say that Jesus should be put back into schools, that is LITERALLY what you mean. Not that students of other religions should be mandated to pray, either in general or to the deity of their choosing. Not that volunteer imams or priests or rabbis should visit the school and offer prayers. No, those clerics are unsaved or apostates. You believe that the number one priority of Evangelical Christians is to witness to the “lost.” And while you may grudgingly permit those of other faiths to pray in an occasional gesture of ecumenicism, what you really want is your version of Christianity to be the one faith to which everyone is exposed. Most of all, you want public school students to hear prayers to YOUR deity –the Evangelical Christian God.
How about we look at a different scenario, Mrs. C? Let’s say your grandson goes to my district’s high school. He plays soccer and really wants to make the varsity team. He goes to tryouts and notices before practice that most of the boys who were on the team last year are kneeling on prayer rugs and praying to Allah with Mr. Assad, the coach. Your grandson notices this happens every day. He and the other boys really want to be favorably noticed by Mr. Assad in order to secure a spot on the team, so your grandson goes home and asks his parents to buy him a prayer rug. I suspect, Mrs. C, that you would have a fit.
Maybe these questions are part of the reason why judges saw the merit in upholding the establishment clause in our Constitution. Why don’t we leave Jesus where he belongs — in the privacy of your home, heart, and church — and let our public spaces be free of religion.
It’s only Tuesday and it already has been one whale of a week. I have lots of “good” stuff to share with readers, so I hope fattening up on turkey, pumpkin pie, and dressing doesn’t get in the way of me sharing the wealth. What follows is a screenshot of a message I received on Facebook from a racist, bigoted, Trump-loving man who thinks I am a sick, fat fuck. His words are typical of Trump’s hardcore devotees. No need for me to comment further. I will let his word speak for themselves.
In a post titled, Texas Church Massacre Has Haunting Muslim Aspect, Fundamentalist Steve Van Nattan dispenses advice to pastors and churches on how they can protect themselves from Muslim terrorist attacks. Enjoy!
The Facebook page of First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas has comments below many posts made by people with Muslim names. Some were comments with no message, just a name.
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The US Government crime investigating agencies will see these Muslim names, but the official word will be that there is no connection to Islamic terrorists. The US Government is desperate to convince Americans that terrorist acts are only one off generic crimes.
The moral we must take away from this information is that churches need to watch their Facebook pages carefully. If you see Middle Eastern names coming up in the Comment section of articles, you need to double security around your church.
You cannot expect the US Government, or even your local law enforcement, to take Islamic terrorism seriously. The common attitude of national leaders toward Islamic terrorists is that it will not get any worse than it is now. Furthermore, there really is nothing the US Government can do to prevent acts of terror by ISIS, ANTIFA, and other such terrorist groups. They have a wide open nation in the USA in which to choose targets and attack.
YOU ARE THE ONE, PASTOR. Either you will take aggressive measures in security for your church, or you could be the next target.
I have a couple of suggestions which 99% of you Baptist pastors will tell me are heresy. You are a jack ass if you wait until over half your people are in the morgue before you take this seriously. And, as usual, I say that in all good Christian charity.
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4. Preacher, YOU must have a permit to carry, and carry everywhere you go. Have your handgun in the pulpit when you preach. You have the best shot at a gunman, and he will be looking to kill you first. If you want to stay alive and protect your people, you will be prepared. Just do not leave your gun laying around carelessly. Also, go to a shooting range, and set a target at the distance of you pulpit from the front door. Do not stop practicing until you can put a group the size of your hand in the heart of the target image. Also, learn to shoot for the head. These creeps wear body armor.
5. Wear body armor when you are having services at the church house. Keep the doors locked when you are in the church house alone in your study. When any group meets at the church house, like the youth, or the ladies fellowship, you or some other man MUST be on hand carrying to do security duty. Tell anyone carrying not to bow and close their eyes when the people pray together. Watch and pray.
6. When you see a man with a gun enter the door, or you hear “Allah u Akbar,” shoot to kill. If the man has a machete, order him to drop it or be killed. Make sure your security man in the entrance of foyer is not in the line of fire from the pulpit to the front door so that you can shoot without worrying about hitting your own man. Keep one man outside the church house moving about watching anyone approaching the church. Strangers need to be sent away, even if the security man must pull his gun to stop the stranger. Require your security people to go to a rifle range and do target practice regularly. Discuss your plan if a car comes at the church trying to run over people. Every gun should be out and firing at the driver through the windshield. You may want to have large stone blocks brought in and placed around the entrance.
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— Steve Van Nattan, Balaam’s Ass Speaks, Texas Church Massacre Has Haunting Muslim Aspect, November 7, 2017
A guest post by Carla who blogs at The Right Side of Truth.
Religion is a tradition and a part of life across the entire globe, appearing in virtually all cultures. It comes in many shapes, sizes, and flavors, and advocates both peace and violence. People may change their religious ideas over time. Across all of these variations, a single variable is shared: faith based not on objective fact, but on belief.
By itself, that isn’t a problem per se—religious beliefs don’t necessarily need to conflict or interact with secular ideas. But when they do, we get problems. Historically, civilizations ruled by religious ideology inevitably face challenges when it comes to making rational decisions about the greater good of society.
At the center of America’s founding principles, we have the separation of church and state. There’s a very good reason for that foundation and it isn’t because the founders were faithless heathens or that they hated religion. It was because, in their time, religious institutions wielded tremendous power over governments and interfered with progress and prosperity.
Fast forward to today, and there are a number of fascinating examples of yesterday’s problems causing today’s problems. Where then do schools fall into this argument?
Socialization
Our schools teach us many things—the liberal arts, sciences, arithmetic, and sometimes even life skills such as those taught in the rapidly disappearing home economics classes. Yet regardless of the grade level or subject, the central tenant of all schools is socializing our children.
Socialization teaches them how to interact with others, what’s expected of them in the world, and how they must interact with rules and authority. Foundations begin at home but are molded by the social experience.
What then for students who are taught that it’s expected of them to follow certain religious tenets? Even if we ignore that religious ideas taught at schools can conflict with the beliefs acquired at home, we must acknowledge that institutional teaching of religious ideas limits the freedom of choice. It robs individuals of the privilege to choose their own beliefs, by spiking the proverbial thought pool with predispositions.
Furthermore, schools that push religion absolutely influence how tomorrow’s adults will interact with the rest of the world. Being taught that a single idea is right and familiar makes foreign religions and ideologies appear strange and at times threatening. It plays perfectly into fear-mongering of the “other” where one religious belief is backed by the power of the state.
Objectivity
Religion becomes an issue in schools not when attendees practice their own beliefs, but when the institution itself favors any form of “belief.” Schools must be objective; they need to teach skills and facts based on the best available evidence, and religion simply doesn’t fit into that category because it is inherently not evidence-based.
That doesn’t mean religion is inherently good or bad; it simply falls into a different category from what schools are intended to teach. Truthfully, there should never be room to argue about material taught in schools because the information ought to be undeniable.
For instance, one can argue whether stories in the Bible, Quran, etc. are true, but absolutely no one will disprove grammatical rules, mathematical formulas or basic scientific laws. The last comes with some caveat, as scientific theories are continually rewritten based on new information.
Admittedly one might argue that cultural identity and historic events are open to interpretation, but the underlying facts don’t change. The president during World War II is not a point of debate any more than whether or not the Civil Rights Movement actually happened.
A Balanced Viewpoint
Most information we’re given as adults comes with a major slant or agenda. Even this piece has an agenda, which you’ve no doubt assumed at some point from the title. Pushing a single religious ideology as “right” is simply not something that belongs in our schools.
Yet we see it all the time. It’s not the little vestiges such as the pledge of allegiance, but the general favoring of certain religious ideas as being more correct. For instance, the ancient religion of the Greeks is taught in most schools as “mythology.” That title assumes the ideas and stories are fictitious—something never directly linked with the world’s major religions.
Think to yourself and ask if you’ve ever seen primary or secondary school offering a class on “Islamic Mythology.” You won’t ever see this class title because it pre-supposes that one of the world’s current “top” religions is based on fiction. It becomes inappropriate to do so because it might offend someone, yet the former class on the Greeks is acceptable because there’s scarcely anyone left to be offended.
This is a double standard and truly violates the spirit of an institution built on fostering creative free thinkers, though the former point is somewhat of a “liberty” to be taken with modern schools.
But inevitably, balance would dictate that schools either teach all religions or none. The sheer number of beliefs makes the first option unreasonable, leaving only one serious choice.
For a moment, however, we need to return to reality from the land of fair and hypothetical ideas, because the real world works quite the opposite in practice.
Politics and Religion
Returning to one of our original points, we have the idea that religion and politics should be separated. It’s a founding principle in America, but that doesn’t mean it’s practiced or accepted by everyone everywhere.
Even in the United States, where religion is legally separate from the state, we constantly see the use of religion to steer politics one way or the other. Pastors, priests, rabbis, and all other sorts of religious leaders seek to use their influence to steer voters or public policy.
Those raised on an education where religion is omnipresent are far less likely to object to making decisions based on religion because such a thing is already a standard in their lives since childhood. And it wasn’t just mom or dad pushing those ideas.
Of course, there are other extremes that demonstrate our point much more clearly. Religious states such as Iran are the talk of the world, not because of their unbridled prosperity, but because of the threat they perceive to those with differing beliefs. The same could be said of Israel, who despite a secular slant, is dominated by a single religious faith system that very much impacts public policy.
One last form of state-sponsored religion is the unorthodox practice of a dictatorship backed by a “cult of personality.” Like the Hitler youth groups of World War II Germany, countries such as North Korea and China practice devotion not to an otherworldly deity, but to a person. These beliefs are communicated in school in a manner no different from in a devout Christian or Islamic state.
It should be noted that in either case — secular or spiritual religion — both institutions seek to repress information on a massive scale. Without the use of specialty programs such as VPNs, those in many of the aforementioned countries have severely limited access to information online, as their governments prevent access to the outside.
Obscuring dissenting ideas is just one of many tactics used by state-sponsored religion, and schools make it easier by issuing textbooks that only contain information in support of the dominating ideology.
Secular Religion
The last point we’d like to discuss is with regards to the above points on what may as well be termed “atheist religions.” Though traditional spiritual religions have no place in schools, their absence shouldn’t be taken as permission for similar secular dogmas to step in.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in today’s cult of science. It quietly invades our classrooms, pushing singular ideas as being the one and only correct explanation for phenomenon when insufficient data exists to support a certain conclusion. And it can have dire consequences.
For the last half century, schools taught a generation of students that butter was somehow inferior to margarine. That in itself wasn’t a problem because the research seemed to support it; the problem is that today many institutions still teach these same, incorrect ideas because the established professors cling to old “facts” like a religious ideology.
These are the people – part of the “science is never wrong” group – who selectively ignore information that is detrimental to their own beliefs. These beliefs are the unintentional replacement for spiritual belief systems that need to be rooted out all the same.
If and when religion is removed from our schools, then we can truly create the most open and creative minds. These students will be the leaders of tomorrow who help to end meaningless conflicts based solely on beliefs.
Do you think religion has a place in school? Why or why not?
About the Author: Carla is a thinker and rational debater with a major focus on modern issues ranging from education to politics. With a background in cybersecurity and freedom of information activism, she brings a unique perspective into arguments, always with a hope of opening minds to new perspectives.
