You may have noticed that there has been a long gap between the last post and this one. It is entirely my fault that it has taken so long. You see, I was really trying to create a blog that stayed away from being political. I wanted a place where people of all stripes and colors and creeds could put all of that bullshit aside and give each other small, everyday inspirations on how we can make the world a better place. The end of this last election cycle proved, time and time again, that this isn't possible. Not because people are incapable of letting go of their political ideology for even a second (even though many people are) but because so many people cannot articulate a clear message of what they believe to begin with. My reaction to what is currently happening in the world is to burn with Righteous anger, speak out against the false Christian theology I see in support of hate and oppression and offer some ways to repent as individuals, as a collective and start employing Christ centered ideals in an attempt at redemption. Then (and only then) can we turn to more inspiration and less preachy-ness (which should totally be a word). This is going to get messy kids, but here we go.
One of the things that makes me roll my eyes more than anything else is when someone declares, with absolute confidence, that they belong to the true Christian political party. Because no matter what party they consider themselves to be a part of, they are wrong. There is no political faction, in America or anywhere else, that embodies the teachings of Christ. Period. Both Republicans and Democrats have surgically removed one or two of their favorite strands from the tapestry that is Christianity, leaving the bulk of the doctrine untouched and ignored. Both parties are, however, deeply involved in Mammon worship. How do we know this?
On September 11, 2001, the worst terror attack the world had ever seen hit multiple places in America, threatening to end life as we know it. The Republican president's response: you need to go out and buy stuff. If you don't buy stuff, the terrorists will have won. Eight years later, incredibly stupid maneuvers by the country's leading banks lead to a financial meltdown that threatened to end life as we know it. The Democratic President's response: you need to go out and buy stuff. If you don't buy stuff, the banks will have won. And yes, I am aware that there is some oversimplification going on here but the endgame is the same. No matter the crisis, no matter who is currently in the White House, the response is the same and has been since the early 1980s: money and buying stuff is all that really matters in America.
Which is where my utter disdain for anyone who tries to say that the United States is a Christian nation kicks in. It never has been and certainly isn't now. It is safe to say the atrocities committed by slave owners were directly against the teachings of Christ (and don't bother bringing up the book of Philemon without reading the whole book again first; there are criteria for "acceptable" slave owners in there that I wager no slave owner has ever met). We had to fight a bloody, highly destructive war to legally end slavery only to usher in a new era of atrocities we give the more palatable name of "Jim Crow" (and don't tell me that was a Southern thing; the North knew damn well what was happening and watched with wholly indifferent eyes). Things have gotten marginally better for non-white folks since World War II, when the US was forced to take a look at our international reputation and got embarrassed into moving towards more equality (except of course for Asian Americans because the only good Jap is a dead one and it's not our fault we can't tell the difference between Asians who were our allies and those who weren't, right?).
In the decades since V-J Day, our nation has seen plenty of upheaval around the issues of race, sexuality, gender and class. While plenty of well meaning legislation has been put forward, little if no actual change has occurred. Time and time again, the United States has chosen to oppress minorities and the marginalized while simultaneously and consistently funneling as many resources as possible into the financial sectors. It would be bad enough if our economic philosophy was Capitalism but, again since the early 1980s (thanks Ronald Reagan), we have practiced blatant Consumerism, an even more insidious sub-genre. Nothing we do as a country is sustainable much less honoring to God or His creation. It doesn't have to be this way.
As I've been developing the patterns I use for the scarves I've been knitting, five words have become central to my efforts: love, joy, grace, peace and hope. Most of these concepts seem like emotions, things that we feel or experience. It is my belief that, taken from a Christ centered perspective, these five words are actions that can be deliberately performed and, if acted out on a regular basis, can actually change the world. I will explore each one separately in the next several posts, looking at how Christ talks about them, how they seem to be viewed currently by society (and, unfortunately, by some so-called Christian churches who have forgotten the faces of their fathers) and how they can become weapons in the hands of Disciples to defeat the forces of evil that are preparing to take the reins of America. I could also probably pontificate about all the topics I've barely touched on in this post for pages and pages but we don't have time for that right now. Let the Chaotic Rumpus begin!
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