America is the land of fanatics. No,
this time I’m not talking about politics – yet.
America is a nation that works hard
and plays hard. Even in leisure, Americans are usually fanatic about something.
But the thing that keeps us from laughing too hard at the fanatic habits of
others, is that generally when someone dives into a hobby, they dive in all the
way. They learn the whole thing from top to bottom, they know every detail.
They earn their right to obsessive silliness by doing their homework.
There are Harry Potter fanatics who
can tell you every password ever used to get into the Gryffindor tower, Beatles
fanatics who can tell you who was really playing drums on their first single,
cooks who can argue for hours on the one perfect way to make chili and
barbecue, Civil War guys who can tell you every one of Lee’s battles in order
in sixty seconds, Red Sox fans who can tell you exactly what kind of beer
bottle they threw through the front window when Buckner blew the World Series,
Star Trek fans who can spot when actors put on the wrong Starfleet insignia by
mistake, all sorts of encyclopedic knowledge about car engines, stamps, golf,
bird watching, trains, gardening, young adult fiction. So, they do their
homework, and you have to respect that.
Except for Christians.
Most of today’s Christians say they
are very devout. Perhaps they think they mean it. In theory their faith is at
least as important to them as, say, Harry Potter is to the typical Potter fan.
So you would think that devout Christians would be cracking open that Bible
almost daily, right?
Sadly, no. If you listen carefully,
you can tell that today’s Christians are dogging it. They are not even reading
their Bible. If, indeed, they own one at all.
Today’s Christian fanatics are
actually doing the Christianity thing all wrong, because they don’t know what
the Bible really said. Depending on denomination, today’s Bible-beaters are
liable tell you that the Bible demands
that you go to church on Sunday, ordained as the Lord’s day, and take the
Eucharist and the other sacraments; that it prescribes eternal hellfire for
sinners, and sweeping the holy up from earth to heaven when they die, and
purgatory for everyone in between.
None of
which is really in the Bible.
Current
religious practice actually violates Biblical rules on idolatry and paganism:
worshipping Jesus instead of the one God, praying to Mary and the saints, and
celebrating the anniversaries of Jesus’ birth and resurrection, both of which
began as pagan rites. Saint Peter – the Saint Peter – openly condemned pagan
idolatry, and even criticized it in one of the letters in the Bible, explicitly
rejecting the “forbidden worship of idolatry”. Instead of actually listening to
what Peter said – and he was the boss, the first Pope – centuries of Christians
prayed, pagan-like, to Peter idols! They named him the patron saint of
fishermen, sailors, bakers, farmers, butchers, glassmakers, carpenters,
shoemakers, clockmakers, potters, masons, bridge builders, cloth makers, and
criminals. In other words a huge chunk of the Christian world has been engaging
in idol worship of the guy who made it a rule that you can’t, you know, worship
idols. If he really is up there at the Pearly Gates, he is surely rolling his
eyes at the stupidity of the faithful. This is more an issue for the Catholics
than the Protestants, but still….
Likewise
modern religious teaching violates the precepts of the Bible: allowing
confession without repentance and attaining grace without good works, baptizing
children, and promising rebirth and heaven before the Resurrection. Today’s
Christians get Christianity wrong because they don’t even bother to read the
manual. Can you imagine a Civil War fan getting this many major things wrong?
Christians often try to win
political arguments by whipping out conservative slogans which they believe,
incorrectly, to be quotes from the Bible: “spare the rod and spoil the child,
God helps those who help themselves, a fool and his money are soon parted, charity begins at home, idle hands are the
Devil's workshop, God's mill grinds slow but true, as you make your bed you
must lie in it, beggars should not be choosers, there is none so blind as he
who will not see.” None of which are actually in the Bible. Lots of expressions
which Christians believe to be Biblical, actually come from William
Shakespeare or one of the other poets; occasionally they slap the “Biblical”
label on the sayings of Gandhi, Marx, Lenin, and Jefferson and Jackson,
founders of the Democratic party. Christians would know this stuff isn’t
Biblical, if they actually read the book.
Christians often get the actual
events in the Bible wrong too. The forbidden fruit wasn’t necessarily an apple,
and there were two different forbidden trees, the tree of life and the tree of
knowledge. Satan was not in the garden
of Eden. Delilah didn’t cut Samson’s hair. Jonah wasn’t swallowed by a whale.
Mary didn’t ride to Bethlehem on a donkey and the wise men didn’t see the baby
in a manger. Jesus wasn’t necessarily a carpenter.
Also, Mary Magdalene was not a
prostitute. That was an error propagated by the Pope himself, Pope Gregory. He
was the “infallible” Jesus Guy Number One, and he got that “fact” wrong,
because he didn’t know the Bible, and read the scripture incorrectly. Another
pope corrected the error. Thirteen centuries later.
Incidentally,
the Bible is very critical of priests and organized religion, and it says
nothing about Popes. The notion that any Pope, or indeed any mortal man, is
infallible, is completely contrary to Biblical precepts. Particularly a Pope
who dorks up basic Biblical facts like Gregory did.
Can you imagine how America would
change, if Christians actually read their Bibles? Then we would find out what
today’s Jesus people really believe. Do they really revere Jesus and his
message? Or are they just using the pages of his book as fig leaves to hide
their fears and hate behind?
Right now, some Jesus person is
hollering “Well, the Bible says that even the devil can cite Scripture for his
purpose! Hah! Take that, accursed liberal!”
Sorry, dude, that’s not the Bible
either. Shakespeare again. Antonio in the Merchant of Venice. And then G. K.
Chesterton.
Actually, the wingnuts don’t read
the Constitution either. If they did, they would have run Bush out of town on a
rail. But that’s another story.
