Jesus plus nothing
Submitted by James on Fri, 11/20/2009 - 1:43pm
The intrusion of god into public policy has long been a source of concern for me. It started early in my Navy career, at the Naval Academy to be precise, when roughly four thousand Midshipmen were rousted out of bed on Sunday mornings and marched off to church. We were allowed a church of our choosing, and I went Episcopal because it was a shorter walk. We didn't have the option of saying, "Thanks, but no thanks."
The idea that a branch of the armed services would require its members to worship any god is offensive for countless reasons, not least of which is the lunacy surrounding religious extremism today. In the US Army and Air Force, evangelical furor continues unabated, with active duty general officers routinely working to align military policy with their personal beliefs about what god wants, or doesn't want. Such arrogance is a sickness of character and judgment that cannot stand the test of fairness.
And if we do collectively decide to count on god to guide policy choices that affect hundreds of millions of people, exactly whose god should we use?
Should we use Walter Jones' god, the one he says is telling him what to do? If so, how the heck did god let Jones vote for the war in Iraq ... just so he could apologize and seek redemption? Looks more to me like the good Congressman was reading the signs wrong.
Or maybe we should use the god who oversees Heath Shuler's C-Street cult in Washington, DC?
The men are striving for what Jeff Coe, the current leader of The Family, calls "Jesus plus nothing." This is to be a government led by Christ's will alone. In his exhortations to the faithful Coe uses a David Koresh version of Christianity mixed in with healthy doses of Mao, Stalin and Hitler.
Shuler's twisted version of personal prosperity gospel comes wrapped in a package of seeming lies. Throw in the C-Street cult and you end up with a very big boatload of bizarre. I know the lord moves in mysterious ways, but is she really so hard up as to choose guys like Freedom Fries and Shuler to carry her water?
Don't try to answer that.
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For more on the separation of church and state, visit Americans United. Also, here's an excellent article on religion and the military from the New York Times.
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Your recollection of 'Navy days', and the 'forced march' to ...
religious services really had me laughing. The same thing happened with me when I arrived at boot camp in Great Lakes. We were rounded up on Sunday morning, and marched to a service NOT of my choice! I was an 18 yr old and just figured the Navy knew what they were doing. Then a couple years later, I was visited by the ship's chaplain, and he complained because I ran some Anita Eckberg movie, like I should censor what I show to the crew! ( part of my ship duties was operating and fixing 16 mm cameras) I wonder if those things are different now?
Aw, now I see your problem
You just don't get it. God loves rich and powerful men. Look at King David and yet despite all the evil he did to his people, he was still God's chosen one. (I've just started reading The Family too. Intriguing!)
My experience at AF basic training in 1971 was not of being forced to attend but attending if you wanted something to do on Sunday.
And then there's the problem of Prayer Spam
I grew up Lutheran and left the church in my teenage years. Part of the culture shock when coming to this country for me was the sheer number of different churches and the fervor of people who felt compelled to pray for you. I had a most terrifying experience being prayed for about 25 years ago. I was being admitted to the hospital with a broken neck after an automobile accident. Unable to fill out the necessary forms myself, the admissions clerk wrote down my verbal replies. When she came to a line on the form that asked my religious affiliation, I said "none." The clerk was aghast and asked again to make sure she heard me right. "Leave it blank," I said with more emphasis.
Well, I was in the South and things like that were just not done! Little did I know that the clerk wrote down her own Pentecostal church on MY form. I found that out later when I complained.
Then I was wheeled away for x-rays which involved injecting dye into my spinal cord and stuffing me full of muscle relaxers so that I could lie as still as possible. It took hours, and when I was finally taken to my room, I was in a pretty sorry state.
Imagine my horror as I drifted in and out of consciousness to see this menacing shadowy figure shouting gibberish and gesturing over my head as my poor brain tried to break free of the drug-induced fog long enough to make sense of what was happening.
Believe me, it felt like I woke up in hell. Luckily I got clear-headed enough to press the call button and croak out "No, no, make it go away." The kicker was that the responding nurse apologized to the preacher instead of me!
Resistance is Fertile