Thursday, February 7, 2019

Fundamentalists







Being an American fundamentalist Christian means using words like "nation," heritage," and "dominion" a lot.
Being an American fundamentalist Christian means being so assured of your dominance that you can trash other people's beliefs and treat them like dirt.
Being an American fundamentalist Christian means being so sure of the literal certainty of your guiding narrative that you can regard all evidence to the contrary no matter how obvious and compelling -- up to and including all empirical reality -- with sovereign contempt.
Being an American fundamentalist Christian means thinking that you and your kind are the only people who really matter, and that you can sacrifice other people to advance your goals.
Being an American fundamentalist Christian means that you must always be in charge, that you are divinely mandated to write the rules for everyone else.
Being an American fundamentalist Christian means that you count on holding that winning lottery ticket when the world ends, that your greatest joy will be to see all the skeptics and mockers who make your life so miserable get what's coming to them.
Being an American fundamentalist Christian means finding no peace in your beliefs, but always fighting off doubt and doubters, always being angry at the bewildered skepticism of your neighbors, and always worried that you can still earn God's love.
Being an American fundamentalist Christian means ignoring the four Gospels and spending all your time combing through Leviticus and Deuteronomy looking for legal clauses encouraging you to condemn other people while ignoring the laws mandating fairness and hospitality to others.  It means ignoring Jesus' teaching and turning him into a passive sacrificial victim.  It means ignoring the Gospel command to love neighbor as self in order to make elaborate concordances between Revelations, Daniel, Ezekiel, and the headlines to see if you are still winning.
Being an American fundamentalist Christian means remaking the cosmos in the image of a domineering and vindictive father.
Being an American fundamentalist Christian means infantilizing adults through fear and shame, and reducing them to servile obedience in a world ruled by corporate, religious, and political autocrats.



No comments: