The Anti-Christ Nation
appendix J, ToadSpawn, Be Gone!
Where the Rub is – the Unholy Alliance between Golden Calf-ism, that Obscene Creed of GigaGreed, and the Wicked Uber-Patriotic Violence is the Anti-Christ or the Anti-Christ-Equivalent. Like brave, baffled Bill McKibben (Harpers Aug 05¹) and Bill Moyers, moderate Christians must speak out against these fundamentalist and extremist quintessential perversions of their potentially sweet and modest faith. And if in an inflated moment, Jesus said he was the only way, he was mistaken. There are perspectives few 32 yr-old can have, however inspired.
One tiny revelation, one brave sentence at a time, moderates have got to put the Christ back in Christian – not as a tedious mantra but in acts that Jesus would be proud of.
The imagination quails – shrinks back, shudders – at the violence of the delusion, the wickedness, the nastiness, the awful arrogance of our present Golden-Calf-ridden Nation. Christ would certainly be turning over in his grave if he were still there. Looking at it from the Anti-Christ angle, one trembles at the audacity of it (By the way, Karlsputin Rove³ was born on December 25, 1950 if you want an Absolut Reba’s Baby³ moment of chilling synchronicity tinct with frostbites of ironies.) Look at the conversion of GeorgeBush, Barbara’s Baby, from alcoholic to christoholic. It’s the same addiction circuits.
I’m saying that Bill McKibben’s ‘The Christian Paradox¹, How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong,’ like Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Wittenberg church door, is one of the most important watershed moral upheavals of our generation. An avowed Christian insider, one of the 85% of American professed-Christians, a conscientious objector, has broken-heartedly spoken out. He has flinched at the glaring, blaring sight, insight of each scene of carnage, the unChristian, the anti-Christian acts and non-acts done in the name of a tortured version of Jesus. McKibben has flinched at the terrible pain, as one must, but leaving distinct footprints of blood with each sentence, he has honorably taken the awful journey to bring his fellow Christians the unspeakable truth of what is and is not being done in their name. He kept Jesus’ radical and fierce sweetness, the uncompromisable kindness as his only compass on this harrowing Hell-journey.
The radical vision of Jesus was to be tender – that we tend our fellows, tend our earth, our earth is our hearth. Like opening the 3rd eye, Jesus blew open the sealed doors to the heart and left us naked and gentle in the face of each other, each brother, all kin, all kind. Daring to be tender, the power in powerlessness was the gift Jesus gave, the unconditional surrender to being tender. How few jesusians there have ever been through these centuries. The satanic bargain with worldly power slammed shut those gates to the heart. Kindness became slogans not acts.
As an interesting sidebar, I’m not sure that the word ‘Christian’ has not become too poisoned to associate with anymore? That much carnage, that much hypocrisy, that much burning of other visions and traditions. Too deep in blood. Myself, I would not bear that word. It’s on the scale that if the word ‘Nazi’ had begun benign, it’s too steeped in blood to keep it.
McKibben’s ‘The Christian Paradox, How a faithful nation gets Jesus wrong,’ opens the heart’s door to moderate Christians to begin humbly talking about acts, as moderate Muslims must do about suicide bombers. Where’s the living wage? Where the spectacular education we owe to each child as a birthright, not a richesright? Where is the splendid health care we owe to our beloved brother and who is not our beloved brother, sister, mother, son, daughter? Acts. Jesus would fly a bomber and drop jellied gasoline on his brother, his sister? No. The madness must be woken from. If it is not tender, if it is not tending your friend, your fragile, frightened friend spinning in the same gigantic dark as you, if it is not the tender choice, don’t dare do it. Don’t Jesus and the Good Samaritan say that every person is your friend? The radical calculus is to figure out how to step aside from revenge. Alchemy. Turn rage to courage. Greed to kindness.
There is nothing Jesus would recognize in perpetuating the obscene tax cuts for the eye-of-the-needle folk. They sneer, They dwell in contumely – they are swollen up with snarling pride. They do not rush to comfort.
The Democrats are an ungainly bunch but they are trying to combine mind and heart, to bring the tender to bear on policy. It’s all very awkward because mind matter and heart matter are of different substance and frequency, but that is the path and there is no shirking that mystery in the end. It’s where we go. We might as well get started.
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¹Bill McKibben, The Christian Paradox
¹(Just change the word ‘Zeus’ for the word ‘God’ in prayers, commandments, and on the money and see how that hubbub quiets down. Every year a different prayer, commandments, money deity by lot. Fair’s fair. All comics like me ‘n Riffie will go for Beelzebub, the buffoon’s patron. What a droll name. In Beelzebub, we trust. Thou certainly shalt not take the name of Beelzebub in vain.)
³ Reba’s Baby. Reba is Karlsputin mother’s name; cf Rosemary’s Baby. See also Karlsputin in pogblog Glossary.
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