We all know the general advice when it comes to religion, politics, and mixed company: Don’t do it. Even, or should I say especially, close friends get annoyed with the fervor I take to matters of truth. But considering the following, I think this fervor justified. Last year the federal government’s Chief Prosecutor, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, was asked if secular people could make determinations on the truth. The exchange between him and Senator Whitehouse as reported by Slate in January of 2017 is alarming:
“Whitehouse suggested that lists were already circulating suggesting there might be purges or demotions of certain career appointees in the Justice Department. Whitehouse wondered whether Sessions would have a problem with career lawyers “with secular beliefs,” having in the past criticized department attorneys for being secular. Sessions replied that he has used that language about secular attorneys to differentiate between people who recognize objective “truth” and those who take positions “in which truth is not sufficiently respected.”
“You see, this is a postmodern, relativistic, secular mindset and I believe it’s directly contrary to the founding of our republic,” he said.
“So I really think this whole court system is really important,” he added later in the speech, “and the real value and battle that we’re engaged in here is one to reaffirm that there is objective truth, it’s not all relative. And that means some things are right and some things are wrong, and we’re getting too far away from that in my opinion and it’s not healthy for any country and it’s really not healthy for a democracy like ours that’s built on the rule of law.”
Whitehouse replied, with a leading, and perhaps slightly conclusory question: “And a secular person has just as good a claim to understanding the truth as a person who is religious, correct?” At which point Sessions responded, “Well, I’m not sure.” For a few seconds the Senate chamber seemed to go completely silent.
We are conditioned not to engage with others on matters of utmost importance. Secular citizens of all types consider it a waste of time to converse with those who can not be persuaded. Yet, I would venture to guess that many of them never lived the fundamentalist version of belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Nor have they been subject to the confines of any the other fundamentalist religious systems for that matter. So for those who were not raised under the spell of a rigid belief structure and can not seem to understand the passion by which those who were care to try and dispel it, I present to you the forwarding habits of one Ernest Bailey.
In creating my first post college email address, I made the mistake of only using my first initial and last name. It has resulted in many unwelcome communiques. But sometimes you stumble upon a goldmine of human stupidity that is the epitome of Poe’s Law. Which is an internet adage stating that without indications of any author’s intent, it is extremely difficult to tell the difference between parodies of extreme views compared to works of sincerity on the same subject.
The first forwarded email that I received from Ernest started out innocently enough. A meaningless quote in a fancy font stated : “When you find yourself going through something hard and wonder where God is, remember that the teacher is always quiet during the test.” Your standard senseless Christian phrase that help the sheeple through their pointless existence. Then I was treated to an email entitled “Why go to church?”. A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday.”I’ve gone for 30 years now,” he wrote, “and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them. So, I think I’m wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all.” And in response: “I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!” When you are DOWN to nothing….. God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible!” I like the passive sexism of the reply the most.
Having been surrounded by many people like this for most of my life, I was mildly entertained, tinged with a bit of sympathy. The stream of forwarded emails proceeded from there to paranoia about the government coming to take your guns, trying to shift blame for the financial crisis away from President Bush and squarely on the 2007-2008 Democrats (which has nothing to do with the cause of the crisis of course), and a bunch of tropes about how things were better when the United States was more religious and white. He used a fake quote from Albert Einstein to criticize the overuse of cell phones by young people. Forwarded fake claims about a test that can detect signs of Alzheimer’s, paralleled the demise of the Athenian Democracy to ours today, and wished everyone on the email list a Happy Easter with some discriminatory remarks.
The first thing that finally inspired me to interject myself into their echo chamber was an email entitled “A Sermon”. It contained a message from Brother Len Patterson ThD prefaced by the words “May our Lord continue to bless each of you in His service and in service to our just most worthy Confederate Cause.” Alarm bells. It is as follows:
A Christian Nation?
The question was asked recently, “Can the United States survive as a Christian Nation?” I don’t wish to be argumentative, but to me the answer is obvious. No! How can any nation survive being something it isn’t to begin with? Perhaps a better question would be, “Can the United States return to being the Christian nation our founding fathers and first settlers envisioned?”
Before anyone gets bent out of shape, allow me to ask you this. If the United States is a Christian nation, why has prayer been removed from our schools? If this is a Christian nation, why is same sex marriage even being considered? If this is a Christian nation, why is aids a problem and abortion an issue? If this is a Christian nation, why is there plywood over a cross in a California desert? If this is a Christian nation, why was the Ten Commandments removed from a courthouse, and nativity scenes not allowed on the grounds? If this is a Christian nation, why are so many churches almost empty, while sports arenas are packed? If this is a Christian nation, why is there so much nudity, immorality, and vulgarity on television, and why do so many people, not only watch it, but enjoy it?
Naturally I could go no and on, and so could many of you, so allow this to suffice: If the United States is a Christian nation, could, or would, it’s current president stand up in front of the world and pronounce, “America is not a Christian nation.” and say it with pride, as if it were a good thing? The answer to all these questions is, no. A Christian nation would not permit such things.
There is a reason for this decay of the principles upon which this country was founded, and God has not left us to wonder what it is. As the Apostle Paul was sitting in a Roman prison awaiting his execution, God inspired him to write, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” (2 Tim. 3: 1) Then, in the following three verses he explains why. “For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent (no self control), fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more that lovers of God.” You might want to read that list again. It would seem as if God were looking two thousand years ahead at most of the people in the United States.
The question is, was he looking at you. I don’t know if God will save the United States. I can’t even say He will save the South, although I hope so. But, I do know He will save you. If you have not committed your life the Christ, accepted Him as your Lord, and been saved by His power and grace, then I pray that under His convicting Spirit, you will do so. Because, this country may not survive as a Christian nation, but you will survive as a Christian person. Eternally!
Bro. Len Patterson, Th.D
Chaplain, Army of Trans-Mississippi
Sons of Confederate Veterans
Now, how many of you love a little of themselves or fancy some pleasure from time to time? That just about sums up being American and do these seem like “perilous times”? No. The world has never been safer and although modern threats are on a grandeur scale, they are less frequent, less likely, and non-existential. This is where I take issue with being non-combative. (even though humans have a bias against contradicting facts that makes them more strident in their irrational beliefs) These ideas are a danger to our free and secular society. This group of sorry dolts is entitled to their opinions but they will never change if never challenged. People like Ernest seek to restrict the behavior of others because they believe they are the arbiters of “God’s will.” Where they see salvation for a sinner, I see oppression and stupidity and I had had enough. How long must the least wrong of America suffer the nonsense of those whose belief structure seeks to restrict our freedom? This will be the first and last time that I borrow from The Department of Homeland Security, but if you see something, say something. So I did:
Dear Ernest and others who have the misfortune (or i hope now the fortune) of being on this email list,
For a few months now I have been getting these somewhat humorous and completely misguided emails by mistake. I said nothing in hopes that one day I would find the time to respond to the regular misinformation and ridiculous logic found in the contents of each new message I receive from your friend Ernest.
I have finally decided to speak up from the sidelines because the content of this particular sermon and the identity of its author were alarming.
Most academic historians, regardless of their political leanings, would hotly dispute this notion that the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be a Christian Nation. Most of them were deists, who believe in a higher power but not the supernatural, the norm amongst the intelligentsia of the time. Any anecdotes I would add about how Jefferson took the time to rewrite the Gospels without any of the miracles and the like would do a disservice to the complexity and diversity of the beliefs of those fifty some individuals. The fact of the matter is that it is irrelevant what the founders intended, only what they created. They created a secular society. One that acknowledges that there is no one way to live a life. The more diverse a society, the more it has to draw on to succeed. Would you really even want a world with only white Christian Protestants? Given that the author still has faith in a Confederate cause I can be left with no other conclusion that you seek the same.
Your “Brother in the Lord” continues to lament over the common complaints that fundamentalist Christians have about the impartiality of the US Government. Completely oblivious to the hypocrisy of their positions. If the government allows for one specific set of religious symbolism to remain, then by the laws of this land it must also allow for any other symbols to accompany them. Because of their own cognitive dissonance, the moral majority will end up with a statue of the occult idol Baphomet in state houses across the country, thanks to your friendly neighborhood Satanists. Revenge is a dish best served cold on a giant half goat half man bronze. To you and your ilk, we are in a spiritual struggle against the “enemy” and the people under his influence. In reality, there is no enemy and the only impediment to a happy, more robust society are the people who hold the same beliefs. And I know what you are thinking: “The best lie Lucifer ever told is convincing people that he does not exist.” Besides the ridiculous notion that something created by a perfect God could become imperfect and represent a parody in power with his Creator, besides the ridiculous notion that he continues on with this charade despite his predestined defeat, besides all the complicit suffering, your unfounded faith in the power of the devil is nothing but a hindrance to human progress. There is no army of spirits contriving against your success from another dimension. It is only your human nature that impedes you from attaining happiness. Your brain and body are the product of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, not fearfully and wonderfully made by a Creator. Your “sinful nature” is not because of choices made by an ancestor but the byproduct of short term versus long term connectomes competing in your brain. ***
“Brother Patterson” is right to point out that we do not adhere to the strict social mores of previous decades. He insists that a Christian nation would “not permit” any of its leaders to state a fact: that we have never been a nation founded on the Judeo-Christian belief structure. In your minds, a Christian nation would not allow people to pursue happiness as they see it because of some ancient oral history, eventually copied and rewritten thousands of years ago. Brother Patterson is unsatisfied with believing in the “one true God” and letting others be judged by him alone as instructed. He wants a nation where nothing he sees disturbs his moral sensibilities.
Brother Douchebag (I mean come on the Confederacy!?!) also completely missed his civics lessons in high school, “A Christian Nation would not permit that.” That is not how our republic functions. Our government does not endorse one belief system over another, nor should it ever. My next question is for you, do you really intend to spend the rest of your lives investing in stemming the tide? Thomas Kuhn famously pointed to the incommensurability of different paradigms to communicate. We live in a post Christian paradigm. The language of human understanding does not accommodate gods, devils, evil, or armageddons. Given that in the last 2000 years you couldn’t point to one concrete action that a god or a devil has performed, its unneccessary to concern yourselves with them.
Lastly as a sort of cherry on top to your sundae of obliteration, even someone like Dr. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, (for my readers look them up for a hoot) agrees with the estimation that around 108 billion people have been born into this world in recorded history. The natural miscarriage rate for pregnancy is between 15 and 25% (some calculations are higher). It can be inferred then that in all of recorded history around 27 billion, with a “B,” souls have sparked into existence at the moment of conception, as you would insist, then met their demise before birth. Without any human interference I might add. Now how, in all of God’s green Earth, does that fit into any divine plan you could conjure up?
***
If you have read this far, thank you. As you can see, trying to win over believers to your side is an exhausting process and I have barely even scratched the surface. There are so many other areas of utmost importance to accurately paint a portrait of reality. That is why there is Part II to follow. Rather than disengaging with believers and assuming they are a lost cause, persist. Persist because facts are on your side. Persist because maybe if we did, coming generations will no longer have to carry so many passengers in the march of progress.
The Westerlund Project 