Life in America

I wrote this in response to a friend (a dear friend) who asked why I am not more ‘positive.’

Come live in North America, the gun toting capital of the world, the arms merchant of the world, the current Empire of the world. Watch how the churches twist Jesus all out of proportion and turn him into the satan. Watch how groups turn Christianity into another form American consumerism. Watch how other groups turn the gospel into a gnostic message with purely narcissistic and selfish overtones. Come here, live here, watch how this destroys people’s lives. Watch at how we are unable to be at peace because we believe in peace with God while we carry our guns. Watch how Christians follow the crazy whims of cult personalities. Watch how these personalities become celebrities and then authorities when they know nothing about that which they preach or teach. Watch the ignorance and folly grow exponentially day by day. Watch as Christians become more like mindless zombies rather than thinking persons.

Come watch as churches inoculate converts against Jesus and force them into fear of a tyrant deity. Come watch as they worship the militant Jesus with their hymns and praise bands. Come watch as they use ‘pretty’ and ‘handsome’ young adults as mimetic attractions. Come join in the mad chorus of Sunday sermons that extol the virtues of sacred violence.

Come live here.

Watch as Christians justify all manner of evil, homelessness, poverty, violence, racism, discrimination. Watch as Christians become warmongers begging for Jesus to come start a holy war in the Holy Land. Come while other Christians not satisfied with this preach a militant Messiah. Come watch pastors abuse congregations, steal their money and live like fat cats. Come live here in America and watch Christianity as it descends into the satanic under the guise of holiness and righteousness.

Come live here my friend. And.Say. Nothing. Just go with the flow. Don’t rock the boat. Just think of yourself and your little life dream. Just live and let live and close your eyes to the injustice.

And try calling yourself a follower of Jesus.

Or join the ranks of the prophets of social and theological reform. Join those with the courage to speak out against this madness. Join those who are vilified for not being nicey-nice and lovey-dovey. Join those who are castigated for calling abuses of power for what they are. Come, stand in the breach with the true spiritual warriors.

On this page I seek to care for the cast-offs, the has-beens, the tired, weak and weary. I seek to give them hope. I desire to help them retain some semblance of spirituality in a world oriented to misery, empiricism, and anger. Call me a pastor of sorts, for I have done that job. Now I fulfill it as a calling: to care for the lost sheep who have been tossed by the wayside.

And I do all this without charge. How many others do so?

Come live here before you criticize me for challenging the principalities and powers, especially that awful Principality and Power known as the Christianity of Sacred Violence.