Knowing Me, Knowing You

IT IS REALLY IMPORTANT for me to avoid conversations with evangelical Christian political conservatives, other than about the weather, football, or baseball, none of which they often seem to know much about. I sense they assume, a priori, that I, and everyone else, share their beliefs. Why not let them linger in delusion? They don't need to know me. People resist the truth only because they fear they might perish if they accepted it. (Goethe). And really, I have heard that humans are too puny to change the climate, that the Lord is on his way back so it doesn't matter anyway, that socialism has never worked anywhere and never will, and we certainly don't want it to come here, that Obama is a Muslim...quite often enough. When one of these geniuses, as if reading from a cue card, reminds me that I live in a nice house, and drive a nice car, so why am I trying to tell everyone else to give away their money and live in log cabins to save the planet, I bow up, and comfort myself that my blood pressure medication is at home, ready. OK, I drive a car. I inherited it from my mother, God rest her soul. My house is fifteen hundred square feet, cute only because its new. I had it built on what was formerly the parking lot of a natural gas dealership. I smile when I imagine the confusion on their faces were I to mention that the Christian religion began as a political uprising which failed, and turned moral and spiritual. Or that cults of human sacrifice and fertility flourished across the near east during the century before a compelling rabbi attracted a larger than normal following. That the chosen people may have invented monotheism, or they may have borrowed it from earlier folks in Persia, but letting the blood of valuable livestock and virgins is clearly a precursor to political crucifixion, which was a Roman method, borrowed from the Carthaginians, who were colonists from Phoenicia. I would invite Christian fundamentalists to read Bart Ehrman (Jesus Interrupted), or to listen to anyone in the Harvard school of divinity. Certainly, don't take my word for it. Socialism, it turns out, was invented by paleolithic people, before animal husbandry and land owning replaced communal living. It came to these disunited states early, and has lingered, if inconveniently. Try finding an evangelical politically conservative christian who favors free market, privately owned, profit seeking highways, bridges, police departments, and senior centers, or suggest that his house of worship be sold to the highest bidder. When it comes to redistribution of wealth, Jesus was downright hard core. He meant business, his business being voluntary poverty. His message was never ending voluntary sharing, utopian socialism. Perhaps in the evangelical conservative capitalist Bible, revised edition, Jesus admonishes all to accumulate personal wealth. The reference to the Christian conservative community as "geniuses" was not merely gratuitous and condescending. To simultaneously embrace American corporate capitalism and the message of Joshua ben Joseph requires a special kind of insight. One definition of a saint is a person who can simultaneously embrace two seemingly contradictory concepts. Free market, neo-liberal capitalism, and sell whatsoever thou hast and give unto the poor. That sort of thing. Render unto Caesar, and the TEA party. Folks like me, (progressive humanists) must be content to live in a world in which socialism, which is sharing required by government, and Jesus, who seems to have encouraged sharing, are compatible, and are good things. For someone to simultaneously embrace competitive, profit seeking capitalism and give unto the poor render unto Caesar Jesus seems to folks like me nothing short of miraculous. That the conservative evangelical Christian community elected Donald J. Trump is an even greater miracle. Wasn't it Jerry Falwell Junior who said that it is not necessary for the president of the United states to be a good person? Really? I didn't know that either. I always believed it was essential that the president be a good, honest person. Donald J. Trump is very popular at Liberty University. These politically conservative evangelical Christians are truly amazing, ostensible saints and geniuses, able to find compatibility in concepts which are apparently contradictory. Maybe the reason I avoid conversations with them has nothing to do with their lack of interest in or knowledge of baseball. Maybe, just maybe, I am just downright jealous.