B141. Checklist Christianity

(Don't skip the light print. That's where all the fun is . . .)

When I was a child Christian teachings were a little more subjective. Something about God’s grace, not our works. Lots of talk about forgiveness, and loving our enemies, and allowing God to be the judge of others. Knowing the difference between God and Caesar . . .

Now though, hooray, in our new age of enlightenment, we can just use a fundamentalist checklist – a list we can control on our own without having to depend on what God might or might not be doing. Just print it out, and check it off.

_____1. Protest strongly against gay people. Repost anything against them that comes across your social media feeds, even if it’s deceptive or a lie. Spread to all your friends that gay people are dangerous, sick, perverted, and live far away . . . and don’t forget to handpick those 6-7 passages in the Bible to justify that you are speaking for God. Even if you have some doubts and questions. Ignore the questions, and just keep the memes circulating!

_____2. Protest loudly against abortion, especially accusing “pro-choice” people of being godless murderers. Bumper stickers are a nice touch. Continue to focus on the so-called “partial-birth” abortions as if they are a norm. This will help distract people from ever realizing that hardly anyone is “pro-abortion,” and from having the meaningful discussion of whether the government should be in the position of making such decisions.

_____3. Vote Republican, no matter what the office or who is running. Do not get distracted by morality. What matters is politics. Most importantly, call everyone who doesn’t vote all-Republican a “liberal,” as if the word is a great insult. People will often follow a name-caller’s lead without questioning what the word really means, just like the Vietnam soldiers were trained to call the Vietnamese “gooks.” Names make it so much easier to disregard people as children of God. Didn’t Jesus say “No one comes to the Father but by the Republican Party,” and didn’t he eat with Republicans and Sinners?

_____4. Use your Bible as if it were the fourth Person of the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son . . . God the Book. Carefully pick out verses to justify numbers 1-3. Don’t actually read the Bible though or encourage others to read it, or they might be confused by those other passages that seem to say just the opposite. Be careful to avoid, or at least just brush over, all the words of Jesus about loving even those people we were calling names in number 3.

1-2-3-4! Done!

If this doesn’t sound right to you, and I admit, it sounds a little off to me too, like politics and religion have gotten all tangled together, then there’s the old alternative. Maybe we should go into our prayer closets alone, pray for God’s discernment in these confusing times, read all the way through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and 1 Corinthians 13, and try that radical love thing Jesus was always talking about.

But then we might have to acknowledge that those other people get some things right too.  Gosh, I don’t know. A checklist is so much easier!

Disclaimer: This is not an anti-Republican post. It is an anti Republican-equals-God post. And yes, Republicans are the ones with this issue.  Definitely not all Republicans. Definitely not all Christians. Feel free to ignore it and move on if it doesn't apply. The blogger is neither Republican nor Democrat. The post is satire.

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