“Very Special” Part 2: “In God We Trust”- America’s Complicated Relationship With Religion

“Very Special” Part 2: “In God We Trust”- America’s Complicated Relationship With Religion

Hey, so before we get started talking about a very important topic I just want to say: isn’t my Quora space impressive. Nobody else’s Quora space is as good as mine and it makes so much money. I am very impressive and I had this idea all on my own from reading War Donkey, which is a very fine space but ours is better, so much better. Dave, Little Davey, over at War Donkey didn’t have this idea but that’s okay.

And let me tell you, I have had sex with so many women, just so many. Like one girl looked like that girl from True Detective,[1] the one with you know…the body. I’m not saying it was her but you know maybe I am. She’s very pretty, so very pretty. Prettier than that fat pig Rosie, such a disgusting pig. So fat.[2]

But I respect women, I totally do, but I am saying that my Quora space is very impressive and so are my large hands if you catch my drift. Do you know what they’re saying on this space? Merry Christmas. Nobody was doing that before, certainly not on War Elephant, which is full of not very nice people.

But I’m not going to talk about them because I’m a Christian, so Christian. My favorite Bible verse is Ezikiel 25:17. [3]

Okay, question: Imagine if I’m running for president and you’re a devout Christian, would you vote for me? Would you vote for me and then vote for me again even after you found out I cheated on my third wife with a porn star[4] and playboy playmate[5] and I was accused of raping or sexually harassing thirty-five other women,[6] [7] also while married to other women. What if I said that stuff in front of a group of boy scouts?[8]

What if I said some of that stuff at the National Prayer Breakfast?[9]

Well… if you said no, then you’re not a devout Christian.

As Donald Trump’s presidency comes to a close, we need to examine how our relationship with religion led to us getting into this complicated spot in the first place. Just like my post on Education, I’m gonna get real with you but unlike that last post, I don’t have a lot to say about how Liberals treat Christianity.

I could get really both sides with it and mention how there’s a segment of this country that treats religious people with mockery and disdain and laughs at them behind their back. All of that is both disgraceful and true. Shame on you if you do that.

But there’s a fine line between the elitist snobbery of liberal artists at a cocktail party or the dismissive derision of coffee shop atheists and…well…this:

The nice thing about that is that it makes for a shorter article, which suits me just fine. When everyone who shares one of these things says “Long but good” on their post I think it’s time to take the hint, you know?

To begin with, everything I said about Trump’s disqualifying crap at the beginning is true and there’s evidence to support the idea that Trump fucking hates Christians.[10] [11] But that’s not to say Trump has no religion at all.

Trump has a long history of associating with Norman Vincent Peale,[12] a Christian motivational speaker from the fifties and sixties. Rev Peale dropped some of the worst junk psychology on America’s upper-middle-class and wealthy for decades. He was a goofy crank who wrote sermons that gave a religious excuse for narcissists and sociopaths and his book, The Power of Positive Thinking, basically allowed entitled assholes to think God had their back while they imagined getting a BJ in a Gulfstream.

When Christianity moved away from the visualization/wealth-based affirmations, Trump moved away from religion but it says a lot that he moved back to it now that American Christianity is full of hucksters and grifters.[13]

I suppose I could blame Billy Graham or Jim Bakker or televangelists but that’s unfair. America’s religious community has been slowly separating itself from the rest of America since we freed the slaves. The last fifty years, however, has shown us that these elements in Christianity are accelerating their hold on political life. They’ve made it clear that if you vote for anyone but Trump that you’re betraying God and there’s a lot of people who agree.

Which raises some questions.

You see, one problem for me as a Catholic is that I know enough about the Bible and the will of God to see something very troubling about America’s Religious Right. By introducing politics into the problem, I am forced to harken back to my Latin ancestors and ask the age-old question that Romans, Catholics, and educated men have asked about men in power for centuries:

Cui Bono. Who Benefits?

Every single part of American Christianity’s political beliefs makes someone at least a little money.

By agitating against abortion, Mitch McConnell has placed a lot of right-wing conservatives into the court system. Anti-abortion has become Conservative, despite the fact that in order to be anti-abortion you have to expand the Federal Government deep into the State Government and the Federal Legal system. But since anti-abortion is also pro-Conservative a lot of other little things walk in behind that belief system. Like, say the repeal of Environmental laws and regulations to help large multinational corporations save money. Or the use of Federal land for drilling and mining. Those are all things that Conservative judges who are against abortion are also in favor of.

But that’s the big picture politics and religious people would correctly claim that they can’t control what Mitch does with their platform. Okay, so what are the specific ways that Evangelicals help big business?

Well, what about school choice? Is it truly an attempt by religious people to allow school systems to recognize religious schools and homeschooling? Or is it an attempt by billionaires to lower their tax burden by defunding public schools?

Do Religious people truly believe birth control is wicked? Or is it also that it would save a lot of major corporations millions by eliminating it from their healthcare plans?

Religious people, such as Tony Spell, have claimed that by forcing people not to attend church during COVID that we’re blocking their religious freedoms. But arent we also blocking their weekly tithes? The 1,345 who Mr. Spell claims attended his church in April probably all gave to the basket as it was passed around. Assuming they all gave between one and five bucks per person and there are fifty-two Sundays in a year, that’s a lot of money just from Sunday mass alone.

Money which Tony Spell and other evangelicals don’t pay taxes on. Some of these guys own a private jet.

And are they really against Hollywood because they’re worried about the degradation of society or is it that a lot of large churches are also invested in the parallel business of media production with a captive, terrified audience? Is it possible that by claiming that popular media is sinful, you create an opportunity to market your own media products to Americans who think they can’t watch tv or listen to the radio? I mean a church is nonprofit but if I sell a movie on the rack at Walmart… somebody makes a dime.

What about gays? Does spreading homophobia really make people money? Well if you use homophobia to force the Government to change how it legislates business interactions with the LGBTQ community then large multinational corporations save millions on sensitivity training and diversity programs… so yes. Hey, if you change the law to say sex changes are not covered by insurance then that’s a dollar saved and if you ban gay marriage, they save millions more in healthcare costs by not covering a gay spouse.

And what about the anti-abortion? How would that benefit a big business? Well… did you know that some states have privatized foster care and if some of those precious unborn lives fall into privatized foster care or… a prison then someone would make a lot of money?

Is it possible that a least some of American Christianity’s proud stance against progress originates in the board room and not the pulpit?

Now I’m not saying that everybody who gets on their knees in front of a cross is some sort of co-conspirator in a vast conspiracy to make money off of a person’s dearly held beliefs. But, I mean… there are a lot of people who do.

And then there’s the racism thing. You know what I mean, how American Christianity favors white people. Dig if you will this flag, literally the flag of American Christians. You’ll see it flying around mega-churches all over America:

They even have a pledge to the flag in some churches:

I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and to the Saviour for whose Kingdom it stands; one Saviour, crucified, risen, and coming again with life and liberty to all who believe.[14]

Creepy. But there’s something else about that flag I can’t quite put my finger on…

Riiiiight, yeah. See that? That's called the Stainless Banner and it was the actual official flag of the Confederacy at the beginning of the Civil War, the stars and bars we see at NASCAR is just the battle flag of the army, the official flag that flew over Atlanta was that one.

Now, I’m sure it’s a perfectly innocent mistake and the two designs had nothing to do with one another. The Christian Flag was actually designed in1907 by two Yankee preachers from New Jersey. Still…that is a concerning coinkydink and the fact that nobody has pointed that out tells you how white the leadership of most churches can be.

And it gives me a chance to raise a lot of truly despicable problems with White Anglo Saxon Protestants.

First is their neverending sense that they are under attack and their uncanny ability to tie their grievances to institutions that actually have nothing to do with their personal feelings.

For example, if White people feel under attack, then by extension Christianity is under attack. Because to some people white and Christian is America’s default.

On 9/11, Osma Bin Laden attacked the Twin Towers and killed 3000 people. Knowing the demographics of NYC, most of those people were not practicing Christians, and tons of Jesus freaks have happily beat the bible to this day calling New York City ‘Babylon’. But suddenly in 2001, Christianity, not America or New York City, was under attack.

This translated into sixteen years of Islamophobia and hatred.

And at the end of sixteen years, eight under a born-again Texan, eight under a black guy who was born in poverty and a devout Catholic, God chose Donald Trump.

That was the line they supplied to me whenever we raised objections about Trump. Not “he’ll make us more money” or “he’ll repeal abortion.” God chose him and anyone against him is part of a conspiracy that sounds a lot like anti-Semitic blood libel. Like think about that: civil rights activists, devout Christians, and politicians who themselves go to church, all think Trump sucks but apparently there are people who think they’re servants of the devil because they think Trump sucks.

I could stand here and call them hypocrites but that’s sadly not at all accurate.

A hypocrite is unaware of his hypocrisy so this would actually be lying.

Most of the people in that crowd were conditioned to believe everyone was lying about Trump’s crimes because that was what their pastor has been saying for five years.

Footnotes

[1] Alexandra Daddario - Wikipedia

[2] The Donald Trump-Rosie O'Donnell feud: A timeline

[3] Pulp Fiction at 25: About that Ezekiel Bible verse…

[4] Stormy Daniels–Donald Trump scandal - Wikipedia

[5] Donald Trump, a Playboy Model, and a System for Concealing Infidelity

[6] 'You Can Do Anything': In 2005 Tape, Trump Brags About Groping, Kissing Women

[7] Donald Trump's books reveal his obsession with women — and himself

[8] The 29 most cringe-worthy lines from Donald Trump's hyper-political speech to the Boy Scouts

[9] Trump's prayer breakfast jibes jolt many faith leaders

[10] Trump Secretly Mocks His Christian Supporters

[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36qhTfCWdiw&list=PLWB9DcEZrbexSsR2hwZ2whWnMIb9AjqcH&index=436