I Antagonize the Locals

So, sort of upset about having to live in a red state, I wrote a letter to the paper here recently as a form of catharsis. It's not what you would call "educational", but it will be worth it if I get angry responses. I've got my fingers crossed. It's basically a repeat of the sorts of things I've said here, but I'll post it and if any responses show up in the paper I'll post those as well. Here it is:


Now, I'm not saying that Christianity is becoming a hate-based money-cult. The facts, unfortunately, say it for me. For example, holiday spending this year is expected to exceed 200 billion dollars. Think about that. Over the next month so-called Christians will be celebrating the birth of their messiah not by praying or buying a few small gifts. They will instead go on an orgy of consumer spending and blow more cash than most smaller nations make in an entire year. Never mind that Jesus would on occassion smack folks around for their greed (Matthew ch.21,v.12), I'm sure he's thrilled that we're buying DVD players and salad shooters in his name. Apparently, though, degrading Christ's birth isn't quite enough, we need to diminish his teachings as well.
President Bush was recently re-elected thanks in large part to his stance on "moral values" (although this plural usage is a little misleading since Bush actually stood for a single value, homophobia). Once upon a time living the Christian life meant following the full spectrum of Christ's teachings. You know the ones: helping the poor, rejecting greed, loving your enemy, etc. Boy, Christ sure had a tendency to ramble didn't he? Thankfully religious leaders like Pat Robertson and our very own Ronnie Floyd have lowered the moral bar considerably as a way to make things much easier for us. Now all you have to do is vote Bush, hate gays and you're in. It's that simple. You can toss out that love and tolerance nonsense Jesus talked about. Ignore that he spent most of his time with sinners, lepers and (perhaps worst of all) tax collectors. Salvation lies in the new morality of hatred and fear.
You might suspect that I'm operating under the influence of a bias, and you're right. I myself am not a Christian. But my point is that if you are a white, evangelical Bush-supporter: neither are you.

Happy Holidays,

Matt