Bible Thumping and Walking the Walk

Goodness or Piety?

I’ve known many fundamentalist Christians over the past fifty years or so. They really weren’t that visible prior to the mid-1970s. I even sort of became one myself for a brief period. I remember writing a catchy song, “They Took my Bible Away,” which reflected my mindset at the time.

I have strong faith. But I do question God. Why He doesn’t intervene, in a world that appears to be run by his enemy. Why does Satan seem to have dominion here? All the tragic stories, especially of sick and dying children. Those born with horrible birth defects. Natural disasters that aren’t geoengineered. I don’t know how you can’t question those kinds of things. But I’ve never thought that God doesn’t exist. I believe that the self-evident creation of this world, from breathtaking waterfalls and majestic mountain peaks, to the gorgeous autumn foliage, to caterpillars transitioning into beautiful butterflies, is strong evidence of a supernatural hand, and one who values beauty. I refuse to accept that all of this just came about randomly.

When my mother died in 1987, I was looking for answers. I decided to read the Bible from cover to cover. Now, I tried to get through the Old Testament. I failed. The Old Testament is a pretty scary book, and the God depicted there is often frightening. Like Bob Dylan, I had difficulty understanding why God would ask Abraham to kill his son. Creating a bunch of imperfect creatures, and then flooding them for being imperfect? I’m trying to picture how much worse they could have been than the “Woke” lunatics running this world are now. But the New Testament is an entirely different story. In fact, Jesus seems so different from the God of the Old Testament that the Christian Identity movement was started, which I think postulates they are different Gods.

At any rate, it was easy to read the whole New Testament. More Christians really ought to try it. Much of it was comforting to me, at a time when I needed that. The Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, ring clearly of eternal truth. I wrote a previous article here about the meek, and it just seems appropriate that they should one day inherit the earth. The Golden Rule is the essential foundation of the New Testament. It was a revolutionary concept to love thy neighbor as thyself, and even more revolutionary to love your enemies. Turn the other cheek? Has any other religion, or philosophy, advocated that? Do onto others. Walk a mile in my moccasins. There but for the grace of God go I. Christianity is at the heart of human empathy.

Oftentimes, Jesus sounded like the hippies would nearly 2,000 years later. He urged his apostles to give up all their possessions. He advised his disciples to pray in private, and not a make a public show of their faith. All those today who do make a show of their faith really ought to read that passage again. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers. Was this why, until the midpoint of the twentieth century, the Catholic church considered usury- the lending of money at interest- to be a mortal sin? Wouldn’t that make our entire banking system, and many individuals who loan money, mortal sinners by that standard?

I was raised a Catholic. I vaguely remember the Latin phrases, which were discarded after Vatican II. I think something was lost there. The Latin sounded beautiful, even to a very young child. I recognized early on that there was a lot of hypocrisy around me at every Mass. The women used to keep their heads covered in those days, and seemed to be checking out each other’s hats and dresses a bit too competitively. But then as I hit puberty, I started checking out the pretty girls in the pews a bit too inappropriately as well. I felt guilty about it, but I was a teenager. Like most boys my age, that was the main thing on my mind. All the time.

Confession was scary. I always dreaded getting a penance that included the Act of Contrition, which I had trouble remembering. Just give me a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys, please. To be honest, I really wasn’t confessing to any great sins. Talking back to and not always respecting my parents. Lusting after girls. I did steal a few candy bars when I was a kid, but I think I was too scared to confess to it. There would probably have been multiple Acts of Contrition meted out for something like that. And my first communion started a lifelong trend. Whenever I have received holy communion, the wafer invariably gets stuck to the top of my mouth, and I have to try and inconspicuously dislodge it. I was often scared it would be permanently stuck.

The Catholic church has many issues. Most Catholics are like me, fallen Catholics. Or even more that have no connection at all to the religion they were raised in. This really hit home when my daughter was about to be confirmed. I have a really big, supposedly Catholic family. And yet, I couldn’t find a single practicing Catholic among all those relatives, to serve as the adult standing up for her. I know most Catholics roll their eyes at the Church’s stance on birth control, for instance. Sure, it’s unrealistic, but I admire them for sticking to their guns. If you’re going to be be pro-life on abortion, it stands to reason that a consistent stance would be that sex is for procreation only. Unrealistic? Unpopular? Hopelessly out of step?

But the hypocrisy I saw in the Catholic church was nothing compared to what I’ve seen in the evangelical Christians. The “Born-Againers,” as I sometimes refer to them. The whole “born again” concept, along with the Rapture, and the inordinate attention to the Book of Revelation, are relatively new, and uniquely American. The Born-Againers take a single snippet from the New Testament, where Jesus says you can’t enter the kingdom of God without being “born again.” Of course, he also says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. The Born-Againers don’t take that one literally. To be fair, it’s the most ignored and least favorite Biblical passage for almost all Christians. Except me. It’s my favorite. I bet Huey Long loved it, too.

That’s the thing about the Born Againers. They believe every word of the Bible is true, and must be taken literally. Except that eye in a needle thing. That one they’ll interpret for you, and leave you breathing a sigh of relief that, no, Jesus is not saying you shouldn’t pursue wealth and riches. It just sounds like that to the less pious. It’s a nondenominational thing, you wouldn’t understand. Their favorite verse seems to be the one about no one being able to enter heaven except through Jesus. They extrapolate this to mean no heaven without being “born again.” So devout Catholics, and protestants, if you haven’t formally accepted Jesus as your savior, in the manner they’ve devised, then you’ll be spending eternity with the atheists, Jews, and Hindus.

But the primary problem I have with most religious people is that they simply don’t walk the walk. They really know how to talk the talk, but they are often revealed to have fallen far short of their own lofty expectations for human behavior. Jimmy Swaggart immediately comes to mind. Jim and Tammy Baker fit into this category as well. If you’re advising your financial contributors to lead a holy life, you probably shouldn’t be sleeping with prostitutes or using donated funds to build an elaborate doghouse for your pet. Joel Osteen didn’t exhibit the slightest bit of public remorse when he refused to shelter the victims of hurricane Katrina in his gaudy mansion.

This applies to most of the Born Againers I’ve personally known. There is one guy I used to work with, who does walk the walk in his personal life. Moral and upstanding, one of the few men I’ve ever known that doesn’t turn his head when some hot woman strolls by. Doesn’t drink or smoke or swear. And he doesn’t really preach. The others I’ve known, however, do preach. A lot. And they judge incessantly, even though the Bible advises us to judge not lest ye be judged. I guess that’s another part that’s not to be taken literally. Like that whole thing where Jesus lashed out at the Jews as the children of the devil, and told them they were like their father, the first and greatest liar of them all. If only Jesus had been referring to White Supremacists.

Meanwhile, their personal lives are often a mess. Many have been divorced and remarried. Sometimes more than once. One Born Againer couple I know just abandoned their adult son, because he wasn’t on board with their beliefs. He tried to commit suicide, and they wouldn’t even visit him in the hospital. He was living in a tent in the woods for a while. They literally don’t know whether he’s dead or alive. But they won’t miss Sunday services at their upscale nondenominational church. Maybe they pray for him. They just don’t contact him. The Lord works in mysterious ways. Another Born Again mother stopped contacting her son when he had the audacity to resent her using another Realtor to sell his childhood home. As a Realtor myself, I could really relate to that. They haven’t spoken in years.

There have been highly publicized cases of “holy” pastors having affairs. In one tragic case, the “holy” pastor impregnated a young girl. And then murdered her. Well, what else was a “holy” pastor to do in such a situation? Now, clearly that guy could not have feared being judged. Just like the priests that can’t resist the charms of the alter boys. You’ve taken a vow of chastity, and are supposed to symbolically be married to Jesus. So how do you cheat on Jesus? With an alter boy? Those priests could not possibly have been believers. Maybe they seek out the priesthood as a safe haven for their homosexuality? Especially if they like their males very young, I suppose. And the Church hierarchy ignores it like police superiors ignore all those cops gone wild.

Now I realize an undue amount of attention is paid to those Christian authority figures who reveal themselves to be unworthy sinners just like the rest of us. When the Dalai Lama publicly rhapsodized about French kissing a little boy a few years ago, it blew over pretty quickly. He wasn’t forced to resign, although I don’t know that Dalai Lamas can resign. They are “chosen,” like the Israelites I guess. And there was at least one rabbi who was caught propositioning a fake underaged victim on To Catch a Predator. Yet another rabbi recently bought porn hub, one of the biggest porn sites on the internet. I’m not sure how he juggles that with his religious wisdom, although I’ve never understood exactly what rabbis do. They are extremely well paid, however, as I detailed in my book Survival of the Richest.

Born Againers don’t believe anyone can go to heaven, simply because of the exemplary lives they may lead. Ironically, this includes all Jews, who they insist are still the “chosen” people of God. And as they are all arch-Zionists, they support Israel unconditionally. They just don’t think any of the citizens of Israel will be able to get into heaven. It’s complicated, as the young girls put it on social media. Christopher Hitchens even tried to debunk Mother Teresa. Maybe she was just a fraud, too, like all the people who seem to be saying good things, but are actually shills working for the Deep State. At least that’s what most of my friends in the alt media tell me when I get a crush on the likes of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Tucker Carlson or Vivek Ramaswamy.

It just doesn’t make sense to me that a person who doesn’t become a Christian for whatever reason, yet leads a good enough life to follow the Ten Commandments perhaps inadvertently, is damned to hell. And yet, theoretically a serial killer could repent on his death bed and enter heaven. I’m as inspired as anyone by the conversion of the criminal Saul into St. Paul on the road to Damascus, but that just doesn’t seem fair. If a person is kind, generous, and treats others nicely, I won’t consign them to the pit fire, just because they didn’t follow rote dogma devised more by man than God. Well, those identifying as men. Cisgenders.

Too many Christians, especially the Born Againers, pay far more attention to selected Biblical passages, than they do to being good people. When you won’t even help out your own children, exactly what kind of “Christian” are you? You might just as well be Warren Buffet, who whatever he is is probably not a Christian. He wouldn’t help his own granddaughter with her college tuition. According to the ever reliable Google, Buffet is presently worth some $117 billion. So, even with the skyrocketing costs of tuition, he probably could have comfortably afforded that. Maybe be an extra kind grandfather and not make her pay it back. Not helping others, including close family members, is expected of One Percent parasites. But not humble Christians.

Most of the ungrateful adult children who seldom visit their elderly parents, and would abandon Dodge City in an instant if threatened with having to care for them, don’t pretend to be Christians. Many of them don’t believe in God at all, or follow that Hollywoodish “New Age” spiritual thing, which holds that angels are among us, but there is no danger that anyone will ever be judged on what they do on this mortal coil. Well, except maybe the worst “racists” and “transphobes,” but even they won’t exactly be going to hell, since those wanting to punish them don’t believe in hell. Thus they’re in favor of treating them like the J6 prisoners. Hell on earth. But some adult children are Born Againers, and ignore the commandment to honor thy mother and father.

My view is that, if you’re going to demand that others be pious, you better be pious yourself. If you present yourself as being holy, you need to be living a holy life. So that means behind closed doors, you can’t be looking at porn on the internet. Or even worse, committing adultery. Worst of all, abusing your own children. But you’ll be certain to tithe ten percent of your income to the church. Even though there is nothing in the Bible demanding that you do that. Just like there is no “God helps those who help themselves” anywhere in scripture, either. But it’s always been a convenient way to shut up those pesky poor people. Who are they to question God?

I think the reason it’s always been possible for comedians like George Carlin or Bill Hicks to critique Christianity so effectively is because of this blatant hypocrisy. I’m sure it must be incredibly hard to live up to your own pious rhetoric. And the fact that so many who don’t keep getting exposed, just feeds the notion that Christianity itself is phony. I’ve often said that most Born Againers especially must seem like anti-missionaries to many they’re trying to convert. A missionary should be like Shoeshine Boy, Underdog’s secret identity; humble and lovable. Kind, generous, loyal. The heathens should be able to identify what you are by your actions. We’re all far from perfect, and this includes devout Christians. But we can all do better.

The Catholic religion doesn’t become discredited by priests lusting after alter boys. But the Catholic church does by not addressing the problem correctly. Jesus never said that priests can’t marry. Allow them to marry and have families. Many protestant pastors earn a nice income, and receive a home courtesy of their congregation. Maybe that’s the answer for Catholic priests. Priests used to swear a vow of poverty as well. If they can buy new cars and jewelry, why can’t they get married? And if the church hierarchy isn’t going to do anything about them having sex with male children, why shouldn’t they let them have sex with women and start families?

Much of the problem here revolves around man’s instinctual inability to stop impure thoughts, and impure actions if given the opportunity. Obviously few of us really think that God sees everything, if we behave in private as if he doesn’t. I don’t think you can use the “fake news” defense with God. I fear the improper thoughts that run through my mind all too often, but I’m not pounding a lectern and judging the improper thoughts, let alone actions, of others. If you smoke and drink in front of your children, you can’t be surprised if they grow up to smoke and drink, too. And if you’re a religious leader caught doing something you have railed against from the pulpit, you can’t be surprised if your flock rejects you.

My fellow boomers seem to have forgotten their own transgressions. The trespasses we ask to be forgiven for in The Lord’s Prayer. Virtually everyone I know at least tried marijuana occasionally. Many did speed, acid, or cocaine. I saw people having sex in closets at parties. I knew girls who’d had double digit abortions and/or triple digit sex partners. I really don’t see how any of them could punish their own children for doing drugs or having illicit sex. When they get to a certain level, they didn’t inhale, to quote the great Bill Clinton. The millennials are a far tamer lot from what I’ve seen. My own children were certainly a lot less wild than I was back in the America 1.0 days of yore.

At this point, you might be saying, “Hey, who is this guy, Mr. Complainer himself, to be talking about this subject?” Yes, I am critical to a fault. But I’m critical of those who conspire against the interests of the people. Who abuse their power. Frame innocent people. Send the children of other families off to senseless foreign wars. I’ve never done any of that. I would never abuse whatever limited power I have. I’d never frame someone for a crime, let alone sit on a jury that sent him to prison for life on incredibly flimsy evidence. I can say that war is for the profits of bankers and corporations, because I’ve never supported one. I would never condemn someone for having my own weaknesses, like admiring beautiful females. Biological females.

When I rant about the transgender agenda, it’s because I would never steer someone I love into ruining their life in such a cruel way. But I stay away from most issues of morality, because I know all too well about human frailties. I’ve been loyal to my wife for 38 years of marriage. But I recognize that, if some lovely young woman lost her reason and aggressively pursued me, then I could easily be tempted. That’s why I scoff at all the alleged sexual scandals involving JFK. If I were President of the United States, and a Marilyn Monroe wanted to sleep with me, that would be a very hard thing to resist. On the other hand, I feel confident that I’d never harass young underlings like Bill Clinton did. There’s a huge difference.

Sometimes I think that the worst thing religious faith has going for it is organized religion. Televangelists may rake in the money, but they repel untold numbers of people from faith itself. Polls say that a majority of Jews are atheists. I don’t know how it’s possible to be a member of a religion without a belief in God, but Jews claim to be a race as well. Hindus supposedly believe in thousands of Gods. Many Buddhists seem to be atheists, too. I’m sure there is a lot to spoof and satirize in Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. But Hollywood has shockingly avoided them altogether, although they did briefly used to poke fun at the Hari-Krishnas.

It wasn’t until I began having earnest conversations with Born Againers that I saw the essential difference between Catholics and most protestants. Born Againers tend to scoff at “works,” or do-goodism. I’ve been chided for “trying to work your way into heaven.” Born Againers are all about faith. There’s a wise saying out there about faith without works. It just seems to me that if you’re lecturing others about being good, you ought to be good yourself. And I think to truly be good you must do good. Taken to its logical conclusion, someone like Tate-LaBianca murderer Tex Watson is assured of going to heaven, because he has become a Born Again preacher in prison. But I don’t think Sharon Tate was a Christian. So the guy who killed her is going to heaven, but she isn’t? I believe in redemption, but are there no limits?

My do-goodism these days is confined to my writing and podcasting. I try to stand up for justice, fairness, and the underdog with everything I say or write. I used to volunteer quite a bit, at the Special Olympics, and taught basic computer skills for an organization serving adults with mental challenges. I also coached youth sports for a decade. Then, as now, I tried to be honest and treat everyone decently. But I was supremely flawed then, and I remain supremely flawed. I call out official corruption, but not individuals abusing drugs, for instance. Unless they had declared from the pulpit that drug users are going to hell. Or are high profile drug users themselves, like Bill Clinton, who nevertheless allowed countless other druggies to go to prison while he was governor of Arkansas. Why have I mentioned Bill Clinton here three times?

I believe in God. I accept Jesus Christ as my savior. It’s obvious that those in power, whose corruption and tyranny is off the charts, despise Jesus. While purportedly not believing in him. If he’s just a mythological figure, why not treat him like Santa Claus? Santa Claus gets great press. Jesus gets ridiculed by the same culture. I know I am eminently unworthy. I’m a hopeless sinner. I’d never criticize someone for their morals, unless it involved things like murder, robbery, rape, abuse, etc. I fall short of my own expectations every day, but I know I’ll never murder or knowingly cheat someone. Even imperfect sinners should be above that.

Those of you who get something out of church; more power to you, as Briscoe Darling used to say on The Andy Griffith Show. I’m sure there must be honest parishes out there, run by people who are as holy as human beings can be. But there are far too many that remained silent in the face of the unconstitutional COVID lockdown, for instance. Who aren’t speaking out for free speech, and against politicized prosecutions. But even if they are “awake” to all the corruption, they need to lead good lives if they’re going to lecture others about their lives. Don’t invoke the name of God unless you’re in a truly special category. Like Mother Teresa, if Hitchens was wrong. He was a devout atheist, after all.

I hate it when people, and especially ministers and pastors, relish how someone is going to hell, or is already there. I don’t understand this. I get no pleasure out of imagining the worst people in the world- Hillary Clinton, Bill Gates, the recently dearly departed Henry Kissinger- burning for eternity in hell. And I don’t for a second think that I am qualified to judge just who is going to hell and who isn’t. No human being should, not even the Pope or the wealthiest fundamentalist preacher. He who will judge us all will be the only arbiter, and if we have faith we understand that He will judge more knowledgeably and fairly than we ever could.

To quote from a commercial advertising one of those nondenominational “super” churches, this is not meant to be a sermon, just a thought. Or more accurately lots of thoughts. I will always believe in God. I fear Him. How could I not fear a power beyond all human comprehension? I think we should judge others according to the way we want to be judged, which is another passage in the Bible which is apparently not meant to be taken literally. Maybe I’ve judged way too much here, in critiquing those who do judge. It’s hard to critically assess anything without judging. Religious faith has saved many from a life of crime. But if you expect to convert anyone, you need to do a better job of practicing what you preach.