Soon after moving to the Bible Belt from Boston, my daughters asked me what Christmas was. They were four and five. I felt ill-equipped to provide a comprehensive answer, so I suggested that we go and do a little field research, as it was holiday time. I looked in the local newspaper to find a church that was having a service that we could attend. It turns out it was a Baptist church, right around the corner. We put on dresses and went, three non-Christian girls, feeling part of the global village, trekking into the heart of broad-mindedness and community.
A nice man gave us candles to hold, with paper cups on the bottom to catch the drips. The chapel had three balconies and ballroom chandeliers that could have been at the Met. Ninety-seven thousand people sang in a choir. The soloist could have been at the Met.
We looked around at the people, who looked just like us, though their clothes were fancier. I had explained to the girls how Christianity was different from Judaism. I told them the minister would give a speech the same way that their rabbi does. He started out okay, but then he said that the Jews were evil murderers. Just like you'd say daffodils are yellow. And here I was, a displaced Jewish New Yorker, sitting respectfully in his pew in an effort to teach my children tolerance and good will. No one stood up and said, "Hey, that's not nice." No one flinched, no one dropped their mouths, agape.
In the 10 years since our first lesson in comparative religion, I have come to learn that here, even if they are more tempered than my neighborhood Baptist guy, a lot of people filter their lives through their faith. This is not a notion that people in other places meet up with every day, I do not think. I didn't confront it when I lived in Boston, or Manhattan or Chicago.
Here, it is all a blur. You can look in the Yellow Pages to find an exterminator or an air conditioning repairman, and underneath the phone number, it will say, "Acme, a Christian Company." What does Jesus Christ have to do with palmetto bugs, I want to know? Would a non-Christian pest-hunter do a lesser job? When my kids attended the public elementary school down the street, a wall-hanging in the auditorium sported a patchwork of embroidered crosses. When I first saw it, I thought they were "t"s, from the alphabet. But then I looked more closely. Highway billboards implore lost souls to "Get Jesus," instead of milk. Soccer teams of twelve year olds recite The Lord's Prayer before games. Chrome fishes, symbols of Christian devotion, are mounted on the backs of cars. There is rarely a hint of Kwanzaa or Hanukkah as the trees light up in town parks maintained by taxpayer dollars. What's most jarring, no one notices.
However, in this election year, as the vote-hungry have injected religion, forcefully, into a domain where it should not be, I'm not so sure that their followers would be so crazed all by themselves. They never used to be. I think that they are being riled up, made to think that their faith, and only theirs, has a right to impact politics and policy. I think that they are simply being used, manipulated, by the guys who want their votes. Now, how Christian is that?
I covered Rick Santorum's little prayer meeting earlier this week, at a chapel north of Dallas. The place was crammed with pastors and their wives, mostly of the evangelical type. These people, and their congregants, would appear to think that it's OK for a presidential candidate to impose his own religion on his plans for the rest of us. It is OK to belittle those who support gay rights, or to force women to give birth to rapists' babies, or to put Jesus in the White House,' according to the state senator who led the crowd in a final prayer for Mr. Santorum. They have gotten away with this sort of thinking on the hometown front. To prevent blind adherence to religious dictate from bleeding into public policy on a world stage, people who don't see this every day need to realize that the entanglement exists and it is habitual. Then, they need to remind those who are entangled that yes, you can hang a cross the size of a Volkswagen around your neck, but not on the flagpole.
I have found this to be a successful tactic, which leads me to believe that many people, even in a place with four churches at every major intersection, do not want to impose their faith on others. I have found, in fact, that when you point it out, many people feel really bad about it.
"What did Santa bring for you?" an old lady asked my daughter in the supermarket. When she told the woman that we didn't celebrate Christmas, the poor thing didn't know what to do to apologize. We said that she shouldn't worry, but I bet she took a beat before asking the question again.
When a sole "Merry Christmas" sign greeted children on the door of their class in fourth grade, the teacher who hung it nearly cried when she heard that some of the kids didn't participate. She just didn't realize. She just didn't figure it.
On my second day of work at a television station in Mississippi, my cameraman coached the other reporters. Careful, she might not be Christian. He had been to Los Angeles.
Interestingly, you can get used to it, even if you are the minority. The more you look at something, the more it becomes less odd, less unacceptable, less offensive. I do not truly believe that every person in that Baptist church agreed with their minister's claim. Half of them probably didn't hear it. Most of them likely hadn't met a Jew, evil or not. And, I do not believe that every one of them believed that God spiked the unemployment rate or willed the ice caps to melt. Because that would be really scary.
But, they have to be pulled out of the soup and reset, like faulty clocks. They need to be reminded that God is in one box and government, another, and that the voting precinct is not the church assembly hall, no matter what their favorite candidates tell them.
The following year, we went to a gospel service instead.
Though every single child in our public school was white and Christian, teachers were careful not to bring religion into the classroom. We were a devout but diverse group of Christians: Southern Baptists, United Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopals, Catholics, Church of God, Church of Christ, Church of God in Christ, Holiness, Pentecostals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists.... Oh, we even had, at one point, a family that belonged, I think to the Spiritualism faith. I'm not even sure what that is, but their mother read palms.
Anyhow, not all of us prayed in the same way. Not all of us celebrated holidays in the same way. Some didn't celebrate all the holidays. Some thought certain holidays were "pagan" and took offense if too much of a to-do was made of these holidays in school.
And some didn't believe in celebrating anything, even birthdays.
So, down in the deepest part of the heart of the South, religion was fine at home and church, but not at school. School was a neutral ground. It was like Switzerland.
What the heck has happened since those old-fashioned days?
If the old fuddy-duddies who ran public schools way back in the day could time-travel and see the state we're in in 2012, I don't think they would find it to be "progress".
You said: "Ninety-seven thousand people sang in a choir." Really? Oh, that's just fun-loving hyperbole? Then why should we take the rest of your perceptions seriously?
You said: "I think that they are simply being used, manipulated, by the guys who want their votes. Now, how Christian is that?" Not very, but do you seriously expect us to believe that only Republicans do this? Have you not noticed how the Obamas go to church whenever he gets in trouble with religious issues? If not, check where Michelle was this weekend.
You said: "And, I do not believe that every one of them believed that God spiked the unemployment rate or willed the ice caps to melt. Because that would be really scary." Please provide links to any denomination, church, or candidate who has said either of these things.
This is why religion poisons everything - why it must be fought against. This is why America cannot be allowed to be given to christians - we'd all be burned at the stake.
They have rabbis in the South.
To this day I am confounded by people who report that they do not believe in God. I do not understand it, and recognize that is a matter of choice.
I am not clear on what her point is. Maybe I can look at that tomorrow. Right now I am preoccupied because an artist extraordinaire has been called home to Glory, and I am stunned.
My grandson, a cross-country star, walks away during the team prayers held ahead of the meets or afterward, but has no choice when the prayer is held once they're all lined up at the starting line. If he weren't a star and very popular, he'd have more trouble, I imagine, from making his beliefs so plain, but fortunately the other kids seem to accept him the way he is, even though some still occasionally try to convert him.
Thank you.
It's because the religious right makes so many waves that it garners so much press. It makes it appear the religious right is more powerful and has more adherents than it really does. So does their habit of speaking for ALL Christians when in fact they represent only a small fraction of the Christians in this country. Most Christians do not, in fact, believe at all as they do.
I found myself thinking back to the early 80's. I had a good friend I worked with in the Navy who was black. One day he surprised me be telling me he thought our unit was racist.
I sputtered some defense, I'm sure. But then he asked me, "How many black officers do you notice in this unit?"
I didn't feel like a racist because appointing officers to the unit was completely outside my power. However, it was well within my power...to notice.
Sometimes just noticing is enough. It's the first step to genuine change.
1. Church and State should always be separated - accelerando hit on one reason why its not; the affluent of the past 60 years have mostly come from a very religious (Chritian, Judaism) and as we all know - whoever has the gold makes the rules.
2. Not all Christians are extreme conservatives. On the news and in most media outlets these days you see the Christian church as this extreme group who hates abortion, tax cuts, and anything Pres. Obama says. Christians learn at an early age that you are supposed to trust the people in your church. Competent people over time realize that even people of the cloth are not perfect and not all good people. There are a few who do believe that their way is the end all be all (I blame it on stupidity, because that is no where in the Bible) and will cast stones on anyone who believes different. These same people probably have not left their city limits since they were young; honestly I think their education is probably pretty low as well, and if studies are correct we don't have to worry about them voting.
They need to speak up unless at the end of the day they just agree with the extremist and will let them build their theocracy.
The states with the highest divorce rates: 1.Nevada 2.Tennessee 3.Arkansas 4.Alabama 5.Oklahoma.
Highest percentages of births to mothers under age 20: 1.Mississippi 2.Arkansas 3.Louisiana 4.New Mexico 5.Alabama. Source- National Center for Health Statistics.
I remember reading a study by Barna, the researcher who specializes in research for conservative Christian groups. This particular study was commissioned by Focus on the Family. The study ranked the various religious groups by divorce rate. At the top, with the most divorces, were those who identified themselves as fundamentalists or evangelicals. Then the other more maintstream religions were listed in descending order, finishing with a tie for fewest divorces between the Lutherans and atheists. That seemed so significant to me I've never forgotten it.