Are the Good Times Really Over For Good? |
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“Are
we rolling downhill like a snowball headed for hell?
--
Merle Haggard “For thou are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not sojourn with thee. The boastful may not stand before thy eyes; thou hatest all evildoers. Thou destroyest those who speak lies; the Lord abhors bloodthirsty and deceitful men.” -- David, Psalms 5:4
Unfazed by plummeting poll numbers at home or spiraling fatality numbers
abroad, Bush remarked with shudderingly bad taste that all headstones look
alike -- a Texan's crude way of saying, "You seen one skull orchard, you
seen 'em all," and announced with devilish arrogance that his mission
remains unchanged -- he has the terrorists on the run and he isn't going
to stop until he has spread God's gifts of freedom and democracy and
liberty and neat stuff like that throughout the world. His will will never
be broken. His mission is God's mission; together, he and God will rid the
world of evil. On behalf of God, Bush said he 'preciates folks dyin' for
the cause. Heck, he even honors 'em. You'd think the souls of true Christians would surely shrivel when a man who claims Jesus Christ as his "philosopher" murders hundreds of thousands of innocents, abuses and tortures hundreds, maybe even thousands, more and then raises blood-stained fists -- shakes them in the face of the Almighty, and shouts, "Thou Fool!" You'd think, as a minimum, Christians would remember who in the Bible is known as the "Great Deceiver." You'd think. But alas... Actually, people who claim to speak to, as well as for, God are everywhere. Most are Republicans, members of the Christian Reconstructionist Movement whose lust for power and obsession with Biblical control extends beyond the wildest fantasies of the most radical evangelical. With flags in one hand and Bibles in the other, they are militant, intolerant, boastful -- eaten up with messianic hubris. They proudly call themselves "people of faith," and are brazenly committed to religion, but their religion is politics and vice versa. They're the God people -- George Bush's voting base. Ironically, followers of Jesus are awakening to find themselves in the midst of religious plenty, yet are literally dying of thirst, much like the lone sailor in Coleridge's Ancient Mariner who was surrounded by water but dared not drink. They are discovering it is dangerous for Christian love to be surrounded by religious hate. I wonder if Americans know just how close to the abyss we really are. I hate to sound yet another terror warning, but if we were in theological Vietnam, we'd be in deep, deep spiritual kimche. Bush is the perfect pawn for the Reconstructionists. He owes them, big time, and he's paying them back at dizzying and destructive speed. Never has a more bloodthirsty and vengeful bully so devoid of reason and sanity been given universal free rein to act out his incorrigible delusions. Bush believes -- has been led to believe -- that he has been commissioned by God to slay all those whom he fantasizes might someday oppose him -- and to justify the slaughter by brandishing the double-edged sword of freedom and liberty.
As
early as 1994, Frederick Clarkson, author of
Eternal
Hostility: The Struggle Between Democracy and Theocracy, warned
Americans about the fundie-fascist danger in
a critical, in depth article
on Christian Reconstructionists. It is not by chance that Reconstructionists are Republicans or that their crusade against Democrats and all things liberal mirrors that of Bush's jihad against the Muslim world. Clarkson cites Reconstructionist theologian David Chilton, who very succinctly describes the movement's mission -- "The Christian goal for the world is the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics, in which every area of life is redeemed and placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the rule of God's law."
Nobody
has worked harder nor longer to bring this madness to fruition than
Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson. For him, the "rule of God's
law" does not extend to Liberals and there's no place for gays to hide in
a Robertson world. He believes that homosexuals have nothing better to do
than to "come into churches and disrupt church services and throw blood
all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the face of ministers."
Sound like a plan? Well, listen up, because it gets better. Christian Reconstructionists soar into a divine frenzy at the mere thought of capital punishment. Those of us who do not see things their way will very quickly turn into collateral damage. Clarkson says Reconstructionists "call for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes in addition to such contemporary capital crimes as rape, kidnapping, and murder. Death is also the punishment for apostasy (abandonment of the faith), heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, "sodomy or homosexuality," incest, striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and, in the case of women, "unchastity before marriage."
Like
Bush, who stolidly refuses to accept blame for his actions, the
Reconstructionists believe that both men and nations must obey God's laws
or God must invoke the death penalty against them. According to North,
women who have abortions should be publicly executed, "along with those
who advised them to abort their children." But, not to worry. Theocracies,
according to theologian Rev. Ray Sutton, are "happy" places to which
people flock because "capital punishment is one of the best evangelistic
tools of a society." What can we tell them that is more horrible than what Christians have already accepted without question -- lies, treason, deceit, abuse and torture, body parts of innocents littering the landscape, the slaughter of their own children, and freedom ebbing away? If we tell them what the Great Deceiver and his Christian Reconstructionist God have in store for them, will they continue to stare at us vacantly while waving their flags? Or, when they see that our foreheads do not proclaim the patriotic "9-11," will they skitter fearfully into the shadows? We have a choice. We can either take our places in line at the tattoo parlor or we can grab a taser in each hand and start walking cross-country, kicking doors down and jolting folks awake. It may already be too late, but before this vast herd of comatose sheep goes plodding blindly over the edge of the cliff; before they pull the rest of us into the morass with them, we have earned the right to see one last collective shock of recognition -- a final terrified realization that they know the good times are over -- really over for good. And they will know, at long last, it didn't have to be this way. Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma freelance writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at: rsamples@sirinet.net. © 2005 Sheila Samples
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