let's talk about religion baby, let's talk about you and me...
I would like to share some thoughts with you tonight about the Evangelical Christian Mega-Church.
As research for the play that I have been drafted into, I have now seen one documentary (Hell House) and one trailer for a documentary (Jesus Camp) that have left me with my jaw on the floor. Until now, I never understood the scale of it. But now I've seen it, presented clearly and without any bias, and to me, it is utterly terrifying.
People come by the thousands.
Thousands...thousands of thousands of people crying and waving their hands and singing and shouting and speaking in tounges and going out into the world and recruting, and "saving" thousands more...and there are children, young young children, who, when asked, all said that they would be ready to throw down their lives for Jesus. They would willingly die for a cause. Let's win back America for Christ. Let's take it to the White House. Let's take it to the world....you hear that, Islam?
This is recruitment camp I am talking about. God's Army.
[they say that if you hate your enemy, you become like them.]
So here I am. A liberal religious person, who admires some of the teachings of this man named Jesus [who may or may not have existed], but mostly just believes in compassion, and community, and doing what I can where I can, and trying to do what is right instead of what is easy. How am I supposed to register the fact that my faith is floundering and theirs is spreading like brushfire? I come from a faith of other liberal religious persons who are backing me up here, holding their coffee mugs, and singing politically correct hymns, and forming service committees. I come from the transcendentalists. I come from those who, during the last renaissance of religion, during the last Great Awakening, saw the danger signs and fought back with every shred of logic and reason and reform and intellectual power they could drum up.
It worked too. But now, we have entered a new and very different era, and every Sunday, people flock to churches the size of aircraft carriers. On a weekly basis, they have the equivalent of several of our annual General Assemblies. They have the numbers, and the easy answers, and the "truth", and this wild mob mentality, and this scares the holy living shit out of me, because most importantly, they have the power of political sway.
I cannot help but feel, that as Unitarian Universalists, or take your pick of liberal religion really, we are not doing enough to push back.
And on a personal level, maybe I better start walking my own talk.
Because we, the [reasonable/educated/questioning] people should be the ones with the mega-church.
As research for the play that I have been drafted into, I have now seen one documentary (Hell House) and one trailer for a documentary (Jesus Camp) that have left me with my jaw on the floor. Until now, I never understood the scale of it. But now I've seen it, presented clearly and without any bias, and to me, it is utterly terrifying.
People come by the thousands.
Thousands...thousands of thousands of people crying and waving their hands and singing and shouting and speaking in tounges and going out into the world and recruting, and "saving" thousands more...and there are children, young young children, who, when asked, all said that they would be ready to throw down their lives for Jesus. They would willingly die for a cause. Let's win back America for Christ. Let's take it to the White House. Let's take it to the world....you hear that, Islam?
This is recruitment camp I am talking about. God's Army.
[they say that if you hate your enemy, you become like them.]
So here I am. A liberal religious person, who admires some of the teachings of this man named Jesus [who may or may not have existed], but mostly just believes in compassion, and community, and doing what I can where I can, and trying to do what is right instead of what is easy. How am I supposed to register the fact that my faith is floundering and theirs is spreading like brushfire? I come from a faith of other liberal religious persons who are backing me up here, holding their coffee mugs, and singing politically correct hymns, and forming service committees. I come from the transcendentalists. I come from those who, during the last renaissance of religion, during the last Great Awakening, saw the danger signs and fought back with every shred of logic and reason and reform and intellectual power they could drum up.
It worked too. But now, we have entered a new and very different era, and every Sunday, people flock to churches the size of aircraft carriers. On a weekly basis, they have the equivalent of several of our annual General Assemblies. They have the numbers, and the easy answers, and the "truth", and this wild mob mentality, and this scares the holy living shit out of me, because most importantly, they have the power of political sway.
I cannot help but feel, that as Unitarian Universalists, or take your pick of liberal religion really, we are not doing enough to push back.
And on a personal level, maybe I better start walking my own talk.
Because we, the [reasonable/educated/questioning] people should be the ones with the mega-church.