Christian shenanigans

By Deauwand Myers

There are plenty of rhetorically sophisticated atheists who argue, quite convincingly, against Christianity, and all religions. The late Christopher Hitchens is probably the best-known public intellectual and social commentator for critiquing Christianity.

I am not an atheist. I, most probably for sentimental reasons, am still a (lapsed) Presbyterian. Black Americans owe their freedoms to the Civil Rights movement, awash in the blood and deaths of Christians, Jews, and non-believers alike, but particularly Christians, whose churches organized social justice movements and the largest shift in American public policy since the Civil War.

I suppose my biggest complaint about Christianity really is not hard theology: Adam and Eve as literal or metaphorical does not answer the more pressing questions endemic in the human condition.

I simply go by the fruit Christianity bears. Much of it is rotten. Christians, in sheer numbers, have perpetuated more evil over the last millennium than any other faith, except fascism and communism, themselves a kind of andro/political-religion, where the state and the leaders running it replace God as god.

The United States, the richest, most powerful nation in human history, and predominantly Christian, has the highest rate, per capita and in real numbers, of incarceration of any industrialized nation. The U.S. also has the most uninsured, most poor, highest violent crime rate, and highest infant mortality rate of any wealthy country.

If Christians were really doing their job, none of this would be true. In many ways, Christianity has become an arm of political ideology, hijacked most fervently by those who espouse views informed by hatred, bigotry, greed, and fear, not Christ.

Republican policies, representative of conservative ideology going back generations, transfer wealth to the wealthy, castigate the poor, encourage oligarchy, and have been largely against every social justice movement of the 20th and 21st centuries. Economic and social "value" politics/policies reached their apex during the vaunted administration of President Reagan.

Reagan's advisers, savvy and amoral, co-opted the rise of the "moral majority" and the Christian Right to form a formidable voting coalition, promising 12 years of Republican rule, and another eight in the form of George Bush, most probably the most disastrous U.S. president since Nixon, another Republican.

Like Reagan's advisers, Bush II's political gurus, led by the smart and exceedingly cynical Carl Rove, were able to get homophobic, anti-gay initiatives and/or anti-reproductive rights activists (the so called "pro-lifers") on the ballot in important states such as Ohio, ensuring a high turnout of conservative Christians during the 2004 presidential elections.

Many of Bush's folks did not care about gay marriage or much of the theological tenets of the Christian Right (in fact, many were derisive of them), but knew these issues would help motivate those inclined to vote for Bush. As with racial anxiety and bigotry during Nixon's tenure, Bush and his ilk pursued policies in rhetoric and practice that a certain kind of American Christian/conservative vigorously embraces.

Unfortunately, for the U.S. and the world, all of this was quite politically effective. Bush won two terms. Nixon did, too.

And so, for all the Bible beating, wealthy mega-churches, political heft (thankfully, waning) of American Christians, U.S. society shows none of the supposedly Christian tenets being realized in the society at large; quite the opposite.

Jesus often spoke of helping the sick and the poor. The Christian Right, in the form of Tea Party activists, conservatives, and Republicans, vigorously pursues policies that would gut social welfare programs aimed at the sick and poor: hyper-opposition to "Obamacare," a program meant to give basic healthcare insurance coverage to those who cannot afford it, and the proposed Republican budget, eviscerating funding for WIC, SNAP, and TANF, and other nutritional and monetary supplements for the poor, especially impoverished children, are examples.

Furthermore, tax policy, advocated by Republicans (and merely diluted by Democrats and the left), continually funnels money to the wealthy and upper-middle classes. This is why billionaire hedge-fund managers are taxed less than janitors, nurses, policemen, and teachers. Where, exactly, does it say in the Bible to take from the poor and give to the rich? I missed that Sunday school lesson.

Too many Korean Christians are not much better. They have copied all the worst parts of American Christianity. Christian protesters lay on the street to impede traffic, and held banners saying "Gays are not welcome here" during this year's Gay Pride Parade in Seoul.

In the Korean Assembly, a much-needed anti-discrimination bill, protecting racial minorities, women, the disabled, and sexual minorities, has been indefinitely delayed because of Korea's vocal Christian bloc's vehement opposition to it, almost exclusively because of provisions in the said bill protecting sexual minorities.

Mercifully, most of the civilized world, including the U.S., is becoming less and less religious. The days when theology is enshrined into public policy are thankfully coming to an end, and not soon enough.

Deauwand Myers holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. He can be reached at deauwand@hotmail.com.