Saturday, April 10, 2010

The Conservative 'Dry As Dust' Religion

Any religion which professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a dry-as-dust religion.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


That quote describes not only the conservative movement as a whole, but conservative denominations of the various world religions.

I've been increasing concerned about the conservatization and fundamentalist rhetoric coming out of the mouths of leaders of the various leading world religious denominations such as Roman Catholicism and Christianity, just to name two.

I've been displeased about the increasing frequency that they concern themselves with protecting the powerful against the powerless.

I'm not happy about their deafening silence when it comes to speaking truth to power about civil rights abuses, but they always got something increasingly stupid to say about moral issues.

In addition, what they call moral issues conveniently lines up with 'white wing' politicized choices about what is and isn't a moral issue.

It's maddeningly wedded to a disgusting 'prosperity gospel' being pimped in their arena sized churches that claims if you're poor, God is displeased with you.

Excuse me?

Seems like the only economic conditions conservachurches are concerned with are lining their own pockets, the superwealthy or the corporations and right wing politicians they support.

And don't even get me started about the immoral behavior they engage in while they hypocritically demonize it for others.

It's become abundantly clear over the last twenty years since Saint Ronald of Reagan became president that they and the conservative movement don't care about the poor, the uninsured, the homeless, anyone that isn't a white male and persecuted minorities. They gleefully participate in the demonization of them and the people who courageously stand up to critique this travesty of injustice.

When their demonization manifests itself into murderous violence directed at the marginalized groups they disparage, they either blame the victim or have nothing to say about it.

Is it any wonder why your conservachurches are experiencing flatlined or negative attendance growth? Is is any wonder why the young people you ran through and miseducated in your private 'Christian' academies are turning away from your 'dry as dust' organized religions in droves?

Conservatives have turned the word 'Christian' into a synonym for racist, ignorant, neo-Luddite, warmongering, gun-toting, Republican voting know nothings.

Thinking people, those of us who give a damn about humanity and young people increasingly don't want to be associated with that label.

Maybe except in Fulton, Mississippi.

You conservanegro ministers aren't off the hook here either.

You have taken a proud tradition of a Black church that actively fought two centuries for our freedoms and emasculated it. You now prostate yourselves to the same racist white conservative ministers and politicians that fought our civil rights movement for your own personal and political gain.

You have become the Pharisees and Sagicees. You are traitors to the Black community as well for facilitating the injection of the anti-gay hate that has long been a tradition of white fundamentalist churches into our community.

By doing so for your own selfish gains, you have put the Black community in the uncomfortable position for the first time in our 400 year history in the Americas of being seen as civil rights oppressors instead of civil rights warriors.

What you conservafools are doing is reprehensible. You're sowing bitter seeds of disharmony and discord that we don't need in a multicultural society that you will reap a negative harvest from.

You conservatives of all ethnic groups are to blame for turning a peaceful, socially conscious religion into an opiate for the conservative Fox watching masses.

And we liberal Christians are to blame for allowing this crap to happen on our watch in the first place.

So no, I don't believe in your conservative version of God or your Apostle Paul quoting representatives of it. You and your conservative religion and movement represent precisely what Dr. King presciently said it was, dry as dust.

You are also immoral, unjust and sacrilegious.