Sunday is, as usual, the day for my driving lesson. And a driving lesson brings yet another string of sermons from N’s favorite Christian radio station. All of those sermons are a little bizarre, but today’s were special.
The first sermon was by a preacher who thanked God for the nuclear bomb because it was “a great equalizer in our fight with the Asian hordes.”
When I practice, N walks by the car, giving me directions (we were practicing driving into a garage today.)
“What station is this?” he asked when he heard the “praise the Lord for the bomb” bit. “Go back to that Christian station.”
“This is the Christian station,” I said. “It’s just a nice, loving message of obliterate-the-yellow-people-for-the-love-of-God.”
The next sermon was about taxes. The preacher told his audience that the concept of taxes was ungodly and we should resist the extortionate government that wants to rob us and give money to lazy people.
“And what, you are going to tell me this is still the Christian station?” N asked sarcastically.
“I haven’t even touched this radio!” I replied.
“But wasn’t Jesus in favor of paying taxes?” N asked.
“Yes, and he was also in favor of not killing people, but who cares about that boring fella?” I said.
Seriously, folks, what kind of Christians are these?
Clarissa's Blog 
What kind of Christians are those?
The weirdo kook kind, I suppose.
They seem to flourish mainly in the USA, but disseminate their radio and TV broadcasts, books and videos all over the world.
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Have you heard of Discordianism?
It’s a religion that, among other things, encourages its followers to form sects and preach things contrary to Discordianism, but still describe themselves as true Discordians. The point is that you’re going to twist the religion to reflect your own views anyway, and if the process is legitimised by scripture, you and other people will at least be aware of what you’re doing. People know that the they’re only your beliefs.
I think Christians desperately need a lesson like this.
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It’s weird (far lack of a better word) that in the bible it explains God as loving, kind, a healer, helper to all men etc. but nowadays “Christians” seem to put their own spin on it. It seems to spin in a crazy direction, all I can say about this is that my mom (my mom a very, very religious person really) always told me to “keep my eyes on God not on people they will disappoint you every time.” Needless to say, religion has never been my strong suit. I am more spiritual than religious, thanks mom. Thank you for this post , validates all my reasons for not being “very religious”
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I don’t get these new Russian ads against STDs:
http://russell-d-jones.livejournal.com/1119687.html#comments
Not a word about condoms. Ha?
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Now noticed that in the ad with numbers, a woman has 2 and 3 partners, and is already “bad”. 😦 While a man’s numbers *begin* with 5.
I am not talking about RL here, in which many (most?) young men like the one in the ad have less rich past, but RE the world in the ad.
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Wow, check those ads too:
http://russell-d-jones.livejournal.com/1119975.html#comments
I kind of like the third ad, even though they are all funny in a way, since it seems a subversive thing to say to a man.
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Once you remember that Christianity is a religion of empire and really took off once Constantine made it the state religion, it makes all kinds of sense. Jesus did not make Christianity a religion.
The “give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar” bit can be interpreted both ways. Pay taxes or don’t pay taxes.
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Southern fundamnetalists are the gift that keeps on giving (if you’re into bizarre theology, and I kind of am as an offshoot of my fascination with strange beliefs in general).
One of my favorite whacko southern radio sermons was a guy saying it was the duty of every Christian to own guns and keep them in the home.
The more I think about it the more I think the catholics are onto the right idea in not paying a huge amount of attention to their faith’s official holy text. When practitioners of middle eastern religions interepret and overinterpret and try to apply what the texts say literally there is pretty much nothing but trouble.
The highest service theologians can perform is to distract believers from what is actually written in holy texts.
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A large percentage of self-identified “Christians” in the USA expect their doctrine to mirror their current opinions and prejudices.
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