Hallway to Nowhere

Tag: 10 Commandments

  • Roy Moore Has A Great Big (Christian) Credibility Problem

    Roy Moore Has A Great Big (Christian) Credibility Problem

    Roy Moore has based his career as a politician on his self-righteous Christianity. He installed a marble statue of the 10 Commandments in his courtroom as Alabama’s Chief Justice and was removed from office when he refused to remove it. He was elected again to head the court and again removed after he directed probate judges to continue to enforce the state’s ban on same-sex marriages. He resigned and is now running for the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions. He is known for his anti-LGBTQ views, anti-Muslim and immigrant sentiments, and past ties to neo-Confederate and white nationalist groups, in addition to his loudly and oft-expressed notions about Christianity.

    He really ought to have heeded the saying about glass houses and stones. His house is shattering all about him. What remains to be seen is whether this will make any difference to his constituency: the largely evangelical Republicans in Alabama. An Alabama state official has already defended Moore from the allegations that have been made in the Washington Post stating that he engaged in what is legally sexual abuse of a minor. Around 86% of Alabama residents identify as Christians, and almost half of those say they are evangelical. According to the Pew Research Center, 70% of white evangelicals now say that a person who commits “an immoral act” can behave ethically in the public sphere (unless, of course, you are Hillary Clinton). I suppose this is part and parcel of the whole “forget everything except your personal relationship with Jesus” thing? I USED to hear  that my Christian friends  expected their politicians to live up to a certain moral standard IN ALL RESPECTS….that their personal lives should reflect their public lives.

    Now? Not so much. I hear increasingly that the ends justify the means, and if that means embracing a foul-mouthed hypocrite like DJT, then so be it. After all, god can use anyone he wants, right? But to those of us who are looking on, this smacks less of faith than of desperation at best and of venality at worst. They are throwing away their standards in pursuit of goals that will most likely never materialize. To use a reference from their own bible, DJT definitely has feet of clay! And as we are now finding out, so does Roy Moore, god’s own self-chosen one in Alabama!

  • I Mourn For My Christian Friends

    I Mourn For My Christian Friends

    I noticed recently that a large marble plaque of the ten commandments (Xtian version, of course) has been posted on the main  street in my little town.  I’m sure that it is on private property but is so situated as to make it appear that it is town-sponsored. Had it just been the decalogue, I would have shrugged my shoulders and gone about my business. BUT underneath this was another marble plaque that proclaims: OUR AMERICAN HERITAGE. Ahem. I don’t THINK so. Your CHRISTIAN heritage, yes. Your JEWISH heritage, maybe, (with a different version).  But NOT American heritage. I believe that the many indigenous inhabitants of this land would beg to differ, as would those who helped build this nation and did not subscribe to Christian beliefs.

    I was on transit when I first saw this. A friend of mine happened to be with me, a retired coal miner. He remarked that HE was Christian, had been all his life, but that he found this offensive. He said, “How do you think people who come to Abingdon who are NOT Christian or not THAT type of Christian are going to feel when they see that? Not welcome or wanted, that’s how! And MY Christian faith wouldn’t think that’s a Christian thing to do!”  As a non-Christian, had I seen that coming into a town, I would have felt immediately on guard. It seems a statement of identity: this is what this place is and who fits in here. It is not welcoming, not hospitable, and not even factual. It is divisive, confrontative, and exclusive. Those who put it up might have had good intentions. But in today’s charged environment, I have to speculate that they realized what they were doing and did it intentionally. I want to believe that people listen to their better angels, as Abraham Lincoln puts it so eloquently. But I find that so often, when a test comes, when the moment of truth arrives and given the chance to do something that will make that difference, they falter and give heed instead to darker voices born from ignorance and fear instead.

    So many Christians, I know you are not this. But this IS HAPPENING HERE. I can critique this, but I can only do it from the outside. For this to stop, CHRISTIANS are going to have toaddress this. As long as this is considered acceptable behavior, it will continue. History will be re-written. Christianity will continue to morph into forms more authoritarian, shallower, and crueler than anything Jesus might have imagined. And those of us looking on from the outside can only watch and mourn and wonder how far this will go.