Jesus Saves, But He's Good in Business, Too

You can't talk politics without talking morality and God. And the more I hear some people talk about God, the more I want to slap 'em and inform them that they're already off God's Christmas card list.

God's become big business in the States. It seems America's God has deeper pockets and can afford to buy a whole shitload of billboards and telly spots. God's got a PR agency and it's called Evangelism.

It's like the old U2 lyric goes...

In the next room I hear some woman scream out
That her lover's turning off, turning on the television
And I can't tell the difference between ABC News, Hill Street Blues
And a preacher on the old time gospel hour
Stealing money from the sick and the old
Well the God I believe in isn't short of cash, mister!

I mean, I look around America today and it seems to have changed so much in the last 10, 15 years. It's been 6 since Muslim Extremists hijacked a couple planes and took out a few thousand seemingly innocent folk. I think a lot of people went back to church that week thinkin' "It'd be so much easier if I could just know this was God's plan. Well, is it?"

And Jesus has at long last finally become bigger than the Beatles. (Which isn't half as funny if you don't know the flogging John Lennon [I think. McCartney?] took when he proclaimed that the Beatles would be bigger than Jesus.)

I don't know. I don't get the whole thing. I get the God thing. It certainly is easier when you can throw your cynicism away and defiantly believe that everything does in fact happen for a reason. I sometimes feel like being a devout not-really believer like me, who likes to claim she buys into a universal spirit and energy and all that, is a little more trouble than it all is worth.

But Jesus is bigger than the Beatles and he's got packed stadiums to prove it. And he's already dead so a nutbag with a copy of Catcher in the Rye in his pocket ain't gonna do any harm, so there's that.

Everywhere you look there's Jesusware, Jesus signs, Jesus churches, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Jesus! Like I say, I have no problem with religion. I get it. I just don't like any of them enough to drink the whole Kool-aid cocktail. Mebbe just a wee sip.

What I don't like, in the least, is the commercialization of God. You know what? If this "God" guy really did go and build this big fucking universe of ours, you might think he could let his works do his talking for him. Like he needs some goddamned mouthpiece from Kansas? God doesn't need slogans on t-shirts. He doesn't need billboards on highways.

If God's as cool as can be, he's not going to be a big meet-yer-quotas obsessor, don't you think?

Why this obsession with converting EVERYONE? Why not just let it be?

Besides, the money changing hands in all this is just insane. There are those who believe the modern push for Evangelical growth has a lot to do with the Republican party's thin grasp on the country's power. From the pulpit to the podium, y'know.

How's it even remotely cool that these guys are making money off God's name, anyhow? Jesus stormed into the temple and hurled out the merchants, screaming at them about honouring his father's home. A place of worship, not a place of market.

Then there's all the judgment coming from the fundamentalists. They're eyeballing the rest of us and talking about our date with destiny and the retribution that'll come our way. The Bible says judgment rests with God almighty, not some fuckin' wanna-be down on this big oxygenated bubble floating in space. Get over yourself, right?

I dunno. I just hate inconsistencies. Right-wing fundamentalist/traditional Republicans freak me out, but the hardcore religious "Army of God" types are, in my mind, every bit as bad as Islamic fundamentalists. Your god, my god, it's all the same judgmental bullshit.

And that's all I have to say. Felt like a political ramble for a change.