Crucifying the White Jesus.

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth. During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana. We were truly all the same (brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and the 'white' from their attitude. 

~Malcolm X. Letters following the Hajj.

I had a doctor's appointment on Friday.

I got up early, because I had to take some stuff out to my Mom's house. We had an early lunch, hung out for a bit and then I went to my appointment, which was fairly routine stuff.

My doctor is a Muslim, from Sudan. 

Just because he's done so much for me, I gave him my old copy of the Koran. I'd found it in a box the week before, and it just seemed like the thing to do. Doc was very excited, turns out he collects different translations of the Koran in different languages and this turned the subject of discussion to books, philosophy and theology. 

When I told him that I'd bought it 20 years ago at Horizon Books in Petoskey, MI because I was studying different religions in response to my own spiritual crisis at the time, if anything he seemed even more reverent of the moment. His joy in having been given such a gift was infectious. He knows I'm a former Christian and an Agnostic...and he swore if he found a book on philosophy or religion he thought I'd like, he'd save it for me and bring it to our next appointment.

I was tired from having had to work the night before, and then get up so early. The whole thing was exactly the kind of positive energy boost I needed to get home and still run another errand, although I still took a nap for an hour or so before I went to work.

Turned out, I needed it.

I currently work in a big box store.

A few hours into my shift I hit a slow point just in time to see some older fake-nice Obvious Stepford Clone Evangelical (complete with religious pamphlets in the outside pocket of her purse) asking one of my co-workers about another mutual co-worker who was off that night and being rather Jesus-y about doing it.

Said co-worker is currently going through a housing crisis. Stepford apparently thinks Trusting The Lord (TM) hard enough will resolve this, and said so. 

Spoiler: Not in this housing market. Not this time of year.

(Other co-worker has specifically mentioned having gone to churches to ask for help and having gotten precisely dick. The current plan is to crash with relatives or use a buddy's camper that's currently parked in his Mom's yard. Also, we have snow already. Think about that for a second.)

And it's not like we aren't all getting a huge lesson in the principle that if you want freedom and justice and your needs met you have to fight for it, right now.

Anyway, I was behind the counter next to the cash register for our area, pricing stuff and remotely printing more labels via the cell phone-like gadget we use. 

Under any other circumstances, I'd have been like "Fuck you, lady, do you have even the slightest idea how inappropriate and predatory that shit is??"

But ya know, I'm at work, so I can't. Zen focus, ignore that shit, Grasshopper.

It was not to be. 

Stepford comes up to me, and starts a different variation of her spiel. Clearly, she does this a lot.

Attempted the nice dodge.

Nope. She took that to mean I'm somehow part of the tribe.

Finally, and I'm assuming poorly-suppressing the resulting annoyance I'm like: "Lady, I have a church background, I was in the military and that's where I became part of the End Times prophecy movement. I've taken ministry classes and been a tithing member of several churches. I know more about this stuff than you do and I'm an agnostic, because my ex-wife was a Pentecostal nut."

Anyway, she makes a bunch of polite excuses and gets on her way as if she's a vampire forced to politely disengage from a vampire hunter holding up some holy relic and moves along.

I finish what I was doing and I'm basically just keeping an eye on shit while waiting for the clock to tick down so I can go to break.

A half hour or so later, she comes back, apparently having gone through the lines up front and paid for most of her shit. But she needs some random rollback piece of candy she found for...wait for it...77 cents rung up and for some reason (Spoiler: I *Know,* this ain't my first rodeo with these fucking people) 

She's all nice and apologetic about our previous encounter and 777% willfully ignorant of the fact that I know exactly what I'm dealing with now. 

It's the same kind of Unga Bunga Jesus-hexing bullshit that my ex-wife used to pull on me and other people. I'm completely professional and pretend-oblivious and ring her up, then send her on her way with no further issues.

Anyway, little old guy who comes up right after is buying a bunch of heavy stuff and would like help with it. Not much else going on and my co-worker isn't exactly the carryout type so I volunteer. It'll kill time, if nothing else. I go in the back and get the lowboy cart, grab my jacket, go load up his stuff and we're off. It was starting to snow outside.

On the way to this dude's car, I spot Stepford getting into her expensive little late-model SUV. On the back of it there's one of those Jesus-Fish thingies and a worn Trump/Pence 2020 bumper sticker. 

I burst out laughing. I'm suddenly forced to explain why to the old guy, who also laughs about it. He points out that he's a churchgoing Christian...and he doesn't like those people, either.

Turns out "Put your trust in the Lord, your ass belongs to me" isn't the popular message they think it is.

Look, people, you get what you tolerate. I learned that lesson in the United States Air Force.

In an effort to impose their small, angry, demon-haunted magical world and their shitty selfish little god on the rest of us These Fucking People, these "Christian Nationalists" have literally stood up to be counted with the enemies of everything Jesus Christ ever stood for. 

And somehow they think we don't know it.

Every single place or time it's ever been tried this shit boils down to the same things, racism and rule by angry, hateful old right-wing white men who use bigotry, cruelty and fascism to ensure their own power and profits in the same way that a goddamned drug dealer sells heroin or any other goddamned thing. It shakes out that way every single time you run the goddamned experiment.

And they'd openly raise up Donald Trump as their God if they thought they could get away with it.

Whether it's the Confederacy, Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa or Putin's Russia it's always the same type of shit. These fucking people just use religion to fool the feeble-minded into supporting their shitty agenda. They don't actually care about the Lord's Word.

These fucking people's "White Jesus" is literally whoever they think best fits their materialistic selfishness, racism, and shitty social beliefs...that's who and what they think Christianity even is. Their religion is "Whiteness, with trappings." Doesn't matter whether it's Ayn Rand, Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin who's their god-of-the-moment, they're all disposable. Doesn't matter how much these people by their own actions and words crap all over what the Bible actually says.

Their God sure as hell ain't Jesus Christ, the Brown middle-eastern Jew, carpenter and itinerant Rabbi who preached a message of love and rejection of materialism.

And don't you dare forget that.

Last week, We The People successfully told these assholes to go fuck themselves for a couple more years, and maybe, just maybe...we damaged their prospects long-term, too. Especially, if Gen Z keeps voting that way. We may just crucify the White Republican Jesus...and no, Evangelicals, the results will not be the same.

But the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, remember that.

There is going to be a test later.

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Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.  The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it to them with the well fought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same.  And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~Ronald Reagan