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=> Only Satanic Christians Know What's Best For America

Only Satanic Christians Know What's Best For America
Posted by Doped on Jesus Christ (Guest) - Sunday, October 24 2004, 23:07:34 (CEST)
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So Says Tom Delay, The Most Powerful Republican In The U.S. House
Michael Ryan is a former correspondent and editor for Time, Inc. publications. He has covered conflicts in Northern Ireland, Grenada, Panama and Southeast Asia, as well as the first Gulf War.

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Steven Rosenfeld produced this piece.

Let me begin by apologizing to my Christian friends. I won't be socializing with you anymore.

It's not something you've done. It's just that I've, apparently, become an infidel in today's America. At least that's what Tom Delay, arguably the most powerful Republican in the House of Representatives says. Because I'm not his kind of Christian, I'm in trouble. Or perhaps we're all in trouble when a man like Delay, who seems to hve a personal pipeline to God, is in charge.

Delay isn't exactly a politician known for plain-speaking. But in a confessional moment, recently reported by The Washington Post, Delay's remarks to a Texas Baptist church summed up his view of what's right and wrong in America -- and for America.

"Ladies and gentlemen,' Delay told the congregation, "Christianity offers the only viable, reasonable, definitive answer to the questions of 'Where did I come from?' 'Why am I here?' 'Where am I going?' 'Does life have any meaningful purpose?'

There was a lot more that he said, but this is the stuff that scares me. If there's going to be no separation of church and state, well, then, I've got to separate myself from the folks who think the state is just another church.

This is not some kind of anti-Christian gesture on my part; let me say right up front that I belong to a Christian church, and I actually attend it. The preachings of Christ on peace, justice, mutual respect and love are the basis of my worldview. It's just that, if I follow the sciptural teachings of Tom Delay correctly, I'll have all of eternity to spend hanging out with Christians. And the dozens of atheist, agnostic, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, and Hindu friends I've made over the years -- to name just some of their worldviews -- well, they're probably going to end up someplace else. I'd better enjoy their company while I can.

We all know Tom Delay as the Texas-based former exterminator who, as Majority Whip under a colorless Speaker and feckless Majority Leader, is de facto leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. We all knew he could deal with pests and vermin. What most of us didn't know is that he is apparently also a world-class theologian along the lines of Rahner, K?ierkegaard, and Maimonides -- oops, scratch that last name; he doesn't make the Reverend Delay's cut. Our Longhorn Luther had more to at a Baptist church in Pearland, Texas on April 12.

"Only Christianity offers a way to understand that physical and moral border," he bellowed. "Only Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and thought, every aspect of creation. Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world -- only Christianity."

So much for tolerance, pluralism, debate or anything democratic from the putative head of one of the most powerful institutions in America: Congress.

I used to think that what people did in church on Sunday -- or in synagogue on Saturday, or mosque on Friday -- was as insulated from government interest as what they did in their bedrooms any other day or night. Now, apparently, we have it on government authority that the non-Christians who raced to the World Trade Center to try to save lives on September 11, who have worked to fight AIDS in Asia and Africa, who have done a billion simple, unknown acts of kindess and decency -- well, they're just not as morally good as Tom Delay.

Oh, well. I guess I'll just have to accept this new moral guidance from the soi-disant Pontiff of the Pedernales. Never mind that the Talmud offers six hundred and some acts of mercy that it commends to believers, or that Buddhists eschew violence and hate. Forget that, as I once heard Kurt Vonnegut say, there may have been no atheists in the foxholes during the war against Hitler but there were a hell of a lot of Unitarians. These folk don't make the Delay roster of the decent.

God help us all.

This is Michael Ryan, for TomPaine.com.



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