Remember to tread carefully around the fire and brimstone

By Jo Page
Times Union
February 27, 2019

https://bit.ly/2XuF6w6

The other day I was talking to a retired pastor who sings in the same chorus I do.

"Remember the weird things you used to get in your office mail?" I asked.

I was thinking back to "The Passion of the Christ" stuff that Mel Gibson and his ilk were hawking when I was still enough of a newbie pastor to be shocked: T-shirts of a thorn-crowned Christ, a cross nail to wear as a necklace — money-making movie merch for Mel's masses.

Really, you would be surprised what comes over the transom of the pastor's study. A few weeks ago I got solicitation material — and the pun just may work — for donating to an organization that funds priests accused of sexual abuse. On the remittance slip you are assured that your donation goes to accused priests who are "discouraged, suffering or in crisis."

The suggested donation was $100.

Hmmm.

"I do," she said, rolling her eyes. "What now?"

Recently I received a copy of a book — addressed to me, personally because I think a lot of people who write to me as a religious leader think I am a male pastor; you know "Jo" might just be missing an "e." And let's leave Freud out of this!

Self-published, largely foot-noted and equally unedited, the book I received purports to warn us of the wrath to come. More specifically, of the war to come.

Since I didn't read the whole book — it's written in a kind of an action-adventure/religio-military prophecy genre that I don't think exists in publishing, though I can double-check with my sources — I can't give you the latitude and longitude of where this all took place. (Actually I can, because I Googled it and I could also tell you the 15 interesting things to do there. But I won't.)

Suffice to say this action story soon becomes an extended tract on what the United States is in for owing to its sinfulness and corruption, much of which this author lays at the foot of the dereliction of religious observance and moral rectitude as he defines it.

But let me add: I do believe there is abounding sin and corruption long afoot in our country — systemic, institutionalized and enthroned. It's just that these are largely not the sins and corruptions of the faith traditions I've known, studied and participated in for decades.

Put in more simplistic terms: I don't think the United States is due to be cosmically and atomically hammered by a pissed-off deity because of either a falling birthrate (which this author attributes to the devil providing birth control to millennials) or "Moslems" [sic] gaining military ranking over in-name Christians, or because some churches have "allowed lesbians into their leadership." (Lesbians are even worse than women. ... Wait — what?)

And let's get something straight: I am not anti-war. But glorifying, or so much, much worse, trying to religiously sanctify the cleansing aspects of war, is a fool's errand — a fool who may not even show up on the battlefield.

So, to close — let me go back to the choir rehearsal, just for a sec.

Our choir will be singing a twentieth-century anti-war oratorio, a piece so raw, so frank, that upon a first run-through I had to hide tears. (I had a scarf and so it worked out.) And then I had to tuck those tears away forever. War is emotional. But it is not to be emotionally exploited.

It seems religious fundamentalists will see war and the willingness to wage it as the currency that determines faithfulness and success. Certain kinds of political fundamentalisms follow this with abject and religious fervor.

But it must be noted that both positions abjure the role of divinity to transcend human certainty.

And it also must be noted, well-noted, that our nation is not a theocracy. Who among those who call themselves believers wouldn't agree that divinity is compassionate enough to give way to ethics and morality?

So like toddlers, we must stop squabbling. Like toddlers, we need to learn — no, I really mean it — to share.