The Apostles of Deception
By Charles Sullivan
04/15/07 "ICH"
-- -- What passes for Christianity among the people, like so
many things American, is not the genuine article. The sermons
that rise from many of the pulpits of the churches of America
are, I suspect, as counterfeit as a six dollar bill; as phony as
the people running the country. But those whose faith is blind
are incapable of seeing truth. That is the trouble with blind
faith. It does not, it cannot, see. I have always been wary of
organized religion.
Every pastor, every minister of every church in the land should
denounce what is happening in America and violently projected
upon the world. They should criticize the wretched lies of the
president and his murderous regime. They should condemn union
busting, racism and sexism, corporate greed and war. They should
deplore the obscene accumulation of property and wealth, while
emphasizing service to the community and the poor. Most often,
however, a perverted version of Christianity gives the
appearance of moral credence to war and conquest.
It appears to me that the majority of the American people are
followers who willingly bow down to that which they perceive as
authority. The people want to be lead. They have a deep seated
desire to be directed, to be told not only what to do, but how
to live. Millions of them are waiting for a messiah to appear
who will lead them to the Promised Land—a messiah that requires
nothing from them before the judgment day. They only have to
profess their faith and to follow—to do as they are told by the
religious hierarchy, and wait.
Of course, followers require leaders, and that makes them
vulnerable to charlatans and frauds. The trouble with leaders
and followers is that leaders often mislead and followers
obediently trail them to the very gates of hell. During the
course of the journey, superstition and ignorance gradually
replace rationality and knowledge. Truth gets lost in the
shuffle or is cast into the flames of desire. Thus we find
ourselves standing at the brink of an old and familiar abyss,
the onslaught of a new age of darkness and fear. Lies supplant
truth, darkness replaces light. War is peace; freedom is
slavery; ignorance is strength. The lessons of history remain
unlearned and endlessly repeat themselves in rhythmic cycles of
human comedy and tragedy.
We cannot avoid the responsibility of citizenship by simply
following the lead of others or waiting for the return of Jesus.
To do so is to give up our humanity and to become the mere
servants of power. We have a responsibility to the truth, to
justice, the earth, and toward one another that must supersede
all else, if we are the moral beings we purport to be. That is
why each of us is endowed with a conscience. We must decide
right and wrong for ourselves and struggle against the swift
current of public opinion more often than not.
In many ways we have abrogated our responsibilities as citizens
to others in our consent to be governed. This was a grave
mistake. The idea of leadership sets some up above others. It
gives special power and privileges to a few and hence
unwarranted influence and power over the many. We do not need
leaders. We need those who will genuinely represent us and the
public welfare. We need people like ourselves. We need us, we
the people, to run things. There is no substitute for being
informed, active, and conscientious citizens. It must therefore
be understood that real citizenship will require physical,
mental, and spiritual effort on our part, especially since truth
is kept so well hidden from public view. This does not appear
likely to happen any time soon.
We see this phenomenon of following, which is akin to giving up
our freedoms, at play in the political arena, as well as in
other circles of power. The hapless people are always looking
for a redeemer, a quick fix—a liberator. We are conditioned to
think that we can simply take a pill and our disease will
miraculously disappear without effort on our part. Nature does
not work that way. We expect miracles to occur in place of doing
the hard work of citizenship. If there is a promised land, we
must get there by our own collective effort. We must arrive not
as individuals, but together as working class people struggling
in common cause.
Yet we continue to believe in knights in shining armor, rather
than saving ourselves and the republic of which we are a part.
Now we are asking ourselves: Is Barach Obama the one to lead us
to peace and prosperity? Will it be Hillary Clinton? John
Edwards? John McCain? Is it Rudi Giuliani? If we believe that
any or all of these people—each of them put forth by the money
changers—is the answer, we are looking in the wrong places. By
definition, darkness is the absence of light. We must at least
start looking in the light.
We must stop expecting miracles and rescuers to make things
right for us. We must realize that justice is our
responsibility. Justice doesn’t just happen. Good people have to
care enough to make it happen. Failing this, we will continue to
have pervasive corruption—a government that betrays the public
interest and pursues an agenda of its own. We will have wars in
Viet Nam and Iraq and social and economic disparity at home. We
cannot afford to wait for an oracle to appear. Global climate
change is upon us and it demands something from each of us here
and now.
Heretofore, justice has not been the American way. We must make
it the American way, and we must do it now. If we want to be
more than economic slaves and pawns to the super rich, we must
get involved in the issues. We must make government serve us,
and we must make it just.
Millions of Americans claim to follow Jesus. Some even claim
that we are a Christian nation. Yet every generation seems to
crucify Christ all over again, to nail him to the cross and
parade him through the streets with a crown of thorns on his
head. We had Dr. Martin Luther King, the genuine article, but
those in authority—the gluttonous counterfeiters of
power—crucified him, aided by cheering throngs of racists. Dr.
King, perhaps more than any man who has lived in our time,
embodied the moral teachings of Jesus.
It is no irony that the most Christ-like among us today continue
to be crucified by the money changers living in the present.
Clearly the spirit of Jesus lived and breathed in our time in
the person of Dr. Martin Luther King. So did the spirit of Allah
and all the great religions of the world. Dr. King gave more
than lip service to religious doctrine, he breathed life into
them—he made them real and relevant again. And, like Jesus, he
too was crucified by the money changers. Blind obedience to
authority—mob mentality—is a very dangerous and destructive
force.
So put away your toy American flags, your yellow ribbons. They
are irrelevant to the issue of social justice. No nation has a
monopoly on virtue. Real faith, real service, are not confined
to national borders. Integrity lives and breathes in the hearts
of men and women doing the slow work of justice, often alone and
in opposition to the formal conventions of society—as history
attests.
Dr. King understood that there was no easy way out; no time to
wait for a second coming. Like Jesus, his path required struggle
against injustice; direct non-violent confrontation with evil
that lived deep in the belly of the beast. It required courage,
conviction, personal sacrifice and moral vigilance. It required
character, a willingness to die for one’s beliefs. Through his
extraordinary moral example, Dr. King was not so much a leader
as he was an emissary for truth and justice, which must be the
core of any faith worth its salt. Dr. King’s beliefs, unlike the
counterfeiters who have come after him, demanded equality and
justice, reckoning with truth. That is what made him so
dangerous, so feared by the purveyors of violence and injustice.
Now we have fools and con men, pretenders and flim-flam artists:
hucksters, jilters, jokers and clowns fleecing the hapless
flock. We have Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, George Bush,
Hillary Clinton, and those masquerading as the Christian right
marching us into war after war, and carrying us down the stairs
to hell and despair—misleaders and pompous frauds one and all!
The phony evangelicals have stolen the pulpit and the ignorant
and foolish have fallen under their spell. Blind followers
seduced by a belief in specters and miracles obey their every
command and do their bidding. It is just another scam to grab
power and influence over the trusting flock before the
slaughter. Such people are serfs and fools, not thoughtful
citizens or seekers of truth. Beware of any faith that is not
organized around justice and equality. Snake oil salesmen
abound.
Within the religious hierarchy the high priests of fraud are
treated like deities with a direct conduit to god, entitled to
power and privileges that ordinary citizens do not have. They
are no better than fortune tellers dressed in bright robes. Once
again they have diverted the masses from the real path to
salvation and led them astray. They have erased the thin line
that separates church and state and made a mockery of
humankind’s quest for understanding and justice.
It was they who, in the words of song writer Woody Guthrie,
“laid poor Jesus in his grave”. They do it every time.
Charles Sullivan is an architectural millwright,
photographer, free-lance writer, and social justice activist
living in West Virginia. He welcomes your comments at
csullivan@phreego.com
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