Sermonette

Good evening and welcome to the Getzian institute for higher theological studies.

Leaving aside, for now, the question of whether Jesus was a splendid chap who happened to be God in human form or, conversely, a charismatic paranoid schizophrenic -- the first century equivalent of David Koresh...

For the sake of argument, let's assume He was a wonderful fellow with jolly good ideas.

That still leaves His religion, or at least that which claims to be His religion -- the history of which shall be our lesson for today.

Christianity...

A religion which, to accentuate the positive, was a neat way for slaves to adapt to a totalitarian government in the 1st century; by the 3rd century it had become a neat way for a totalitarian government to turn people into slaves.

Let's bloody well assume this was not what Jesus had in mind. Let's assume that this was the awful, ghastly harlot church at work. The question becomes: What's the difference between the religion of Christianity and what Jesus had in mind?

To pinpoint what He had in mind: learn Aramaic, get in a time machine, go back and ask Him. Failing that, read the Bible which is, of course, not a redaction of an Aramaic oral tradition via the farcing of Mark and the Q document into Koine Greek and later edited by Paul to blame everything on the Jews and keep the Romans happy, but the inspired and unerring Word of God. We know that everything in the Bible is true because it says in the Bible "everything in the Bible is true." Right.

OK. What's it say?

Glad you asked.

The Bible says Jesus hung out with prostitutes and drunks, preached non-violence, said nada to the Emperor, discouraged His followers from planning for tomorrow or being active in politics -- let alone taking over -- told rich people they were going to burn in hell, told people who prayed loudly in public they were going to burn in hell, told his followers to sell everything and leave their families, reserved his fiercest ass-kicking not for sinners but for people who wore their religion on their sleeves.

What's the difference between Christianity what Jesus was talking about?

For the answer to this we turn to the Romans who, when they weren't nailing Messiahs to crosses, had a knack for coming up with cool slogans like: "Cui Bono" which refers not to a deceased Italian pop star but the question, "Who benefits?"

Now consider Christianity Inc., the religion, and who benefits, starting more or less at the beginning...

As you want to turn America into a Christian nation, you will be pleased to note that Rome was a Christian nation when it fell, having been Christianized by Constantine who had had a vision of a big flaming cross in the sky under the legend IN THIS SIGN SHALL YOU CONQUER before slaughtering thousands. And so, the glorious true believers of the time served God by smashing the noses off statues and burning the library of Alexandria until the Vandals,

Huns and Visigoths came in and smashed everything. Christianity proved to be an excellent religion for the dark ages in which Europe was organized along the lines of an ant farm. The reasoning was: everything that is is the will of God -- so God wants the king to be king, the lord to be lord, the serf to be serf -- it all works out! After several hundred years or so this got boring so the religious leaders of the time decided that when Jesus said, "He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword" what He had meant was "if you don't practice enough," and so the crusades were invented to reclaim Jerusalem for Christendom from the fell Turk, which resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, including any Jewish settlement along the way and the odd Children's Crusade though, on the upside, the crusades did stimulate trade routes, which destabilizing force (along with the invention of printing) began to rock the social order as we move into the Renaissance, the Church responding with the unforgettable Inquisition (having decided that, even though their religion was founded by a man tortured to death for heresy -- the problem was not in the torture, but the fact that the Romans had the wrong guy) as, externally, the Church gave her blessing to the slaughter of Indians, black people or anybody else standing in the way of European world colonization, as one of the more puffy Popes began selling papal Indulgences (Tetzel the tout crying "When the coin in the coffer rings -- the coin from purgatory springs!") and thus building St. Peter's basilica on the backs of peasants sweating to get grandpa out of the fires (and prefiguring Oral Roberts by centuries), as printing plus German nationalism led to the Protestant reformation, Christians now slaughtering the wrong kind of Christians -- take that, you !@#$ Monophysite you! -- along with, as always, Jews in Spain, Jews in Portugal, Jews in Poland, Jews in Russia, Jews in Germany -- as Ollie Cromwell and the skinheads marched on London to depose Charles II and put an end to partying, later invading Ireland and slaughtering and starving out millions with the legend GOD IS LOVE emblazoned on his cannons; Puritans, meanwhile, coming to America for the religious liberty to cut off the ears of people they thought were heretics; Christian preachers later emphasizing that it was God's will that black people -- the sons of Ham -- be turned into slaves, God's will also being that it was our sacred White American Patriotic Christian duty -- our manifest destiny, praise God! -- to slaughter the Indians and anybody else n our way as, meanwhile, in South Africa, the glorious Voortrekkers trudged into the veldt to discover that, by divine providence, "Praise God! He has given us diamonds -- and ni**ers!" -- as, back in America, the Calvinistic doctrine was all the rage that to be rich is a sign of God's election -- enjoy it! -- as the second wave of worldwide European colonizers were becoming increasingly aware of the the power of missionary service in keeping indigenous populations in line, leading to what Pearl S. Buck called bowing, fawning, I'll-say-what-you-want "rice Christians," as a new century dawned with millenial hopes to build God's city on a hill "undimmed by human tears," these hopes for human perfection via legislated morality leading not to New Jerusalem but Prohibition, blue laws, the criminalization of marijuna and enormous career opportunities for Italian immigrants; as electronic media soon gave birth to Amie Semple McPherson, Fascist Father Coughlin...and later Jimmy, Jimmy, Tammy, Oral, Pat and other televangelists with ambiguous names who, even though televised, overcame the difficulty of Jesus' prohibition against pious public prayer by closing their eyes and shouting. And how could they help it? They had discovered that, longhair or not, Jesus was no hippy dropout, no bomb-throwing anarchist -- Jesus was the kind of Right-thinking Jesus who, if walking around on the earth today, would be proud of His investment portfolio, proud to pick up a gun and "pitch in" if the contras needed it, proud to lob a bomb through an abortion clinic window, proud to tell some homeless bum "get a job!" and not give him a handout, proud, in the final analysis, to be an American.

Who benefits?

"Praise God...if you send your ten percent seedfaithheartblessingdonationmustardseed freewill offering to my ministry, God has REVEALED UNTO ME by the power of His Holy Spirit, that the desire of your heart shall be given unto you...that car you want...that job you want...believe it, receive it, name it and claim it, through the POWER OF GIVING TO GET it shall come back to you a hundredfold, good measure, pressed down and shaken together, amen. Here's the number to call..."

Consider your high-profile religious leaders. Look at their suits. Look at their cars. Look at the fat rings on their fat hands. Look at their lazy, complacent, well-fed huckster faces.

Who benefits?

Gee, wonder why these religious leaders are attempting to serve God by sucking up to power -- look! Here's a picture of Mr. Religious leader with his arm around Ronnie Reagan! Look! Did you know that Mr. Religious leader talked one-on-one with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985? Here's another picture! Here's Mr. Religious leader driving in a tank through Jerusalem, smiling and waving. Here's Pat Robertson, serving God by helping the contras, all the better to send people to God a little faster...

The religion of the oppressed has turned into the religion of the oppressor. The religion of the poor has turned into the religion of I-got-mine...

I want all our top Gideon Faithful donors to stand up now and take a bow. Thank you brother, Johnson. Thank you. Praise God. Let's give a hand of appreciation to these wonderful people, praise the Lord.

Let he who has eyes to see begin projectile-vomiting.

Aside from whether there is a Jesus who will one day say "I never knew you" to the blow-dried, Satan-sucking scum...assuming, as you probably do, that there is a Jesus, chances are that Christianity Inc. ain't what He had in His mind...

You have to be able to question the system. You have to realize you're being used.

A good rule of thumb?

When somebody starts telling you to be a sheep, listen for the sharpening of knives.