Pay Up

If you peruse my blog for any length of time you will quickly realize two things – I am not religious but I have respect for religion. 

I think it’s an important distinction to make because too many atheists like to make a scene ranting about how evil religion is. 

That’s not me. 

Faith is an important part of the human experience and I would never tell people that they are stupid for having faith. 

I may however point out the discrepancies in what they say and what they do. 

Just as I’ll point out most ‘devout’ Christian Republicans wouldn’t much care for Jesus if he appeared today. A man of color who wants peace and to feed and nurture the sick and poor. That isn’t a new sentiment but the fact remains that Jesus makes a better icon than a man. 

He’s much less messy when we don’t have to deal with him as a human. 

Faith is important but there are limits to what it should be. 

Faith leaders should never be an advocate for votes.
Neither should they be a place for political stumping. 

There is a point where someone needs to make up their mind and abide by their judgment and, yeah, faith. 

They shouldn’t be led by the nose to the ballot box nor shamed or threatened into voting for something or someone. 

We have allowed the church to become too powerful and that’s a huge mistake. 

The church is not faith. 

They are not interchangeable. 

The church represents the teaching of faith. 

Faith though, can be practiced in a toilet or on a mountaintop. 

It needs no walls or priests. 

Faith is a conversation between someone and whatever they believe. 

It is not meant for external consumption. 

If you want to go to learn how to interpret a holy book, or to share your faith then that’s what a holy place is for, like a church. 

It isn’t necessary. 

We’re at a point where churches, never having to pay taxes, can do as they please and not face any responsibility to the people beyond its walls. The pastor can get rich, the deacons can drive fancy cars, and they can keep insisting that they NEED that money for god. 

Naw. 

They want more, more, more so they can live lifestyles that have nothing to do with faith and are all about ego. 

Pastors and priests and the like shouldn’t have to live in poverty but if they have chosen to follow the path of faith they should also not be wealthy. The money should go to their flock, to the poor, and to the community. 

Churches should be places of help and aid. 

They should follow the path of Christ, if they are Christian. 

If they aren’t going to pay taxes then they don’t need superchurches and planes and products they sell. 

They should be giving back. 

We shouldn’t know who these people of faithful teaching are because they shouldn’t be celebrities. 

They shouldn’t be putting themselves higher than anyone else. 

We should never preach from the gospel of God and Guns.

Never.

Ever.

God has nothing to do with guns, and that some of us think that ‘god’ should ever be uttered in the same breath as guns tells me that our culture has a lot more in common with terrorists than we like to admit.

That we are so desperate for guns that we think they are part and parcel of faith.

‘Oh, it’s about FREEDOM’.

Freedom and faith are not the same and should not be a matched pair.

It’s madness.

Too many churches are becoming havens for hate and those churches should be taxed. 

You don’t get to pretend that you’re giving back to the community if your acts of giving back are protesting with violent language and imagery and preaching the gospel of hate. 

And yet that’s what book is being read from by too many.

A gospel of Them, pretending that Christians are a minority class being all but hunted for their faith. 

No. 

That’s not the case. 

At all. 

What people like me want is for the faithful to leave people in peace. 

It is for the religious right to stop using children as the reason they are hateful – it’s for the CHILDREN!

Kids learn hate. 

They don’t have it in them inherently. 

The church is all politics now. That’s their business. 

Not saving souls but damning them. 

Not showing a path to belief and faith and comfort but stoking the imaginary flames of Hell for anyone they deem a sinner. 

And there are so many of us sinners out there now. 

There is nothing righteous about hate or murder. 

There is no path to god that way. 

You can’t kill someone and proclaim that they were evil. 

They were a sinner. 

And pretend you are clean of sin.

So it’s time to pay up. 

Start paying those taxes. 

Put your money where your faith is. 

If you are for the community, then prove it.

Not with small food closets for your flock. 

Not with community events meant to convert as much as offer something for people outside of the church. 

And none of this is to say that churches are not important places but merely that they shouldn’t be above anything else. 

People’s ‘souls’ are saved in lots of ways. 

In being seen. 

In being heard. 

In being loved. 

In being accepted. 

Those things save souls. 

The very things many people are damned for, being themselves and true to themselves and minding their own business, but they are sinners just the same. 

But as they say, let god sort it out. 

It’s not for anyone else to declare someone’s evil or sinfulness, just to learn to forgive the sinner and heal the sin. 

And until that’s the case…pay up. 

We need the money more than you do. 

…c…