Dayton, OH, reporter Jamie Jarosik says

On Sunday, there was another devastating tornado outbreak. Parts of Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin had reported touchdowns:

Source: WDTN Channel 2

Image via WDTN.com.

I gotta say I'm not a very big fan of the tendency right-wing religious conservatives have of casting every natural and manmade disaster as punishment from God for insufficient adhering to their particular political interests.

But!

If I were so inclined, or if I was inclined to ponder such disasters as indications of the wrath of God, then I'd be asking myself what the states of Missouri, and Iowa, and Alabama, and Minnesota, and Kansas, and and Tennessee, and Georgia, and Texas have been up to, since all have recently been hammered with tornados much larger and more destructive than usual. They might want to reconsider whether, under the circumstances, God really does approve of the spate of recent hate- and oppression-filled legislative campaigns against the poor, against the brown, against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans people, and of course against women.

I don't think God actually works that way*, but those people generally do. And if you did believe it, and if you added up the ways they've a) been doing a great deal of evil and b) getting walloped, then you might have a tough time justifying not repenting

* Although I do believe global warming works that way. And while the current spate of very bad weather is more a byproduct of La Nina (note, link from 1999 deliberately chosen) over the long run as the planet warms North American temperate-zone weather is going to tend to become more extreme. And but states in tornado alley haven't actually been any more egregious about climate denialism than, say, intermountain-west states which probably won't be adversely affected by the "wrath" global warming and might even come out slightly ahead.

In his year-end best-of post roundup Ed Yong of Discover Blogs reflects on a story that, I think, provides a foundation for absolutely peculiar (if, naturally, fundamentally un-Christian) behavior of mainstream American conservatives.

Power breeds hypocrisy – powerful people judge others more harshly but cheat more themselves

Newspapers are full of examples of powerful people behaving badly, from the diplomats in the Wikileaks cables to the peers in the UK’s expenses scandal. Power, it is said, corrupts, and Joris Lammers has solid evidence for this. He showed that powerful people are more likely to behave immorally than those with less power, but paradoxically less likely to tolerate immorality in other people. They frowned more strongly upon speeding, tax-dodging or keeping stolen goods, but were more lenient about doing it themselves. Even thinking about the feeling of power can trigger these double standards.

Source: Discover Blogs

From the behaviors of Richard Nixon to Newt Gingrich to David Vitter to Paul Ryan to Joseph Stalin and Ayn Rand the conveniently misunderstood* notion that "rank hath its privileges" would account for an enormous amount of both the overweening self-indulgence as well as the equally pitiless punishments proposed by those who have accumulated power by any means.

My guess is that the latter effect -- simply thinking about the feeling of power -- explains why conservatism appeals to rank-and-file tea partiers despite their almost uniform low-levels of power, rank, or (particularly) productivity.

It explains the phenomenon where conservatives prosecute the infidelities, prostitution, and other sexual behavior they gleefully practice among themselves.  And it absolutely explains their very consistent tendency to justify pregnancy terminations for themselves and their children ("but she has her whole life in front of her!") that they adamantly oppose for "others.**"

And speaking of non-Christian behavior, I'm... pretty bloody certain that Jesus was talking about exactly this phenomenon when he condemned the Pharisees... and I'm pretty the same "fuck you, I'm going to Heaven" attitude he loathed in the Pharisees is what motivates so many nominal contemporary conservative nominal Christians to agitate aggressively against charitable works by their own congregations! Like the Pharisees once imagines they'd best enjoy rewards they're enjoying here on Earth for they're likely to be unexpectedly, eternally, and consequently very bitterly disappointed by their (single and very brief) meetings with St. Peter.

Just sayin'

* The Feudal legal structure which codified "rank hath its privilege" also included the principle of "noblesse oblige," which meant, effectively, that rank also hath it's obligations. An aspect of tradition that contemporary conservative American elites are dead set against adopting.
** I'm obviously not saying abortion itself is wrong, just pointing out the double standard held by others who do think it's wrong... for others.

Ok, so in the past I’ve mentioned my religious ancestry a couple of times — the missionaries, the street preachers, the circuit-riding preachers, and the great-grandfather who helped found Christian Fundamentalism. I don’t think I’ve mentioned the inviolate morning ritual where after breakfast at my grandparents where everyone who could read even a little bit was obliged to sit together around the breakfast table reading in turn from the Bible. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that the roots of my liberal/progressivism come from lessons I learned in Sunday schools and vacation Bible school — lessons about forgiveness, about charity, about tolerance, about equality, and especially about the significance of every living human being and the importance of discounting no one. I’ve mentioned how shocked I am that modern conservative “Christians” appear to want to outright repeal of the Sermon on the Mount (the “blessed are the meek” one) and the Sermon at Gethsemane (the “hypocrites” one) and pretty much everything else I ever learned were the point of being religious.

Point being that while I, um, grew away from my religious upbringing I’m still pretty informed by it. And pretty familiar with it.

So a couple of minutes ago two conservative-missionary-looking young women rang my doorbell. And because I was raised to be polite even to obnoxious strangers I started composing a polite way to wish them luck with whoever they talked to next.

But then they said something that I really, completely, absolutely hadn’t expected: they were enrolled in a nearby seminary and were learning to spread the word about God the Mother.

God the Mother?

And I thought, woah, maybe they’re from one of the other Goddess-worshiping groups that go around. But no, they’re Christian all right, right down to the well-thumbed and highlighted NKJV Bibles. But they were still talking about God the Mother and citing chapter and verse in all the familiar ways with the difference being how if you want to get to Heaven you needed to understand that there’s a God the Mother.

I don’t buy it. Not anymore than I would any other doorbelling missionaries. And I have to say that based on what it actually says in the old and new testaments they’re really grasping at straws.

But no more so than anyone else trying to dig interpretations out of the world’s most Rorschach-ian tome.

After about 15 minutes I thanked them politely, and wished them luck with whoever they talked to next.

But wow.

Just wow.

They were dead earnest. They weren’t fooling. They weren’t particularly feminist in any of the meaningful senses of the word. They certainly seemed comfortable with the rest of patriarchal thinking — for instance I didn’t get any traction when I asked about some of the classic bugaboos of feminist theology. They didn’t sound like they’d heard of any of it nor did they seem at all interested.

But they’re convinced, using chapter and verse, that Jesus had a heavenly mother, and that the Book of Revelations says when he comes back he’ll come back with an equally-divine “bride.” And that if you don’t believe in these mothers and brides as much as you believe in the more traditional fathers and sons you won’t go to heaven.

Which, if true, would be an extremely rude shock to all my myriad, utterly Patriarchal ancestors. And the other roughly 99.99999% of Christianity through the ages.

Still, I’m willing to bet their denomination (I think they might have roots in a Korean branch of the Church of God?) wouldn’t be opposed to the ordination of women priests the way, say, Catholics are (assuming they even have priests, which Protestants usually don’t.) Nor might they be so dead set on women staying home barefoot, pregnant, ignorant, and utterly dependent on their “lord and master” husbands the way, say, the Southern Baptist Convention is. Or maybe they do, I dunno, but at least they let women go proselytizing independently, which I only remember seeing Seventh Day Adventists do.

Not much else to say about them except maybe they call themselves Elohims based on a plural, multi-gender ending on one of the original Hebrew words for God.

Anyone else ever heard of this?

Not much else to

Columnist E.J. Dion of The Washington Post on now-disgraced, and now ex-congressman, Mark Souder who resigned last week when news broke that he’d had an affair with a member of his staff.

I always thought he was the real deal, both serious and thoughtful in his approach to religious and political questions. I disagreed with him on many things but not on everything.

So I do hope that Souder finds a way to work out his redemption. But it is precisely because this story hits me personally that I want to shout as forcefully as I can to my conservative Christian friends: Enough!

Enough with dividing the world between moral, family-loving Christians and supposedly permissive, corrupt, family-destroying secularists.

Read the quote in context here.

Yup. I think “enough” is a pretty good choice not just in social or human terms but in terms of political strategy.

To the extent one could ever argue that progressives have really been permissive, corrupt, or family-destroying (or, for that matter, irreligious) it’s certainly not the case that they’re the exclusive source of such permissiveness, corruption, or family destruction. And meanwhile, to the extent one could ever argue that Souder’s conservative-style Christianity has ever been moral or family-loving (or, considering how much of Jesus’s teaching stands in opposition to their political objectives, recognizably Christian!) it’s certainly not the case that they’re the exclusive source of such morality or love of family or even sincere religious faith.

I mean, sure, it’s worth considering that the Pharisees were the dominant political force in 1st Century Jerusalem. And they were so “observant” of Biblical laws they literally squeezed their wine through mesh to filter out tiny but non-kosher insects (i.e. “straining at gnats.) But as Jesus himself pointed out (Matthew 23:24) for all of Mr. Souder’s and his sex partner’s pious recordings of abstinence-only videos, and for all his recent protestations that their couplings only proved his videos were necessary and correct, the bottom line is that Souder and, I’m afraid, far too many of his fellow would-be-dominant political force have been blindly swallowing (equally non-kosher) camels since roughly the 1980 election.

The solution, my dears, and the key to salvation if one is as Christian as Mr. Souder (or Ms. Palin, or Mr. Sanford, or Mr. Gingrich, or Ms. Haley) claim to be and claim to wish others would become, is not to crusade against those who don’t strain enough gnats but to emulate those who swallow fewer camels.

Enough!