It was one of those culturally oppressive days. My wife and I
were in a supermarket in a nearby town and it just seemed like everyone, even
the older people were just covered in tattoos, piercings and other forms of obscenity
and states of undress. Language was crude, children ill-behaved. It was a
gruesome and disturbing scene reminding me of Peter's reference to Lot and the
burden and vexation of living in Sodom.
Sometimes I think it's a bit worse in small town Appalachia
than it is even in nearby cities. Once more outwardly conservative, these areas
have really degenerated and often it seems things like the obesity and
self-destructive behaviour are a bit worse here than in the urban realm.
At one point we rounded an aisle and there before us were
what seemed to be a normal ordinary young married couple. The guy was dressed
simply in a t-shirt and baseball cap and she actually had a Baptist/Fundamentalist
look about her with a full-length denim skirt, a modest blouse and pinned up
long hair.
They noticed us too. We have no 'look', no uniform. My wife
often wears skirts but is not opposed to wearing pants. I'm not particularly
clean cut but I don't look like a total filthy slob either. Our clothes are
often second hand but we attempt to be somewhat polite and mannerly in our
appearance. We definitely don't look middle class but at this cultural moment
even just plain and modest clothing is enough to stand out. A hospital nurse (who
startled me by remembering us from several years earlier) once told me that she
and the other nurses remembered us because we're the 'normal looking' family,
something they don't see very often.
At this point in time it's so unusual to see 'normal' looking
folk that when you do you want to quickly ask them... "Are you
Christians?"
It's so rare to see a young, nice looking decently dressed
tattoo-exempt feminine girl, that whenever we see one, we want to pounce on her
as a potential spouse for one of our sons.
Most young women seem to be afflicted by a sort of sluttish
vulgarity that at times one is almost led to despair. While our culture's
parallels with Imperial Rome are palpable, increasingly I can only think of
Sodom. The Cities of the Plain were guilty of much more than merely homosexual
sins, as grievous and abominable as they were. Sodom was more than anything
about decadence, reprobate conscience and degeneracy. Humanity was reduced to
bestial impulse as the image of God was desecrated. Such is the path of all
empires. The road they travel leads to the Sodomite Gates and Western culture
crossed them long ago. Sexual deviance is the symptom of the inner rot and deep
rejection of God and His order, even what is discernible in nature – in a
fallen and cursed world.
Sodom is also evoked in the face of apostasy. When God's
people embrace the world they produce a twisted caricature religion, one that
hates the Truth, one that persecutes the Body of Christ. Judah is compared to
Sodom as is the covenant community in the book of Revelation. Jerusalem, the
city that crucified Christ is called Sodom and Egypt and indeed the
servant-witnesses of Christ are martyred in its streets.
This is not the Christian West turned apostate. The 'Christian' West is the apostasy,
but we're actually beyond that now. The image story-arc found in Revelation is
completed by the Beast turning on the whore Church and destroying it. This (I
would argue) represents a historiographical pattern and one we are living at
present. The Harlot forces waging the culture war, also known as the Christian
Right offer no hope and no road to Truth for those committed to New Testament
Christianity.
This point really hit home as I walked by the young couple.
They were nice looking Evangelicals for want of a better term.
And that's when I caught the young man's t-shirt. He was a
nice clean-cut fellow, the sort many a Christian father would be pleased to see
his daughter bring home. What did his t-shirt say?
Waterboarding: Baptizing
Terrorists With Freedom (Since 2003)
Aside from the gross and wicked morality being presented in
the ethos of the shirt, the young man (and presumably his wife) was ignorant of
the sacrilege.
It's bad enough to walk around in public promoting torture
and advocating a kind of gross and violent statism (the very opposite of freedom)
but then to make a joke about it and tie in the torture method to baptism?
That's beyond the pale, a sign (to me) of a reprobate conscience.
Baptism, the washing with water that signifies our passage
from death unto life, a holy rite signifying the new birth and union with
Christ....
Made into a crass joke? If that isn't taking the Lord's Name
in vain, I don't what is. If that isn't treating the Holy things of God as
something base, something worthy of a joke, if that isn't an expression of
Esau's disdain for the covenant, I don't know what is.
The sad thing was, that after witnessing the gruesome scene
in the store, this 'normal' and 'decent' looking couple proved to the be the
worst of all.
I'm not suggesting that others in the store are more moral
and no doubt some would have appreciated the sentiments expressed on the
t-shirt. But these folks were clearly some variety of Evangelical. For them
this expression of militant nationalism was part of their Christian witness and
for that reason they're in a far worse position than all the other tattooed
freak-people we saw that day.
Driving home I thought about the scraggly, dirty guy I saw in
the store, with the big 'FTW' tattoo on his arm... Fuck the World is his sentiment, his creed.*
Well, that's not an ideology I can endorse, but you know, at
least this lost guy has enough sense to know the system is a mess, the world is
a place of injustice and evil. His response to it is that of the nihilist. He
has no answer and so in light of that reality (as he understands it), one has
two choices....
If you can't beat them, join them
or,
FTW
At least with the latter, he can 'feel' like he has some kind
of integrity and that he retains some form of individuality. I doubt he can
express it but I understand where he's coming from.
I can say vanity of vanities, all is vanity and yet as a
believer I can find hope and meaning for life in Christ. He doesn't have Christ
and so his response is the best he can muster.
But these other 'Christian' folks, they should know better.
They think they have Christ but in reality what they have is the comfort of
association, the strength of the collective. Their communion is not found in
the Church of Jesus Christ which they fraudulently are part of it, but in the
imperial might of the American Empire with its riches and power. That's their
religion and thus for them the waging of its wars (I'm pretty sure the guy was
a veteran) is a holy endeavour and thus an act of worship.
In the twisted darkness of his soul, he thinks that killing
and torturing people, people that in many cases are simply lost (and admittedly
evil) people fighting back against his evil empire.... such acts are holy deeds
and acts of worship.
Of all the people in the grocery store, I think he may have
been the most lost of all.
I tell you what, I've been in both places. At one time in my
life I could have been the 'FTW' guy and at another time I was a fascist
militarist pig like the guy in the t-shirt.
Later I became a Christian and though both positions are
abhorrent and anti-Christian I have more resonance and more hope with and for
the FTW guy than I do the professing Christian who has hardened his heart and
doesn't even realise that he's guilty of sacrilege and gravely dishonours
Christ. So it is with American Evangelicalism. They have a form of godliness
but deny the power thereof.
If you want a look at the t-shirt I found a link to it. I
came home and did a search, almost doubting what I saw, but there it was....
*I apologise to any I may offend in printing those words. I
don't believe the ordering of letters or even the phonetic sounds are sinful
but the sentiment behind them. I don't believe it's a sin to simply report a
fact even if the fact expresses an anti-Christian expression. I'm not saying or
expressing such words, merely reporting the facts, the definition of the
acronym. That said, I would certainly be careful in how I even 'reported' such
words, wishing to avoid appearance of evil and in no way wishing to offend or
cause a brother or sister to stumble. We needn't be superstitious about words
but we do need to be wise and understand what is at the foundation of cursing
and bad language. I'm afraid all too many Christians have misunderstood this
and actually cuss and curse all the day but do so with polite and euphemistic
substitutes.
I would point to someone like Dave Ramsey as an example. He
has a filthy mouth but apparently (given his popularity) most Christians have
failed to understand this. It used to be that someone whose teachings were
substantively wrong but presented with a polished and slick presentation could
fool many. Now, you don't even need the veneer anymore. You can be crude and
it's enough as long as you tickle ears.