Sadism, a Christian Trait

During a road trip some time ago with a distant and excessively conservative relative the discussion turned to his belief that ‘grace and justice’ are supreme concerns in his life. I commented that I, a humanist, had no real understanding of the concept of grace, and that justice was subjective and difficult to define. This eventually led to an uncomfortable jest on his part suggesting that since his profession gave him access to my personal search history that he could use private information against me on a whim. We laughed it off at the time but, what stands out to this day is my observation of his joy at making that threat, there was a fearsome sparkle in his wry eye. Ours is not a close relationship so the joke was way out of bounds. 

I was reminded of this conversation when I came across an article from Editorial Board by John Stoehr with the title For White Evangelicals, It’s Not About Fear which discusses the history of permissible public sadism in Christianity, using Richard Rorty and Adam Serwer as sources. Apartheid, misogyny, slavery, and other ancient hatreds justified by christian teachings are usually couched in language that hides the sadistic joys of the oppressors. This is not a sexual pleasure, as commonly misunderstood, it is pleasure derived from witnessing or causing the suffering of others. They find pleasure in punishment for divine justice; gays deserve punishment because they are gay, no additional reasoning is required. Judgment and punishment evoke pleasure on the part of religious busy-bodies. 

No one should be surprised at the revelation of a ‘sadistic pleasure’ by the religiously inclined, we are conditioned to accept it through tradition and the fading status of holy vs. secular in popular culture. And yet, every aspect of christianity beginning with the foundational use of an iron age torture device, involves the joy of Jesus who died: pleasure from another’s pain. His crimes are seldom discussed for being several and irrelevant when balanced with the not-staying-dead part.

Today, most of the traditional joy-from-suffering events are no longer acceptable in our culture. Sacrificial slaughter, slavery, poverty, and other previously enjoyed godly humiliations, cheats, rapes and deaths have gone by the wayside. The remaining sadistic joy is sexuality; they are fighting hard to keep this last pleasing joy of condemnation. It has become the primary mission of the church to retain their anti-gay sadistic traditions. The article recommends abandoning the imprecise word ‘homophobia’ and calling sadism what it is. As long as they continue to call us abominations it is the least we can do, but, it gives me no joy to do so.

All Shook Up

If “Santa” keeps bringing you presents, would you vote to remove him from office?

Even if he bribed other nations,

or abandon them on the battlefield,

even if he lied all the time,

even if he bullied women, minorities, whole religions and the poor?

Some, the one percent and older white evangelicals, will most-likely support him

as long as he gives them tax breaks, 

as long as he encourages religious, racial, and social bigotry, 

as long as he gives them permission to pollute,

as long as he removes health and safety regulations

as long as he plays to the most base of capitalist instincts,

he will have his followers support. 

He has been impeached by the House, but don’t expect the Senate to punish their Santa Claus.

They have concerns that supersede morality.

Senators like capitalist toys, and they’ve not been particularly good girls and boys.

Freedom to be ignorant and foolhardy deletes moral compunctions.

The boss does it, so I can do it too. 

Our government is being destroyed.

We have no solution to that problem anymore than we do global climate change.

From my perspective, everything is Higaldly-Pigaldy.


Love & Grace

Response to Peter Wehner’s New York Times article, Christian Doomsayers Have Lost It

This is a refreshing bit of common sense from a leader on the right. He too is bewildered by the passions guiding the Christian Right’s allegiance to the current president. He collates our times with rhetoric from the extreme right touching on key moments of moral conflict: Hillary = Hitler, the Civil War, the Revolution, abortion, un-wed mothers, drag queens and the like. Yet his comments on the decline in abortion rates, teen sex, teen birth rates, drug use, and so on had me cheering: good for us! He sees the heightened emotions on the right, despite this good news, as “how moral concern has given way to moral panic.”

Mr. Wehner points out that the remaining issues are real, but hardly existential concerns. “We are not living in Nero’s Rome,” is how he succinctly put it.  Christians seem to have a “psychological craving for apocalyptic fear.” Every minor concern is taken out of context and magnified by the hair-on-fire fanaticism of Evangelicals.

“This apocalyptic moral mind-set has led to an alliance with a shockingly unethical figure, who embodies a mobster’s mentality and an anti-Christian ethic,” is the way he begins his accurate conclusion. Here is Mr Wehner’s point: love and grace should permeate our approach to conflict resolution, not fear, anxiety and anger.

Bellum Sacrum

The motto to trust in God,

printed on our money,

is currently mandated

in some public schools

presenting quite a quandary;

it makes ‘god’

as commonplace

as laundry!


“In God We Trust” is a 

bumper sticker thought,

requiring no immediate action.

It doesn’t have the urgency

of a traffic sign, like: Stop.

This vague comand

bewilders students –

“Which gods are being taught?” 


The god we trust on money

is anything but certain. 

The reason

is a compromise

of many theistic assertions.

The courts call it Ceremonial Deism:

A generic all-encompassing god

trotted out for a celebration.


The logic implied

requires all sides

interpret the meaning of “god”

in their own prejudicial favor.

Christians and Hindus, Muslims and Buddhist 

worship many things they call god.

It’s a word which contains them all.

When god is homogenized

secular work can be done;

after all, that is

the dollar’s mission.


So, Christians placing 

the motto into schools

feel they’ve pulled

a clever deception

and yet laundry gets dirty every day.


In secular society

the status quo 

sticks with facts and measures.

It’s not where one goes

to show

mystical opinions

or supernatural subscriptions.


Now, laws are written, 

On school walls:

God” in letters

twelve inches tall!

Forcing passions to the fore

dismissing logic and reason,






radically fervent vigor. 


Point out the inherent absurdity

and conflict ensues with perfidy.

Bellum sacrum,

joins the curriculum,

teachers conscripted in

elementary school theology:

passions not profundity,

ill equipped for a Holy War

wonder if that is

what schools are for?


Hooray! god is back in the classroom

small ‘g’ for ceremonial deism 

not the big ‘G’ of which you are thinking.

Share your ‘G’ with all the other kids

a Pokémon world of possibilities:

Horus, Dionysus,

alien space ruler Xenu,

Thetan levels,

and holy underwear.


Why believe in one god, 

yet atheistic about all others?

Give Christians their semantic euphoria,

milk-toast pablum of greeting-card import.

When aphorisms are habitual 

significance becomes sentiment,

as common as cracks in the floor.

The’ve neutered the thing they adore.

A Better Place

We are a nation of dreamers: the grass is always greener, the air is cleaner, and some other neighborhood has a better demeanor than wherever we live. The island of misfit toys is where we exist, yearning for the better world of ‘if only.’ Our existential lament is rooted in the belief that a better place does indeed exist. It is the job of preachers and politicians to feed us that dream. They promise special knowledge and abilities that can guide us  to the better world of which they have expertise. The more every-day folk hear and see their claims of expertise, the more we trust them. Even absurd and impossible assertions become accepted into the lore of common place knowledge. Our shared construction of faith-based knowledge, be it virgin births or fake news is methodically introduced and repeated until it is the lore of the land, and thereby, impossible to disprove.

This concept of a better place is so real to people, empirical evidence carries no relevance. Justification, as a rhetorical tool, has little suasion when dealing with an adherent of a theology or ideology or personality-cult making the ‘better place’ argument. The truth of the ‘better place’ is irrelevant to a firmly entrenched opinion. No ‘better place’ needs to exist if adherents already believe that it does. The pragmatic, objective, empirical realm of thought becomes nullified when it relies on faith in ‘better places.’

So, when America is finally ‘great’ and Jesus returns, Hillary is locked up, immigrant children are toothless, dirty and diseased, and gays, Muslims, Jews and people of color are dead in hell, the evangelical white MAGA cis-heterosexuals will finally live in peace and harmony. Is this “better,” or “dystopian?”

No wonder the movies are full of post-apocalypse visions of the end of days. Evangelicals tell us to just believe in the Better Place and all will be well, while our common sense and intellect tell us the dystopian world of Mad Max, The Maze Runner, and The Hunger Games is more likely than a dream-heaven. Neither thought gives me comfort, in fact, visions of dystopian futures are almost identical to a Better Place ideology. Pessimism creates the landscape of the dystopian future place, but the battle for dominion continues as it always has in both futures. 

All dreams of a ‘Better Place,’ contain an ingredient that taints their success, humans. The human imperative to dominate and control is a corrupting influence. It leads to conflict and abandonment of ideals. Just look at the mulligans, absolutions, indulgences and the blatant abandonment of principles white evangelicals have allowed Trump. He is exempt from the moral influence of their own theology, so, in exchange, he will give them political power.  Evangelic disfigurement of moral guidance now permits them to cheat, voiding out their moral authority completely. No descent god runs this scam, humans in a self-made, end of humanity scenario incite this abomination. The Trumpian voice of the evangelic god now says, “Screw them. Give me, give me, give me.”  

A Gay Lifetime

  “The battle for gay acceptance will only be won after the conversion of Christians.” We are seeing the evidence of that accomplishment in the actions of two men today. Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Matt Easton, a Brigham Young University valedictorian are the first to recognize and cross the threshold of gay ownership of a religious home in the greater society of today. What makes their efforts ‘threshold crossing’ is the matter-of-fact honesty of the declaration and its accompanying ‘as we have agreed’ attitude. That attitude has a twist to it that makes it different from what all the gay activists prior to this moment in our political evolution have had. Gays are now walking through the threshold together with enough non-gay co-religionists that the distinction no longer has a difference. ‘God loves us all’ is the subtext of our ecumenical times. This time, ‘all’ includes LGBTQ+ in a full-throated way.

If you need more convincing, take a look at the eight teenagers in this year’s confirmation class at First United Methodist Church in Omaha, Neb. They read a letter of their own creation declaring they do not want to become members at this time saying, “we believe that the United Methodist policies on LGBTQ+ clergy and same sex marriage are immoral”! It is a fine kettle of fish when thirteen-year-olds must instruct the Methodist hierarchy as to what is moral. 

When the time is right the cherry trees will blossom. Mayor Pete’s rebuttal to the Vice President: “I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand, that if you have a problem with who I am, your quarrel is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.” removes the old-fashion demand for equality off our shoulders and places it where it belongs, in God’s hands. Well, at least out of our hands. The cherry tree is ready for all kinds of blossoms and the time is right to elevate remnants of the old demand into the hands of “my creator” (whatever that means to you). 

The younger generation, including Evangelicals, doesn’t care for prior bigotries. They ask logical and reasonable questions, when the answers lack justification they say, “We should have dumped that restriction a long time ago.”  “Next?”

This article begins with an unattributed quote that I now assume ownership of: “The battle for gay acceptance will only be won after the conversion of Christians.” I realized this truism in the mid seventies when I was first coming out. I had no means to publish it back then so I have no proof of having said it, but I have known it to be true all this time. When normal everyday people join our side and defend us at a risk to themselves in that pressure-zone of conformity, a christian church, then we will achieve our goals. It appears that time has come. And it only took a lifetime!

Notre Dame, a Metaphor

In the course of a few hours, viewed sporadically on my phone and computer, I saw a vision of our global future. It was being performed by an iconic piece of architecture. I mean this metaphorically, of course. You are right, buildings don’t perform, they stand still. We are all standing still as far as climate change is concerned.

Climate, the observer, watches us in our global cathedral, seeing the potential for catastrophe in the old broken environment, and yet continues to watch as we allow our icons to catch fire. 

Climate reflects: “What do they expect?” 

“Wait a minute, there was scaffolding, it was being fixed.” Says Humanity.

“Too late.”

“But, the whole thing didn’t go, and we saved the art.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if this had never happened?”

“Nobody died, or anything.”

“An exceedingly low threshold for success.”

“I didn’t say it was a success.”

“ You defend the actions of humanity as if to call it success. Your arguments imply thin  standards.”

“Look.” “We seldom move until we are pushed, unless profit or sex is involved.”

“So, you are waiting for something big to happen? Floods, cyclones and thunder-snow are not enough?”

“We crave spectacle, why do you think we hired Trump? If we’re willing to risk societal collapse just to get a four-year clown show, why expect rationality at all? Calamity viewed on our devices is the modern-day gladiator fighting the lion.”

“The New York Times reports this today, said Climate: “The Cathedral was a tinderbox. It was all but assured to go up in flames.” Sound familiar?”

“Yeah, but look at the spectacle value! We were glued to our devices, and that NYT 3D animation of the roof of Notre Dame has WOW value. It frightens and enthralls us, it provokes additional spectacle from the media, and it will be knocked off the front page by tomorrow; we have that clown show to watch, you know.”

“It seems as though extreme consequences are an acceptable price for your “Reality Extravaganza”; the device must be fed.” 

“Yeah, we’ve all got front row seats to the end of days.” Brags Humanity.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Says a bemused Climate.

Troubled Water

Hokey and sentimental was my unexpected reaction to hearing Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Waters the other day. In my memory it was still that significant work of folk music from high school. From the perspective of time, and even though the sentiments of old were as forthcoming as ever in my mind, but not my heart, the music seemed hollow. Is there a time limit on sentimentality or does the changing world cause sentiment to fade in significance? 

The bridge over troubled waters was  between generations in the sixties when the “generation gap” was the big story of society. All ages could appreciate the message in the music while still preferring either the music of Cream or Lawrence Welk according to their generational proclivities. At least we thought it should be.

I continued to listen for an hour to Simon and Garfunkel that day, reminiscing about my high school years, seeking a reason for the missing passions the music used to hold for me. The music was the same, I had changed and the world has too. So, why am I no longer moved by the stunning reveal of Richard Cory’s suicide and the bullet in his head? 

Mostly, I remembered the time our stolid and prim Presbyterian church allowed its youth to fashion the service for a Sunday in lieu of the normal presentation. We chose to use a number of songs from the newly popular singing duo. We also banged a few cymbals to startle the old fogies in the stalls from their complacency. We ended up not starting a new tradition of youth services during the normal hour, but we were given a time slot on occasion to make our noise as we choose in the gymnasium, not the sanctuary.  That experiment taught us that we wouldn’t be included in the adult conversation thereby making the generational gap even wider.

There was great power in the music of the youth at that time. Even though it is considered lyrical and harmless in contrast to music of say, Cream or The Doors, the music of Simon and Garfunkel was banished from the adult ceremony. Our modest efforts to bridge the generations served to distance the gap between us. They didn’t want to hear even the gentlest of our artists. This may have served as the inciting incident in my eventual break from the church. I renounced my baptism during my sophomore year of college. My elderly parents still attend that church, but they don’t hold with its teachings any longer; all their remaining friends go there to enjoy the fellowship, not the theology. 

So, the more I participate in the arts, the more sophisticated my tastes become. I choose classical and jazz music, and only rarely return to music of my youth. I stopped listening to pop music after the age of disco. I am open and accepting of a Lady Gaga type persona for the show-biz qualities of her performance and the phenomenon she creates, but I don’t just sit and listen to her music.

So, this feeling of distance I got from the music of Simon and Garfunkel, and the recollection of passions I no longer experience from the songs is enigmatic. Having just used that word–enigma–I realize that ‘resolution’ is part of the answer. I’ll have to take you through my thought process to explain what I mean. 

What, exactly, is the difference between the music of that era I still enjoy, and Simon and Garfunkel. My thoughts drifted back to the summers of my high school years. I spent six weeks of those summers away from home at what was called, back then, a camp for retarded children. I was a counselor with four other fellows in my cabin who supervised 12 to 15 teenagers considered to be ‘trainable’ in the language of that day. We had a small record player in the cabin and two records, Tommy by the Who, and Fiddler on the Roof. I was the only one who cared about Fiddler so we played Tommy constantly. Our circumstance and the deaf, dumb and blind boy who struggles to exist in the world seemed to have some parallels. 

I now perceive the Simon and Garfunkel music as somewhat insipid, but the Who’s music continues to speak to me as it did back then as an unclear series of questions in search of answers. No one has a clear understanding or explanation for the meaning of the original Tommy album. The plot doesn’t exist even after a film and a musical version were attempted. The music speaks for itself as a series of solid yet enigmatic musical statements leading to questions, so we are left to ponder the implications and insinuations. As a work, it has existential coherence.  It takes the listener on a journey guided by an intent. There is no resolution.

Bridge… on the other hand is pleasant and soothing and has a solid conclusion. ‘If you need a friend I’m sailing right behind,’ and there you have it, no continuing existential angst, all is fixed and all is well. How nice! The absence of a continuing question in the listener’s mind lets them forget the questions and concerns. They may wonder if the ‘friend’ is meant to be a boyfriend or God, but either way the answer still fits. The journey is from apprehension to solution presented in a very intense, pleasant song.

Why, then, does a lack of resolution allow Tommy to retain fidelity? I believe it has to do with the purpose of art in the first place. As Ibsen said, “An artist makes clear to himself and to others the temporal and eternal questions astir in the age and the time in which he exists.” Notice he doesn’t say anything about the answers. An answer would either finish the conversation or lead to different questions. A song that answers its own question terminates the conversation as Bridge…does. Whereas, questions continue to arise from Tommy; they may be centered on different temporal issues, but the eternal questions remain the same. 

All we have to do is listen to the music to hear the difference. Bridge… is about a present solution to the troubled waters. The music soothingly builds drama through an elaborate melodrama of worry in contrast with soothing passages.  The tension is resolved in the end of the song with glorious fanfare.

Tommy seems to be on a Siddhartha-like journey of self discovery leading to the dissolution of his fantasy of godhood. The story is bittersweet. The music is tense and harsh. It maintains a high level of tension which never achieves a true resolution. The possibility of resolution is continued through the whole Rock Opera by anticipatory musical statements suggesting a questioning yet brighter future. He attempts to be a god, the Pinball Wizard, but fails in the final song, We’re Not Gonna Take It which gives a clear rejection of him as a deity, but leaves us hanging, unsure of the lessons Tommy takes from this rejection. What does this mean? Well, like all good art we are left to ponder that question with our own wits. Can we find enough hints in the story or the music for an answer?

To be clear, I’m not saying art should leave us hanging around being existentially baffled. That would be absurd. I am saying that lasting art stirs the pot and forces a reaction in multiple generations. Swanee River by Stephen Foster has a similar sentimental quality to Bridge…, few people are moved by it now as they were in previous generations. I expect that is what’s happening to The Bridge Over Troubled Water–the story ends real close to where it begins (worried? I will help, the end) and the excessively overblown orchestration has outlasted the age it was created for. I also expect that as rock music becomes less commonplace Tommy’s effect will fade too. If rock continues into the future so will Tommy while Bridge… lays down next to the Swanee River.

PC and Don Lemon

Don Lemon recently had a conversation with CNN’s Chris Cuomo about the question of right and wrong . On occasion, popular culture pundits synthesize the issues of the day into concise summaries of a particular truth. perceived this particular ad-lib moment and reposted it to amplify its significance. 

“If your friend is espousing policies that are detrimental to women, to gay people, to minorities, whatever, and is on the wrong side of history and seen as racist and on and on, then I think you need to rethink your friendship.”

This is a quote from Don Lemon in the discussion reported by Dominique Jackson. All told they brought up a list of polar opposites: right vs. wrong, good vs. bad, friend vs. ex friend, political vs moral, and while they didn’t say the words specifically, they alluded to political correctness. This all came up around the topic of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and her husband George Conway having ‘indiscreet’ public differences of opinions on Donald Trump. This brief unscheduled and unscripted crossover discussion between talkshow hosts has grown into a delineation of moral indecision. 

In earlier times domineering rulers, and/or theologies spelled out the answer to questions of proper behavior.  Rules were clear and punishments severe. Over time the responsibility for moral decisions fell primarily to the church. Recently, lets say the past 60 years, religion has proven itself to be a flawed steward of morality, it now ventures into secular politics on every issue. Child abuse, and a litany of morally reprehensible treatments of unwed mothers and others, all of which is hidden within a code of secrecy has changed the popular notion of preachers into vile hypocrites obsessed with sex. 

They began their efforts with presumably honorable intentions which have mutated into despicable behaviors under the guise of moral superiority. The cause (sustain the bureaucracy) outweighs the individual and so the human realities are obscured by the church bureaucracy. Morality and moral example on their part are diminished accordingly. They started out as arbiters of good and bad, right or wrong. Now, the status of good vs. bad is not the key issue of morality. The zeitgeist of society has shifted because of our current understanding that many versions of good and bad exist simultaneously. This common knowledge seeps into our daily lives diminishing the value of good v. bad theologies and is replaced by Political Correctness(PC).

Now, to be clear I am not really talking about the PC movement currently bamboozling universities and making fools of themselves as they try to define a fledgling philosophy. As the notion of good vs. bad wanes the rise of the “Golden Rule,” “the rule of reciprocity” steps in to replace it. Now, this has been a secondary element of mystery based theologies all along. PC is merely asserting its supremacy in the discussion of what is moral. It asks the question of coexistence: Can we get along and treat one another fairly? The question of an entities’ good or evil status by arbitrary methods is far less relevant in the PC world. 

As an example lets look at religion’s obsession with sex. Gay people are evil and not good in the eye of certain religions. In the realm of PC the person who is gay may be a great neighbor and have lots of friends and be easy to get along with and enjoy and cherish so their PC score is very high. The criteria for acceptance or rejection comes from experience with that person, not arbitrary, mystery-based 2000 year old rules. People see the direct result of experience over backward fantasies espoused by pedophile priests. So, the question becomes whose version of ‘good’ will be the criteria? PC is winning the battle due to the self immolation of Evangelicals and their political support of D. Trump, the endless chronology of abuse in the Catholic church, religion’s lack of relevance for youth, and authoritarian proclivities without the wherewithal to follow through. 

Neither a mystery god, nor a threat of hell have enough relevance to be the criteria for living a healthy existence in society any more. So, Don Lemon is saying we should reevaluate our friends according to their personal beliefs. Actually, his term – ‘espouse’ could mean anything from simply having an opinion to preaching it in the public square. This is the crux of the PC decision to keep or change your friends. 

Can you get along with a person who has different opinions than you? I don’t expect my friends to have identical points of view; debating questions of the day with friends is boring if you all are on the same side. But if a friend actively seeks to change society in what I consider to be a harmful way then my friendship will be withdrawn as will my placement of them on the PC scale.

But, what about bonds that are stronger than politics? My father produced two gay offspring, my Dad and I still love one another yet we are polar opposites on the political spectrum. Fox News was made just for him, I am sure. He regularly votes against the interests of his gay sons. In his mind any punishments we get from society are earned by us for being this way. So he and I have reached a place where we each come half way towards acceptance of one another. We are polite. I still love him, but he gets low PC marks from me. 

If we followed the old religious rules of such things he wouldn’t make the effort to come half way. His theology and conservative bigotry are deflated by love. He had to buck the theologic system that is so inbred he could only come half of the way. Today’s generations have that partial rebellion as a model for their own resistance. They are deciding their allegiances and friendships waste too much time and effort living up to an ancient, fantasy-based god and his stupid rules. I won’t harm you and you won’t harm me. We all get along. Bigotry and its kin – theology, be gone.

[Sorry I have been gone so long, I have been writing a book about the hurricanes on St. Croix and had little time to blog. Bill]


Sex, Slaves, & Inconvenient Truths



