When I listen to George W. Bush talk, it takes me back home again.  I imagine that it does that for a lot of people.  His folksy, simple, down-home rhetoric takes me back to a simpler time…to my mid-western, Christian childhood.

     I remember being a third-grader, brought along to the local non-denominational Evangelical Church by some friends and neighbors who were encouraged to “witness” to me and others by bringing us to the youth group meetings.

     This youth group was a national program, called AWANA’s and it was kind of the Christian American Boy/Girl Scouts.  Like, if the Boy and Girl Scouts weren’t Christian and American enough for you, this was an alternative.

     After attending a few times, I learned something about myself.  I learned that I could memorize inhuman volumes of material in a short amount of time.

     Now, normally, there isn’t much validation for this sort of skill in society at large, but in AWANAs it was huge, because we were all divided into teams, and the team that got the most “points” would win candy…and one of the ways to earn points was to memorize Bible verses.

     It soon became clear that I was a person to have on your team.  Being the kind of kid who grew fast and developed slow (think: coordination of a drunk, wounded Wildebeest), with undiagnosed asthma on top of that, you can imagine how novel it was for me to have people jump up and down and cheer when they found out I was on their team.

     I was hooked.  I went every Thursday night to AWANA’s.  I bought a uniform, burned my way through book after book, won patches and a trophy (The Timothy Award) and the recognition of my peers.  I attended almost every week for three years.

     I also absorbed Evangelical Fundamentalism like a sponge.

     We’d start out the evening with games.  That was fun…the girls would meet upstairs and the boys downstairs, and we would play games, earning points for our team if we won them.  They weren’t particularly challenging games.  Athleticism or severe non-athleticism were equally irrelevant.

     Then we’d break up into little groups with our books, and recite all the Bible verses that we had memorized, and all of the interpretations of the Bible verses that we had memorized, and the points would be tallied up and awarded to the teams.

     Then, the boys would come upstairs, and we would give our offerings, sing martial-themed religious songs, and then Pastor Tisland would give a little sermon.

     It was usually about how terrible the world was, and how hell was a whole heck of a lot worse, and how we had to cling to Jesus for protection, and not be afraid to let people know that we were Christian, even though they all wanted us dead, because they hated our faith.

     Who are “they”?  Well, the Communists, mostly, but the Humanists too.  The Mandrel Sisters probably didn’t want us dead, but they were worse than the Communists because they pretended to be Christians when they were really brazen temptresses with wiggly hips.

     There were often stories of religious persecution, and stories of how children all over the world were beaten, stoned, burned alive, and watched their parent murdered because they were Christians.  It was clear that these kids (mostly Africans, but some Asian kids as well, particularly Indian) were destined for heaven, because they were feeling the persecution of Christ.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I was thoroughly ashamed of myself for never having been beaten up for being a Christian.  Not even once.  Obviously, I’d been hiding MY light under a bushel.

     We got a lot of stories from Africa about “tribes” (unnamed, of course) and their horrible superstitious religious practice, like worshipping rocks and stuff like that.  Looking back, I wish I’d kept some of the tracts, because they were so ridiculous that it is obvious that the stories presented as “real life accounts” were just plain made up and badly told stories.

     We were told that if we just gave our hearts to Jesus, we would be saved from the fires of hell and the wages of sin.  If we prayed for salvation and were (and this is important) truly repentant, we would be flooded with warmth, love, and a bright spiritual light.  All our struggles and doubts and questions would be gone.  We would be made anew, pure, righteous, and truly good…one of the saved.

     So I prayed with Pastor Tisland every Thursday…and every night before I went to bed.  I prayed with all my little heart…but no go.  No warmth, no light…nothing.

     Worse, I still had questions, and I still thought the way I wanted to, not the way God wanted me to (as told by Pastor Tisland), I still thought that the music on the top forty was cool sounding and catchy,  and not one person was interested in persecuting me for my Christianity.  I was completely blind to the evil of the Mandrel Sisters.  The inanity I could see, but the evil eluded me.

     You see, it is a very important principle of Fundamentalist Evangelism that God’s people are persecuted.  Stories of the murders of missionaries, countless cannibal societies brought to God through the fearlessness of missionaries facing mortal peril were told.  We heard about heros who smuggled Bibles into “Russia” (it was all “Russia” back then), and Christian martyrs who were arrested and “reeducated” for their faith.  We heard story after story of Christian after Christian murdered just because “They” hated his faith.

     They hate our faith, they hate our freedom.  They are coming to get us.  We’re all eager to prove our faith and our love by being prepared to have it tested through persecution and death…Onward Christian Soldiers…give them a little hellfire and brimstone, put the fear of God in them, and then hit them with another martyr story...has that fear turned to guilt yet?  OK now…pass the plate.  We’re a community, we’re God’s family, we all belong.  Yes, that’s right, even those of you who just tithe ‘till it pinches because you can’t get killed for God.  You’re part of it too…as long as you don’t have questions, as long as your faith struggle is behind you.  Maybe one of you would like to share the shameful confession of your faith-struggle with the rest of us, and proclaim your joy at having it ended?  Don’t forget about the flood of healing light and warmth.  That’s how you know you’re going to heaven, you know.  That’s how you know you’re struggle is ended, and you’re on Gods side.  The healing light and the end of all your struggles and questions and need for answers.

     Just lay them down and forget them and come into the fold.  There now, doesn’t that feel better?

     Yep.  Listening to G.W. brings me right back home again.

     I don’t know if all of the “saved” or “born again” Christians really felt the healing light and warmth or not…just as I’m not sure how many die-hard Republicans felt the blessed balm of the tax cut, for instance, or the swaddling safety of living in a nation at war with a nebulous concept without borders or a physical location on a map.

     I’m not sure how many members of that church truly had no questions about their pastor’s messages of hellfire and brimstone for the Mandrel Sisters, or the Catholic and Buddhist “idolaters”, or the Jewish “Christ Killers”, or the “Darwin-worshipping” humanists that he consistently warned us against…just as I’m not sure how many Bush supporters really believe that John Kerry or John McCain are North Vietnamese Collaborators, or that there really was a credible threat to the United States from Iraq that dwarfed the threats from North Korea or Iran.

     I’m not sure how many members of that tiny rural church honestly believed that you had to agree with everything that Pastor Tisland said, or you were going to burn in hell, just as I don’t know how many Bush supporters really believe that if you don’t support every action and position of the president, you are in league with the terrorists.

     But it sure seemed like most people in that church bought the whole package, and it sure seems like at least half the country (more, around these parts) buys the whole Bush package too.

     But one thing is good to remember;  a little quote from Babylon Five:  “The truth will come out eventually.  It always does.”

     Pastor Tisland’s truth came out one day when a brave 14-year-old girl (to this day anonymous) came forward and revealed him for at least part of what he was:  a child molester.

     When this came out, he went home showed his wife a gun, and told her that when he woke up from his nap, he was going to kill her and their children.  Because he had always done everything that he said he was going to do, she believed him, and she knew he was capable of it because of the years of abuse and torture that he had subjected her and the kids to.  So she picked up the gun, and shot him in the head.

     If you find this story to be unbearably sick and horrifying, you should.  It is. 

     And it has it’s roots in the mentality I have described above.  The mentality that glorifies persecution and deprivation, that ridicules and demonizes honest thoughtful questions and analysis, that creates a paradigm that separates the world into “us” and “them”, and them goes one further to say it’s “us” or “them”.  To claim that “their” very existence is a threat to us…to make you “one of them” if you don’t walk in lock-step with the rest of the crowd…to elevate a man to the position of being unaccountable for his actions because you are too afraid to even ask a question. (Ask Paul O’Neill and Richard Clark about this subject)

     To let a man continue to believe with all his heart that he speaks for God, and acts for God, and can do whatever he wants.

     And ultimately, if he goes too far into his messiah complex, he can be extremely destructive when the house of cards comes tumbling down.

     Now, for you non-critical thinkers out there on the right and left ends of the spectrum:  No, I am not calling G.W. a child molester, a wife abuser, or a child abuser.  Nor am I suggesting that anyone pop a cap in his head.  Don’t be an ass.

     I am simply trying to point out the inherently unhealthy, and anti-social nature of this particular mindset and pattern of behavior, and how needlessly destructive it can be. 

     We don’t have to buy it.  We can ask our questions, we can admit we’re not true believers, we can say what we think, and we can tell people who call us “terrorists” to take that charge, write it down, fold the paper until it’s all sharp corners, and use their fertile and warped imaginations about where we want them to stuff it.