Yes, Virginia, there ARE liberal Christians.

I have a confession to make—and I use that term in its original sense as well in the more colloquial one. As some of you (among the hundreds who must read this drivel) may have guessed from some of my not very subtle hints in previous posts, I’m a Christian. A liberal Christian. A progressive Christian. And I’m not alone. There are millions of us—arguably more than of the ultra-conservative fundamentalists who get all the press and attention and money. And if I were to apologize for this confession, I would be practicing apologetics in the original sense. But I’m not much of an apologist—and on bad days, not even much of a Christian.

But I do feel compelled to apologize, even if weakly, because the vast majority, perhaps all, of the progressive/liberal bloggers I read are unapologetically, almost militantly secular—or, to quote the Rude Pundit’s inimitable style, “dirty fuckin’ SP[s] (no, not ‘Sucker[s] of Penises,’ but ‘Secular Progressive[s]’).” They are unapologetic because they don’t see any need to apologize; it’s the dominant mindset. And from their secular standpoint, they engage in some occasionally brutal attacks on Christianity in particular and on all religion in general. And one of the reasons I’m a weak apologist is that I have to grant a certain amount of credence to some of their criticisms, in spite of their brutality. Yes, I know that from a rationalist viewpoint, some of the doctrines are, to put it kindly, somewhere between wishful thinking, quaint mythology, and utter nonsense, or, put less kindly, total bullshit. Yes, I’m aware that the Church is guilty of a horrifying amount of brutality itself, along with lots of stupidity, intolerance, perversion, and what must be frankly called flat-out insanity. Yes, I admit that some of their practices are mind-bogglingly bizarre. (Most recently, my guru has called my attention to the appallingly weird cult of worship associated with the relic of the supposed foreskin liberated by the circumcision of Jesus.) Yes, I admit that my judgment is doubtless influenced by the fact that I’ve spent most of my life (and still spend what little is left of it) serving the church as a musician, and therefore owe the greater part of my financial livelihood to it.

And yet, even acknowledging all this, I believe it must in all fairness be granted that the Church has accomplished some good in its history, and continues to do so today. The apology is similar to that for our beloved land of the free and home of the brave, which, for all its egregious, lamentable, scandalous faults and crimes, still has much virtue to recommend it. To defend the church on the basis of the good it has accomplished is not by any means to defend its weirder beliefs and practices or its blood-spattered history. It is simply to say that credit should be given where credit is due. (To argue, as John Stuart Mill does, that the good works might have been accomplished without all the incidental bullshit, is another matter.)

But note that I am apologizing specifically for liberal and progressive Christians, who actually share many, perhaps most, of the social, political, and economic ideas and principles of the SPs, but for different reasons, as you might say. This may come as a surprise to some, because I sense that many of the attacks from the SPs are based on the assumption that the ultra-conservative wing-nuts who are the putative target of their attacks are representative of legitimate Christianity (which they themselves certainly claim loudly), and may even be the only real Christians (which also they often claim loudly). And we liberal Christians, for obvious reasons, deeply resent this ruthless hijacking of our faith by a pack of raving lunatics who are frankly considered heretical by mainstream Christians. Indeed, some of the mouth-frothing jackals who run under the banner of right-wing media pundits probably could not even claim with any honesty that they are Christians themselves except when their hysterical rhetoric to that effect serves their purposes. Has Rush Lamebrain ever really claimed to be a Christian? Even among those who ostensibly are, certainly no one is more certifiably deserving to be locked up in a padded cell than that psychotic clown Pat Robertson, and yet millions of sheep hang on his every rant in the belief that it represents authentic Christian teaching. And the Mad Emperor has proudly confessed that all the catastrophically stupid and vicious policies under which he has essentially destroyed one country and threatens to destroy his own and most of the world, have been dictated to him by his Lord and Savior; to which we can only reply that whoever his Lord and Savior is, he is unrecognizable as being even remotely Christian. (Which raises the perennial question of whether the voices one hears talking to him are really the voice of God or are rather the voices of his own demons masquerading as God. It’s the oldest trick in the book, and many of the slimiest pages in the history of the Church could be examined under its merciless light.)

If, then, as I believe, the mainstream Christians outnumber the ultra-right-wing nut-jobs, why are the latter getting all the attention and political power? Please be so kind as to avoid asking me what I mean by mainstream, or how I suddenly started considering liberal/progressive to be synonymous with mainstream. Intellectual rigor has never been one of my strengths, and isn’t a requirement of ranting anyway. As Blow-job Bill would say, it all depends on what you mean by “meaning.” There is no statistically quantifiable group defined as “mainstream,” let alone “ultra-right-wing nut-job,” so I just use them as loose terms to state my personal biases, and on the basis of these biases, I can confidently claim, without any need for verification, that we outnumber them. So there. And the reasons why mainstream/liberal (a new clumping) Christians are voiceless and powerless are pretty similar to the reasons why Democrats (with whom there is a certain amount of overlap, even though you won’t find many Democrats admitting it) are also voiceless and powerless. We aren’t as well organized, we aren’t as well funded, we aren’t as united in our agendas (are, in fact, notoriously fragmented), and frankly, we aren’t as savagely ruthless and unscrupulous as our enemies. All too many Democrats are cringing, limp-dicked pansies who avoid making any controversial statement or taking any strong position for fear of drawing the wrath of the Political Correctness Nazis. Liberal Christians, on the other hand, are, at their prophetic best (vide Martin Luther King jr.), not at all hesitant to piss off the powers of this world and let the devil take Political Correctness. But there are no more liberal Christians willing to take the prophetic mantle of Dr King, perhaps at least partly because of that unpleasant little incident in Memphis which continues to haunt anyone who might dare to follow in his footsteps.

And so we languish, waiting for we know not what. Yes, Virginia, there are liberal Christians, but they are under-organized, under-funded, timid, fragmented, leaderless, voiceless—altogether a sorry lot. Don’t expect any more from them than you might from the Democrats who have “won control” of Congress. The christo-fascists, even after all the damage they’ve suffered from Ted Faggard, Mark Foley, and all the other fuckwad perverts and douchebag criminals who have discredited the Elephants, still have the power, and we’re still up Shit Creek without a paddle.

After-birth:
Apropos of absolutely nothing above is the story of redneck Anglos in Montana harassing Native Americans by yelling at them, “Hey, why don’tcha go back where you came from!” File that under “Unclear on the concept.”