As I was driving through Myers Corners on my home from the market, I spied a church sign that read "Why do atheists curse a God they don't think exists?" If the author of the sign cares to know, the answer is "they don't". I have never known an atheist who cursed God or any combination of gods or demigods or any supernatural being. They don't believe in curses any more than they believe in God. Clearly, the author of the sign has a problem with atheists and feels comfortable accusing them of something ridiculous. I'm okay with atheists as I understand that they believe what they believe in the same arbitrary and involuntary way that I believe what I believe. I don't worry about them at all. I worry about other Christians, especially those whose views on the teachings of Jesus are so opposed to my own.
Take Rick Warren. Please. I first became aware of Warren when I partcipated in a churchwide program "40 Days of Purpose" based on Warren's "Purpose Driven Life". As Calvinists we, at least in my small group, overlooked Warren's Arminianism and droning on about how he wanted to "win one more for Jesus" as if he had anything to do with whether anyone was saved. It wasn't a deep program, but it was okay, and I had a slightly favorable impression of Warren. When he came out and argued that evangelicals neded to be "for" things, like fighting poverty, instead of "against" things all the time, I admired his leadership.
This didn't last long. If Warren was not complicit in John McCain's cheating on the rules of the forum at Saddleback, his refusal to condemn it was dishonorable. Most recently, Warren went on Sean Hannity. Worse, he endorsed state sposored murder as Biblical pursuant to Romans 13. This allowed me to relegate Warren to the category of Christianist wanker and to stop paying him any heed.
Now Obama has invited the murder endorser to deliver the invocation at his inauguration. I hope this is to give everyone a chance to scrutinize Warren as much as Jeremiah Wright was scrutinized. Let's take the blasphemy spewed forth by Warren, Hagee, Paisley and their ilk and compare and contrast it with Wright's more controversial utterances. I don't think most Americans really know what these Christianists stand for and that their skin would crawl if they understood. If they thought Wright was scary, they'll really freak when they get to know the religious right for what it really is.
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