Pastor Worley Congregant Fail

Mark Twain said, “Don’t argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience”!

Some years back I came across a rather long essay that speaks to what I see so much of evidence of today in regards to gay rights, and right here was a prime example. I wish I could find that essay again.

The author looked at all the times throughout history society experienced a great sea-change. The main point was that progress always, ultimately, wins, but as these changes begin, and less-enlightened people begin to the see the change coming, they become scared. People generally don’t like change, and some people just can’t imagine a world different from the one they’ve created (or been told to create). So out of this fear emerges resistance, and this resistance escalates over time as the change becomes more pronounced. It’s the old “wild animal backed into a corner” example.

Eventually, the change becomes ingrained in society, but the author’s point was that it does get worse before it gets better. Most recently we saw this in the civil rights movement. As blacks moved forward with their demands for equal rights, and as those began to take hold, the resistance escalated to outright violence, even violence by government officials and police.

So, in short, it does get worse before it gets better. These people are lazy. They want someone to tell them how they should feel / what to believe, and this is even more potent when it includes religion, especially religions which base their adherence on the threat of “eternal damnation.” For people like this person, who’ve spent a lifetime being frightened into their belief system, she can’t imagine a world where gay people aren’t despised, at least those that are out about it. She doesn’t mind the gay guy leading the choir, so that nice young man who has stayed single to take care of his mother, etc. (Don’t ask, don’t tell.)

So it does scare me that there are people like her, with a blind faith in a particular preacher, and people like this preacher who raise the level of hate rhetoric. The Nazis spent great energy over some years teaching lessons in schools about how all the problems of the world, especially those of Germany, were the fault of the Jews. They ingrained that belief, and that is what many in the evangelical church are doing today, and they’re not afraid to couch it the terms of war and militarism that are common in the Bible. So we shouldn’t be surprised if it ultimately results in an escalation to violence.

People like this woman have a small life, and they want someone to blame for that small life. It can’t be their fault. They are, like the pharisees, being good Christians, so God should be blessing them with a big house, nice cars and perfect children, but he’s not, so it must be because of some other reason. And remember, I think we can already assume she’s too lazy or scared to think for herself, so along comes her religious/spiritual leader to tell her that all the problems we’re facing in this country are the result of an angry God, but he’s not angry at her, but at the Teh Gayz…just fix or get rid of them, and God will bless America again. With a picture like that in her head, how could we expert to believe any different?

And this all is the result of this video getting out.