My People, My People

I found out last night that my cousin has become a born-again Christian. I can't say that this is an enormous surprise, though it was something of a shock. It's a very strange thing this life. That very same sun that makes life possible will blind you if you stare at it for more than a very few seconds. That burning, vibrating nothingness that we all feel in the deepest pockets of our sensitivities must, for some, be neglected, ignored-- ultimately written away. Religion has always been one of the ways people cope with this existential doublecross. I, for one, certainly don't begrudge religious people their religion. Quite the contrary. However, I do find the modern American form of evangelical Christianity to be not only intellectually stifling and aesthetically stuffy, but a real danger to the hopes of modernity; and even more to the point, a considerable threat, along with other fundamentalisms, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the rest of us "heathens," or "infidels," take your pick.

Ian Masters, host of the Sunday morning KPFK program, Background Briefing, has now for years been hammering away as to why no one in the Washington press corps will ask the president point-blank if he agrees with the evangelical reading of the Book of Revelation and believes in the rapture and end times and all of that bullshit. If so, then Masters believes this is a fundamental conflict of interest and should disqualify Bush from holding the office. The reasoning goes that if he truly believes in these "prophesies," then he can't be trusted to "preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States," as the oath of office insures us he will.

I tend to see Bush as more of a political opportunist than a true believer, but one can never be sure. Even so, if it is only an exercise in political calculus that compels Bush to posture as a true believer, it doesn't negate the threat posed by having to forever appease this very loud bloc of the Right-wing base. Once you make this Faustian deal with the evangelicals (as the Republicans have), you're pretty much fucked. On so many issues, these mad, "Boschist" interpretations of ancient prophesies can quickly morph into modern-day self-fulfilling prophesies that reap real consequences in real time. Think of Israel. Think of the environment. Think of global warming. Think of science itself. Pretty much every issue imaginable (excepting, of course, anything to do with sex) is rendered meaningless if you've bet the farm on the world coming to a fiery end in the very near future-- an end that you yourself will be spared from as you will be whisked away to some unimaginable paradise.

My cousin's story is probably (and predictably) not very different from what I would guess are many like stories of conversion-- except that he's the half-Mexican grandson of a Jewish refugee and Marxist activist; a bastard-child whose mother used to smuggle drugs to her Black Panther boyfriend by way of her cooch while he was spending time in the big house; and a Jew who, unlike pretty much everybody else in my family that I can think of, actually had a bar mitzvah.

Anyway, the short version: He knocked his high-school sweetheart up while they were both in their teens, married her shortly thereafter, fathered three additional children with sweetheart, got henpecked to the point of scarification by sweetheart, was convinced to become born-again Christian by sweetheart. As I said, a typical story of conversion in the heartland of this ol' America-- in this case, the central valley of California.

Next up: He'll be voting Republican in the next election to the sounds of my grandmother doing the Watusi in her grave.