pc perfessor bites back

[grip at netcom.com]

On Wed, 19 Feb 1997, Diana York Blaine wrote:

> Seriously I am hard-pressed to believe that I was slammed today by someone
> who belongs to the pynchon-list for taking a less-than-holier-than-thou
> look at the institution of Christianity.  

I must have missed this, Diana. But then I had over a 100 e-mails and 
went through them rather quickly.

> ...but I feel if you
> aren't in serious conflict about the manifestations of that religion in
> the last thousand years you must be quite an amazing specimen.

Total agreement here.

It was the paradox of Christians treating other human beings the way 
slaves were that probably initiated the notion that the slaves were less 
than human in some way. It's okay to work a horse in a harness and if 
some other creature with superficial similarities is usable, then by all 
means use them. Just don't acknowledge that they are, in fact, human too. 

When I was a child and visited my grandmother up in rural Tennessee, I 
spent some time with her neighbor, W. W was a good Christian. Went to 
church every Sunday. Worked hard farming and raising his family. 

Every spring he came over to my grandmother's farm and plowed her fields 
for her. He'd never accept anything for it although it was several days 
of hard labor. The horses pulled the plow, but it took a lot of effort to 
keep it straight and turn it at the end of each pass.

He was the kind of man I suppose my great grandfather was. Generous, 
courtly, hardworking, helpful; everything a good Christian is supposed to be.

But he said to me on more than one occasion that he would think no more 
of shooting a nigger than he would a squirrel. 

He couldn't justify doing that to a creature he thought of as being 
human. He had to push these peole down to the level of animals to 
balance the conflict between his religious beliefs and his feelings 
towards them.

It's not hard to do.

Look at all the rich Christians in world.
 
Somehow or other they manage to ignore such clear warnings as, "It is 
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man 
to enter into the kigdom of God." (Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, and Luke 18:25)
You'd think with it in three of the four gospels, it would be taken more to 
heart, but people will, as they always do, ignore what they don't want to 
hear and believe whatever is in their best economic interests.

I heard some LA preacher on TV a few years back - I think it was Shiller, 
the guy with the glass cathedral - telling his parishioner how God wanted 
them to be rich. Only in LA!

grip