No More Mr. Nice Guy!

He who walks behind the rows - with an assault weapon

Iowans are normally a pretty sensible and laid-back lot. (I have to say that so as not to piss off my wife.) But nowhere in the US is safe from dangerous religious-right fanaticism. The Des Moines Register recently published (without a hint of disapproval) a rather disturbing article on what the Children of the Corn are doing on their summer vacations:

How can church camp lessons be so intense that they stick with these kids for years afterward?

Let's begin with the ending - that is, the final day of each Camp Survivor, when campers learn about Christian persecution.

The entire week, campers have been divided into tribes. Each tribe has designed an elaborate flag that's been involved in every game and has become its identity. On the last day, Denhart takes away the flags and announces that it's now illegal to be a Christian at Camp Survivor.

Camp counselors put on Army gear and face paint and guard the flags. The counselors tote water balloons; when a camper gets hit, the camper must run to the chapel to read a Bible verse on persecution.

Three counselors posing as police officers can arrest campers for being Christian. The campers are taken to a "jail," where they are enticed with candy to try and reveal the secret password. If they do reveal the secret password, their team's leader is captured.

It always amazes me about the lunatic extreme right that the more deathly their grip on political, judicial and media power in this country, the more total their control, the more they wallow in their absurd persecution complex - and the more frenziedly they brainwash their children with this persecution fantasy. Illegal to be a christian, indeed! Projection, anyone?

I don't claim to be a christian, but what an appallingly shallow vision of what the religion is all about! Being a christian just means belonging to a certain "tribe" and knowing the "secret password" which entitles you, even though "persecuted", to sit in judgment on everyone else's lives, especially their sex lives.

Shouldn't it be about demonstrating, by example in your daily life, the teachings of Jesus? Shouldn't it make you think about your own actions, the beam in your own eye, and how to be a better person? Heck, no! The religious right has turned Jesus into a mute eunuch. Keep trumpeting his name, but heavens forbid you should think about what he actually said. I guess that's another thing that's only for the little people.

Onward Christian Soldiers, marching off to war... who would Jesus carpet-bomb?