What's Wrong With This Picture?

Well, we can't help but remember our good friend Jerry Falwell this week, the man who did so much to improve the quality of politics and life in America.
Jerry made so many fine contributions to our public discourse, it's really hard to know where to start in memorializing him. I guess it's only natural to go with his most famous passage, which he shared with us as our nation agonized over the attacks of 9/11:

I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'.



What's Wrong With This Picture?



Well, that's certainly one explanation for 9/11, isn't it? And it certainly is nourishing to many American souls out there. And no doubt Norman Lear does annoy god sometimes. It's just that pesky logic thing that keeps getting in the way, though.

Like, why is it, if 9/11 was an example of "God continu[ing] to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve" because we've been so bad in recent decades – why is it, Jerry, that god caused your man Bush to be elected only eight months prior? So, let me see if I have this straight – he was blessing our country with this pious Christian leader after we had "mocked" him for so long, but then he turned around and hammered us harder than ever right afterwards? And if so, what is it that might have happened in the prior eight months to make god so angry?!?! Or was it that he was actually angry about the president we (s)elected, and punished us for that?

In the same broadcast, Jerry, you asserted that "there's not much we can do in the Church but what we're supposed to do, and that is pray. Pray for the President that God will give him wisdom, keep bad advisors from him, bring good ones to him". Sorry, but I'd have to say that if ever one needed proof that god was not listening to your prayers, that just about nails it, doesn't it?

But there is just one other nagging question I can't get out of my head, Jerry. And, at the risk of being irreverent, Reverend, I have to ask: If you were so righteous, so tuned-in to god, so good about carrying his message to our twisted and defiled world...

...how come you're dead?

David Michael Green
http://www.regressiveantidote.net