‘AMERICAN TALIBAN’: Use Bible to ‘mock, maim and control’

I grew up in the “American Taliban.” I saw bad men protected and good men do nothing. I saw people who claimed to know God live like they were serving Satan. Deceit, double standards and reputation over character were not just common, but a rule. The Bible was used as a weapon to mock, maim and control. It was completely void of its ancient Eastern tongue full of poetry, depth, mysticism and paradox. Its words were not simply misconstrued, but used for things wholly against what Jesus preached: pardoning abuse, cradling misogyny, demanding submission, stifling free thought and cheering for militant action.

Many Christians in this “Bible Belt” of North Idaho believe the rejection of “their God” is persecution. They operate as if the Pharisees are outside their gates and cults are as far removed from them as Jonestown was from the U.S. They believe that it is the world rejecting their truth, and therefore they must fight the world. Real truth requires no defense, but beliefs rooted in fear, act out in constant defense. Why, because they are built on partisanship, racism, misogyny, abuse and cultish behavior all of which sit paranoid in a glass box. May the Religious Right’s cheap representation of love be exposed. And to address the Religious Right: maybe it is not the world that hates God, maybe they hate who you have made God out to be.

MIKYL SWOBODA

Hauser