I was three years old when the twin maladies of drought and depression brought a continuing calamity to the Saskatchewan prairies. When I was seven or thereabouts, I received four nickels from my parents every week. My discretionary spending was a “Saturday Dime (soon reduced to a nickel) and a nickel for Sunday School, which I did not begrudge, and another for Mission Band. Parental authority forced me to give up afternoon playtime and a precious nickel in support of missionaries who were trying to inoculate hordes of hapless heathens with the white man’s religion. I didn’t like the idea. Also, when I left food on my plate at a meal I was adjured to “think of the hungry heathen and eat it all up.” I didn’t understand how my gorging was of any benefit to starving people in other places. I didn’t like that idea, either.
Perhaps, even then, I had an old, second-hand soul, which understood that bibles weren’t edible. Many years later, I see it clearly. I would never feel worthwhile in some far place talking about Christianity to children whose bellies swell with emptiness and whose eyes are filled with fear. They must have all the necessities of life – food, clothing, shelter, pure water. They need, in time, to make choices about how they will be governed and by whom. They need to have the power to control or expel corporate pirates who wound Mother Earth in the extraction of her treasures. They need schools, health care and freedom from terror. When they have all these things, it will be time for studies in comparative religion.
The United States of America is the chief bastion of fundamentalist Christianity. In both print and electronic media I have seen opulent churches in which believers sing and shout “Jesus Loves Me.” I don’t believe it. In order to do so, I would need to believe Jesus does not love the many billions in this world that are victims of starvation, disease, slavery and violence.
Nor do I believe Christian teaching requires believers to carry lethal weapons in order to protect their persons and property from dangerous sinners.
Christian fundamentalists in the United States are the most avid supporters of the State of Israel. Israel was created by the United Nations but owes its continued existence to the massive diplomatic, financial and military support of the United States of America. Christian fundamentalists believe their government is doing what is favourable in the eyes of the Christian God. This is hard to believe. To do so requires acceptance of the idea that millions of displaced Palestinians are of no worth as human beings and have no god to care about them.
In Canada, sanctimonious Canadians attempted to bring about the forced conversion of the aboriginal people. In doing so, they tried to destroy the often beautiful spiritualism of the Original People. There should be neither coercion nor bribery in reshaping religious beliefs. Apologies are not enough. A reluctant Canadian government must make full amends. First Nation people must take their seats in the governing councils of Canada.
When Pope Francis cast aside the traditional splendours of the Vatican to live humbly and frugally, he was making a statement. He was showing that leaders should be servants. He was showing the survival of our planet and its life forms depend on the masses, and their governments, resisting the power of the oligarchy of wealth that continues to threaten the prosperity and peace of the people as it has done for many centuries. He is facing opposition. Such is the way of colossal greed.
