Springtime, Saturday traffic, soccer fields, & the body politic - and God

[Stinky The Clown]

This morning I was driving SparklyJr to work, and then Sparkly and I had some errands. Traffic was horrendous - as it always is on Saturday morning. This morning we had occasion to go a route we rarely travel on weekends. It passes two sets of soccer fields. One operated by the County Recreation and Parks league and one at a place called 'Covenant Park', operated by a Christian Fellowship (as it says on the sign) and no more than two or three years old. This morning, the county fields were operting, but had a pretty thin crowd. The 'Covenant Park' fields were mobbed and they were the source of this pocket of gridlocked traffic in which we found ourselves.

The county league has been around for ages and is very well run and fields good, competitive teams, but also has teams that are purely instructional - intended to teach the game and allow the kids to just plain have fun. In the nearly quarter century I've lived here, this league has always been well thought of and well supported. Both my sons did a stint in their baseball leagues.

So Sparkly asks .... 'why do we need that other league?" I pointed out that its a 'christian' league. She had never noticed that on the sign before.

But then we started to talk about it. Why, indeed, do we 'need' another league?

Well ..... we don't.

But this sort of thing is indicative of how deeply the religiously insane have gotten themselves interwoven into the very fabric of American society.

There is, on reflection, a megachurch in our area. Covenant Chruch. Coincidence?

Hardly. Neither is Covenant School.

What's different? Why do they need these parallel institutions? What's taught there? What do the kids playing soccer at 'Covenant Park' think of the kids who play at the county field?

Might they feel .... superior? Might they feel .... 'better than' .. ? Might they feel 'chosen'?

These are no more and no less than an American version of the madrasas we decry in the middle east. The message is more subtle. The look is softer. The rhetoric is more quiet. But I cannot see it as being one iota different.

Madrasas. American madrasas. Fountains of 'separatism'. Institutional religious segregation. With soccer shoes and colored shirts and kids laughing and moms and dads cheering. Looking for all the world like mainstream Americans.

American Madrasas.

Convince me that I'm wrong.

[salin]

1. Interesting thought.

Put into a historical perspective though, I think these will fade. Throughout the US history there have been periods of great revivalism (fervent, fundamentalist periods of 'revivalism') that in historical senses often last 20-40 years. The timing of these often seem to fall in a period of great technological and economic changes - and I suspect begin to pick up speed when fear of survival (economic uncertainly) create a need for the many to cling to something that seems unchanging, secure, and offers "salvation" (from the fears.) For some who get pulled into the movements it is deeply psychologoical, for others there is a pull to belong and not become socially isolated, unacceptable - it is the latter group which makes the whole thing pick up to critical mass.

Why have these eras faded away/down? Because the puritanical impulses that are pushed are frankly hard to live by, hard to sustain and offer little in the long run except disillusionment for many. Over time more folks fall away or intentionally turn away, then the 'mass appeal' part of the critical mass fall away, and eventually all that are left are those who were most ferverant to begin with.

I sense this is beginning to happen - a turning away - mass media/communication has made the most zealot (and over the top crazy) esp those pursuing theocracy - have started pushing some folks out of the more literalist groups and back into mainline churches our out of churches altogether. Imo, we are towards the beginning of the decline of this era (I would put the acceleration of the era somewhere in the mid eighties - with the denuement around the impeachment era - but with an anomolous second peak due to the fear sparked by 911).

I do hear your point per the Madrases comparison - and think that some of the seperatism certainly pushes a mindless acceptance, self-superiority, and 'war-like' battle readiness against others. It is very scary.

However I write the above description - because it occurs to me that what we have witnessed is not a new phenom to this country - and hopefully is following the historic pattern of fizzling out in terms of a strong force of social organizing, and as a force shaping politics. Perhaps I am just overly optomistic that this era is going to repeat the patterns of past eras.

[Stinky The Clown]

2. Thanks for a thoughtful counterview

Like you, I've always held that there's nothing new and history will always repeat itself.

I suspect, on that point, you're right.

Meanwhile, I continue to be amazed at the audacity of these madrasas. And how much money they can raise. Their congregants must be as much victim as congegant.

[Dunvegan]

3. Well, the fundies support a lot of economic policy problems...

...then they become more afraid because of the harder times, so they cling even tighter...then they see it's an unsubstainable life-style...then they begin to fall away...and (as the poster above said) when it's not a huge fun group anymore, the membership and financial backing begins to plunge.

It's a cycle all right.

Hope we're nearing the end of this cultish behaviour by so many Americans. It often creates economic disaster. But they never see straight, so they never learn.

[salin]

4. There is something almost evil

as the idea of 'in the name of God' leading people away from God (in terms of further and further from Grace, as in further and further away from the behaviors of compassion, doing for others, etc.) So you have good people, going to Church, being preached some sort of abberant theology of hatred for outsiders, judegment of others - even those of similar faiths but not their exact theology, all from the pulpit. I believe that many of the ministers in these churches *know* they are no longer teaching the Gospels of Christ - but realize that their rhetoric is "working" and getting folks to cough up $$, or give them (at least in the church) power... and thus that they are knowingly leading people away from God. Pat Robertson, in particular, comes to mind. Very, very dark, imo.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. I'm sure I related this story before ........

A few years back, we had a sad family business to attend to. Sparkly has three sisters and we all gatherd at the home of one, in the upper midwest. This one sister is a fundy, married to a fundy. Good people, all, and not hesitant to change churchs as disillusion sets in. But, in the end, fundies.

All four sisters, and we-the-spouses, went to Sunday services (it was that kind of family business). A huge stage. Teevee cameras and stage sets. A giant 'jumbotron' screen as a backdrop. A mixture of live sermons and video shorts. A racially diverse crowd and a decidedly white message (obviously the irony was lost on the congregants).

The three 'outside' sisters and the three outside we-the-spouses were positively appalled and looked it when the preacher, with his hundred dollar haircut and two thousand dollar suit and smarmy smile, told the congregants he needed more money .... and that retirees amng them should consider signing over 20% of THEIR MONTHLY RETIREMENT INCOME to the church. "Your brothers and sisters will see to your care".

In their defense, fundy sister and fundy bro-in-law, soon let the rest of know they'd found a new church.

[salin]

6. Not even trying to hide the greed

disgusting. Yet mystifying how such overt hucksterism was so successful as to afford a set up large enough and lavish enough to include a jumbotron. *shudder* Glad to hear that the fundy sister and he-the-spouse - found a new church.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. We've not been to the 'new' church, but we're told

its smaller.