Religious Intollerance

I have given myself a few days to calm down after receiving an email from a family member. Fortunately, not blood family, but an add-on. If it were blood family, I don’t know what I would have done. As it is I hardly have any contact with “it” anyway and from now I definitely won’t want anything to do with them as they have just proved to me that narrow mindedness is catching.

The email in question started off innocently enough, telling me what they were up to for the Easter weekend. And then, unexpectedly, the following was inserted into the email:

to day until 2 morrow we fast for our heathen foreign families praying they dont die and burn in hell ........ then have communion and chomp a few hot - x - buns to break the fast after the easter service.

And I think to myself – in the words of Marcus – WTF? Where in all the world did that comment come from? What prompted it at all? Did add-on family member and its wife eventually lose their minds and join a cult of some sort? Never in my wildest dreams have I ever said anything about their religion, about my own beliefs, or anything of the sort...

I think they must have because I have NEVER in my life had anyone, even jocular, say anything to me like that. My outrage is genuinely beyond words. What makes me shake my head is that they are Rice Christians – do you know what Rice Christians are? – they “converted” to Christianity to have a white church wedding a few years ago.

At first it was jocular and then in the end, all the dogma sank in. We thought, fantastic, good for them. Fabulous thing to do, get religion, some direction. They have been after all, been living in “sin” and suddenly, once they got engaged and went to church, oops, no sex, sorry. Only for married people. They got married in a hair raising “halleluja” service. She looked lovely in her dress though. And the food was nice. She did swear like a trooper at the party and danced like a mynead. He just leered all the girls and regretted his choice of getting hitched.

Then, they started going to church, for real. Then of course they started on us. Come to church, blah blah. We never took them up on any of their offers. I grew up in a highly Christian household and after 24 years of going to church 3 times a week, teaching Sunday School and singing in the choir, and belonging and running the church youth group, I have had enough. I now believe what I believe, I am a searcher and have read tonnes of books on theology, mysticism, gnostic gospels and everything else I could lay my hands on as I was trying to find something that resonated better than an angry god that hated women, that encouraged bloodshed and did nothing to stop the wars raging across the world. I can form my own opinions now, thank you very much, I don’t need some pretend-priest of some scattered branch of some obscure fragment of a denomination to preach at me and tell me if I don’t repent, I will burn in hell, that as a woman I am worth less than a man and that all we are good for is to support our “men” and be good wives, tending to our many children as birth control is a sin.

And now this email! After a few other veiled comments like this: “maybe you should go to church sometimes, pray for your souls”, I think, said add-on family member can go and fly a kite in a thunderstorm. And the funniest thing is, sober they are religious and don’t swear and behave relatively normally (and listen to nice church approved music) but give them a drink and by the gods, they are back to their old ways, as easy as that, drinking, swearing and smoking and carousing. Rice Christians, they are a funny lot. I am so glad I haven't seen them in almost five years. I don't think I would be able to control myself if I ever had to see them again.