We can’t say we weren’t warned. The Bible is replete with ominous references to the Devil masquerading as a prophet of God. And it seems as if today’s religions are providing ample evidence of this soul chilling phenomenon.
I am not just talking about aberrations like ISIS. I am including Christian religions also. History is bloodstained with the results of perverted religious fervor. Catholics burned Protestants at the stake and tortured “heretics” during the Inquisition. Protestants massacred Catholics … and on and on…
Today’s manifestations of diabolical infiltration are perhaps even more sinister because they are often so cleverly disguised.
Today’s devils don’t just wear black masks and carry automatic rifles; they may also wear suits and ties – expensive suits and designer ties.
In America, the media have labeled these charlatans “the religious right.”
Of course they aren’t really religious – if by religious you mean godly. And while they are as far right politically as they can wriggle, they are certainly wrong in every other respect.
They are purveyors of bigotry and greed, preachers of a “prosperity religion” that mocks the teachings of their professed spiritual leader. They are power seekers and influence peddlers, the kind of “religious” leaders that make the Borgias seem innocent by comparison.
So it is frightening to learn that these unwholesome beings are launching a second front in their crusade to establish a perverse theocracy in America.
An article in Salon.com today describes the movement this way:
People for the American Way released a report showing that rather than leaving worldly politics behind in reaction to the rise of the boorish and profane Donald Trump, as many people have been predicting, the religious right is gathering their forces for more assaults on the state houses around the country in pursuit of what they have duplicitously labeled “religious liberty”.
How diabolically clever! Disappointed by Supreme Court decisions and federal anti-bigotry laws, the agents of the Dark Side are mobilizing to attack the weakest link in American democracy – state politics.
Sadly, America’s voters, who increasingly tend to flit from state to state, pay scant attention to local elections. Only a handful of our neighbors vote in the municipal elections here in Central Florida, for example.
The current focus of the religious right’s perverse crusade is sexual orientation. Legislatures are zeroing in on gays and lesbians – especially on the transgendered. But that’s surely just the beginning of a larger campaign to impose their “religious” standards on the rest of us.
As Pastor Martin Niemöller famously said of Hitler’s rise:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
