MY BIBLE’S BIGGER THAN YOUR BIBLE

A Black Eyed Story

WE WILL NOT CONVINCE THEM

I’ve decided not to bother trying anymore. And while “throwing in the towel” may come off as dramatically and hopelessly pessimistic, my theological temperament is not haughtily negative. However, it’s not quite the opposite. I’m far from being an optimist. What could be less optimistic than writing about my decision to stop trying to convice a fearful, Christianese lot that they have nothing to fear? If I’m optimistic about anything, it’s that I’m positive there are better and brighter and worthier ways to spend my time than preaching to bible-thumping naysayers and those who love them.

I mean, just look at these pictures. There’s no way I’m going to convince them that it doesn’t have to be this way. Likewise, they could never convice me that their way is the only way. So no, I’m neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I don’t even think I’m a realist. After all, what’s real to me is completely fake to the folks in these pictures.

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WE WILL NOT PERSUADE THEM

If I consider myself to be anything, I’m an out and proud humanist who believes there is a God. And being so, I neither look for the worst nor the best in people, but instead I search for the human and the holy. I admit it’s hard to find both of those things in the above pictures. But I believe they’re there – right? I mean, these are human beings. Therefore, they too are holy, even if I can’t find a holy humanity in their message or their ways.

I know that as long as I live, no matter how many essays, books or posts I write, I won’t be able to persuade them to think or behave otherwise.

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WE WILL NOT CHANGE THEM

The wheels were in motion long before my time. The kind of people who end up in these pictures have been out here in these streets campaigning for the world they’ve envisioned—White, straight, cis, patriarchal, Christian—since long before I was born. I cannot change them. And you can’t either. Since the signing of the Constistution, they’ve been as sure as sure that America belongs to them because (according to them) God gave it to them. You and I know it’s a lie. I even suspect that deep down inside they do too—but what a delicious, tantalizing, all-mighty, all-powerful lie it is! So much so, they fear they’ll be left with nothing if they were to let go of it.

We can’t convice, persuade, or change them. But we can take back what they took: our humanity and our worthiness along with our beliefs, questions, and doubts about this God and this Bible that they’ve laid claim to. It’s time to go back and collect all that was lost the minute Constantine confused Jesus with power. Next week, let’s start from the beginning: Genesis, Chapter 1.