Why I Just Couldn't Live In The North-east Of The United States Anymore......

When I visit my parents we go to different churches on Sundays. Since my Dad is a retired preacher and serves as substitute preacher on Sundays when the regular minister is on holiday, attending some function or continuing education we have the opportunity to visit various Presbyterian churches in the Mid-Hudson region. This past week, however, my Dad had no commitments and we went to the church where he preached for many years while I was growing up.

It being summer, services start at around 9:30 to avoid the heat and so that parishioners have the opportunity to get out and enjoy the rest of their summer day. There weren't many people in attendance, which is to be expected in the summer and this being an inner-city white church, membership has been declining for years in favor of churches outside of town.

I was quite surprised that many of the people I recognized from 30 years ago and in some cases I was amazed that these people were still alive. 30 years is a long time and they weren't young back then. It was also nice to see my best buddy from my much younger days who is now the lay preacher at the church.

There was something that disturbed me listening to the preacher that morning, ergo the title to this post. Usually, the preacher is my Dad and if I disagree with him or if there is something that I don't understand, I have ample opportunity to ask questions later. The minister announced that at 3 PM in the afternoon that we were all invited to a meeting with the Muslim community in town in order to promote understanding between the two religions.

That is all fine and good and a little community gathering and talking is probably a positive thing to do in such times. I am not too familiar with the Muslims in my home town, but for years there was this black Muslim group called the 5% Nation, a militant arm of the Nation Of Islam famously led by the provocative Louis Farrahkan and his outspoken inflammatory statements about Jews. The 5%'ers...

fosters their self-respect by unveiling the divine nature of the Black man -God-, his preexistence in prehistorical Arabic civilization to the white man or "caveman" and the five percenters duty towards the "cattle" or eighty five percent of the population that submits to the dominance of ten percent of exploiters.

Seems like a likeable nice bunch of people! So, maybe the preacher was going to meet with these people, I don't know, but the 5% of my youth were hate filled awful people.

This, in isolation is not disturbing to me, but the minister that morning started talking about family values in his sermon. He talked and mocked those people that sometimes talk about family values [particularly Southern Christians] because they are rigid and obtusely disagree with you unless you follow their orthodox beliefs.

This is what disturbs me. He reaches out to the Muslim community, some of who preach hate against whites and Jews, right there in my home town. But mocks those Christians that are believers in the same communion that we are members of since we have some disagreements on orthodoxy. He wasn't offering that we should reach out to them too, but mocked them for their beliefs, something that he would never do to the Muslims. It amazes me that he even said these things. The mocking and portrayal of fellow Christians as he did that day was unnecessary and is particularly troublesome at a time when we should be mending fences and reaching out to our fellow Christian citizens, too.

I just can't stand these Northeastern attitudes and I left here years ago since I know that I just couldn't stand living here and listening to this drivel day-after-day. I just do not like the Northeastern brand of apologetic liberalism. The dogma rests centrally around the thought that we Americans are always the evil ones and that we need to atone for all of our awful sins. That is why I thank God daily for my opportunity to live elsewhere where I don't have to hear self-deprecating, self destructive crap from my fellow citizens and fellow Christians.