Civil Commotion

This is International Blasphemy Rights Day, and y’all will probably not be surprised to learn that I am a strong supporter of blasphemy rights. The more blaspheming the merrier, I always say.

I favor speaking ill of the supersized-human god of the Old Testament, the smarmy god of the New Testament, and Alvin Plantinga’s “ground of all being” — whatever that is supposed to mean. I’m fine, too, with people who speak ill of cows (beloved by Hindus), rats (beloved by other Hindus), vultures (beloved by some Zoroastrians), and magic crystals and incense (beloved by New Age nutjobs).

I don’t have a problem, either, with people who wonder what sort of deformed human being would want to spend eternity with the inventor of Hell. I’m cool, also, with people who frankly acknowledge the incontestable fact that Joseph Smith was a con artist, and that those who don’t know it are mor[m]ons. I’m allright with ridiculing Jehovah’s Witnesses, too, because they’re still trying to puzzle-out why the godly weren’t whisked to their reward in 1917. Provided you’re armed, have a good giggle at the idea that Muhammad galloped off to heaven on a white horse. And while you’re at it, flick your nose at Valhalla, where Norse warriors go after their career of carnage and mayhem down here on earth.

Just don’t make fun of Paul Bunyan. I’ll kick your ass, you do a thing like that.

It seems that, back in my hometown of Detroit, there’s a black market for fake Covid-vaccination documentation.

Feds crack counterfeit COVID-19 vaccination card rings in Detroit

Federal prosecutors Wednesday charged two people in connection with selling COVID-19 vaccination cards, including a Detroit man accused of selling counterfeit Chinese-made cards on Instagram and a nurse who sold legitimate cards for $200 each.

Unsealed federal court records describe a burgeoning, black market bypass for people who want to appear to have received a vaccine amid a rise in vaccine mandates at public- and private-sector jobs and universities.

As somebody who got vaccinated at the very first opportunity, I admit that it never occurred to me that such a thing might be happening. After all, who takes $200 out of his pocket in order to avoid a free vaccine so that he remains susceptible to an often-fatal disease? Really: WHO!??

Really stupid people — that’s who.

I have difficulty imagining the conversation that leads one to a fake vaccination-card supplier, too. Do you tell your co-workers you wish to be unprotected against an often-fatal disease, and possibly enhance their danger of sickness, and then ask them for help?

I don’t get it. I don’t understand people who wish so strongly to remain unvaccinated that they will commit a fraud against their co-workers, their friends, their family, and I can’t think how one goes about building a business to satisfy that desire.

I’ve been diligently observing, waiting to see what line Trump could cross that would trigger outrage and rebuke from the white evangelicals who enabled his rise to power. There has been none. As Trump has disparaged immigrants, demonized Muslims, encouraged white supremacist groups, valorized the Confederacy, and used the Bible as a political prop, white evangelicals have not only sat idly by but incorporated these bigoted values into what they then defend as a biblical worldview.

Robert P. Jones

The remarkable thing about this quote is not its content, which is something I and a great many others have talked about for years, but where it appears: Baptist News Global.

The incandescent hypocrisy of the pews is in plain sight of anybody who looks and has a properly-functioning mind, and a single indignant pastor is not going to change much; more likely, the editor’s mailbox is already filling with angry complaints.

This has been a spring and summer of unusual travel and busy-, busy-, busyness. Unhappily, in a few days we’ll be traveling again — this time to Ohio for a funeral.

Hopefully, life and posting will be back to normal this time next week.