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Christianity Revisited Dallas. I checked a website and Jen had left a message there: Anyone going to Armenia? Address: Dallas. I couldn't believe my luck--that we both lived in the Metroplex and could meet easily. A Thai restaurant on Greenville Avenue. Awkward and frustrating. I said, "So, you guys are Christians?" Their religion seeped from them. Moments of doom and dread. We all left with a feeling that we would never be friends. In fact, I told my roommate when I returned that I would never hang out with them. Which was true. My feelings about Christianity came slowly; the little things add up. But I'll give you two turning point examples: Carla Fay Tucker and WWJD? Tucker was on death row in Texas a couple of years ago. She used a pick ax to murder two people, claiming she had had an orgasm with each blow. While in prison, she converted to Christianity, and had been spending her years incarcerated "saving" other prisoners and doing helpful work. She was an ideal inmate and she was the first woman Texas chose to execute in over 100 years. She was pretty, white, and Christian. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and even the Pope wrote and called Governor Bush, begging the compassionate conservative to save her life. I had a discussion about Carla Fay in my Philosophy classroom--with a largely fundamentalist student population--about what should be done. The Christians generally agreed that Fay should be spared because the good she was doing in missionary work was better than her death. When I asked if they would give her reprieve if she had converted to Islam instead of Christianity, they insisted that it would be fine to kill her if she were Muslim. They said this in front of a Muslim student. That attitude has led to every religious war ever committed on this noble planet and it makes me sick. Not only did it help fuel my distain for Christianity, but also it led to my activism against the death penalty. WWJD (for the uninitiated, it stands for What Would Jesus Do) was a very popular bracelet and game for a while. I saw my students join the trend. They cheated on tests wearing that bracelet. While they spoke proudly with loathing and mockery for the poor and destitute, the ignorant and the hopeless, they wore their trendy WWJD bracelet like Capri pants and hopped in their mommas' SUVs to take them to suburbia. The people wearing WWJD bracelets seemed to think Jesus was an American Republican. I considered Christians people who justify their own prejudices with the Bible and don't read the rest of it. I didn't have a close Christian friend, and I didn't want one. Then I met the Hailes--people who live their beliefs. What would Jesus do? He would join the Peace Corps. He would work with the homeless. He would help refugees. He would try to get people away from their television sets to talk. He would love the world and his mate as deeply and completely as Jen and Jeremy. He would embrace and love and teach and experience this world. He would live Christianity instead of wearing it on his wrist. I thank the Hailes not merely for this space, but for putting life in Christ for me. |