Okay, I was starting to get a little bit hot around the collar, messaging back and forth with my brother over the appropriateness of this little Christian screed, an ode of sorts to the children killed at Sandy Hook.

So I thought, instead of just snarking about it and not really making my point, I should take a deep breath, think about it for a couple of seconds and write it all down in one place.

This poem is a bad thing. But before I get ahead of myself, let’s all read it together, shall we? I’m sure you will recognize the well-worn cadence:

Twas’ 11 days before Christmas, around 9:38
when 20 beautiful children stormed through heaven’s gate.
their smiles were contagious, their laughter filled the air.
they could hardly believe all the beauty they saw there.
they were filled with such joy, they didn’t know what to say.
they remembered nothing of what had happened earlier that day.
“where are we?” asked a little girl, as quiet as a mouse.
“this is heaven.” declared a small boy. “we’re spending Christmas at God’s house.”
when what to their wondering eyes did appear,
but Jesus, their savior, the children gathered near.
He looked at them and smiled, and they smiled just the same.
then He opened His arms and He called them by name.
and in that moment was joy, that only heaven can bring
those children all flew into the arms of their King
and as they lingered in the warmth of His embrace,
one small girl turned and looked at Jesus’ face.
and as if He could read all the questions she had
He gently whispered to her, “I’ll take care of mom and dad.”
then He looked down on earth, the world far below
He saw all of the hurt, the sorrow, and woe
then He closed His eyes and He outstretched His hand,
“Let My power and presence re-enter this land!”
“may this country be delivered from the hands of fools”
“I’m taking back my nation. I’m taking back my schools!”
then He and the children stood up without a sound.
“come now my children, let me show you around.”
excitement filled the space, some skipped and some ran.
all displaying enthusiasm that only a small child can.
and i heard Him proclaim as He walked out of sight,
“in the midst of this darkness, I AM STILL THE LIGHT.”

Written by Cameo Smith, Mt. Wolf, PA

Alrighty then. Why is this bad?

Let’s start with the fact that not all of the children in this tragedy were Christian children. It is an obvious affront to the parents of these children to have some well-meaning Jesus freak portray them as showing up post-massacre in a WASP heaven.

Its insulting. You don’t get to just commandeer this tragedy to prop up your religious interpretation of the world without considering the religious interpretations of the people you are ostensibly honoring with your seasonably derivative efforts. As an atheist, I am urged and expected to be respectful of the fact that someone with different beliefs than me chose to construct this fantasy. But must that include accepting this exercise in Christ-washing the people involved? Why can’t we appreciate their own beliefs as we console ourselves with ours? Why not acknowledge the differences?

Because that is not the aim here. This is less about poetry than it is about politics, and to make some nicey, nicey story out of it only serves as an apologia to the unanswered question “Why would a God of perfection and love allow such a thing?”

This is the kind of blind turning away from reality that Religions are famously good at. In doing so, we can not address the real issues. As long as we are making up stories to make the events at hand match our infantile inadequate belief systems, we can ignore the cancer of violence, mental breakage and the real tragedy that is the state of our American so-called culture. A culture I might add, that has been largely shaped by the constancy of our religious underpinnings and its inherent ironies, inconsistencies and outright lies.

An honest look at history and the development of evangelical Christianity in this country will support the declaration that it is not because we as a nation have strayed from God that our society faces these ills, but because the religions have themselves strayed from the original interpretations of their own doctrines and are themselves the seed of the rottenness that pervades us. Evangelical Christianity is a recent phenomenon in America, a twentieth century trend, and its rise in our country has directly mirrored the apparent destruction of the social fabric. Is there a causality there? Maybe, maybe not. But the argument that America has abandoned God or turned its back on God or any of that blathering idiocy cannot be supported by any defensible argument. It just simply has not happened. In as much as Religion still operates in America, the primary, number one most subscribed to belief system is Protestant Christianity.

What has happened, is that Evangelical Christianity has gotten a larger and larger share of a disappearing market. That the market for religion is continually shrinking is as inevitable as the disappearance of the Greek Pantheon in daily life. Knowledge brings change. The grasping effort to hold on to power is what is at issue. The increasingly desperate need of the Churches – all of the Churches – to maintain some level of relevance in the world drives those who would support that effort to ever more radical, more insidious, more ridiculous and more dangerous lengths.

Lucky for us that this person chose merely to misrepresent the children, trivialize their deaths and attempt to co-opt and capitalize on a national tragedy in order to win points and perhaps gain some extra change in church coffers across America this Sunday. It could have been worse.

But let’s not stop there. Let us look at the language and the imagery of this peaceful little ditty. It struck me as odd that the children “stormed” into heaven. Is that intended to illustrate the violence with which these innocents met their doom? Is heaven itself under attack by such a never-ending flood of blood-drenched victims that the only way to get in now is to storm, whereas in a simpler age one might have simply moseyed in?

And why is it that the children remember nothing? That to me is especially peculiar, because I thought that the point of going to heaven, or at least a major side-effect, was the healing of all wounds. Any real God would not need amnesia to get the job done. Forgetting is not healing, forgetting is asking to be trapped forever in a cycle of repetitive experience. Eastern religions for instance, have the gradual attainment of perfect knowledge and wisdom as a large factor in achieving Grace. What’s up with Christianity? We don’t need forgetting from God, we have pharmaceuticals for that.

Then there is the rhetorical heart of this illustrative work of genius, the middle section:

“Let My power and presence re-enter this land!”
“may this country be delivered from the hands of fools”
“I’m taking back my nation. I’m taking back my schools!”

Politically charged, don’t you think? Oddly reminiscent of some recent quotes by prominent right wing political poseurs.

One might take pause to consider if Jesus would be inclined to “take” in any circumstance, let alone on the heels of tragic death. Why would Jesus need to preface such a taking with a large amount of unnecessary death?

And in what book of the old or new testament is the United States of America mentioned? Copyright page notwithstanding, I can’t find the reference. I always thought it was Israel that was God’s nation, at least that’s what they say when you ask why the Palestinians get treated so poorly. Forgive me my imprudence, but it seems conflicted. Maybe I missed some footnotes.

And who are these fools the country is to be delivered from? This does not sound like the kind of pronouncement that should issue from a God. This sounds way too much like “I hope I win the lottery” to me. Self-serving, opinionated, and calculated to be a message to all of those who, wink-wink, understand who the fools are and who the country is to be delivered to once the revolution takes hold.

My message to that is “fuck you”. Supplant yourself before whatever imaginary zombie monster you like, but we have elections in this country, and if there’s any taking back to be done it will be done in accordance with the laws of the land and the will of the majority. This appeal to magical intervention ain’t happening. But in the meantime, that’s not even cute.

And as for the end piece, well, for that I have no real argument, or sympathy, because it is so blatantly pathological, so self-serving, so bereft of anything approaching human empathy, that I think I should just turn this post over to Tim Minchin.