"Christian"

To be a caring citizen and watch the news is to witness day after day of the bar being lowered so low you can’t believe it can get any lower. And then it does. Just in the past few days, this happened:

 

• Trump , echoing his secret heroes Hitler and Mussolini, vowed to get extinguish the vermin in the country.

 

•Speaker of the House Mike Johnson publicly acknowledged without shame an ap he shares with his son to help them limit their porn viewing. 

 

• Senator Mullin proclaimed himself ready to literally fist-fight Teamsters rep O'Brien in the halls of Congress. And claimed he needed to do so to fulfill his vow to represent his home state Oklahoman values.  

 

All of the above and oh, so many more, proclaim themselves as Christian, conveniently ignoring Jesus’s counsel to turn the other cheek, love your neighbor as thyself and throw the money lenders out of the temple. Not to mention God’s command to not “covet your neighbor’s wife.”

 

I know there are many good-hearted Christians in this country and if I was one of them, I would be aghast that these people sully my religion's name by claiming it as theirs. I propose that every person who identifies themselves as a Christian and all media that identify a person as Christian be required to use quotation marks that can only be removed when one’s words and deeds and understandings actually follow the teaching of Jesus. Until such time as they show they're worthy of the name, they must always call themselves and be called "Christians." Use quotation marks in writing and air quotes when speaking.

And in light of the continued abuse of the most basic tenets of the Constitution, the same should be applied to “American.” Under penalty of law, they should fill out all Visa and Passport and other such application forms with quotation marks until they show, again in both word and deed and understandings, what it means to be an American citizen. We can start with every single member of the  Moms for “Liberty” seeking to dismantle free speech. And continue to just about every Republican in Congress. 

 

And why stop there? Shall we include “Human Being?”