Ted Cruz makes me feel less than enlightened when I look at his face. I keep waiting for him to jump up and announce—“I’m a real boy!” And it gives me a chuckle and then I feel bad, because I don’t like attacking candidates based on their looks, even if as candidates, their outsides seem to match their insides while reflecting their platform.
As a joke, some guys tried to exorcise Ted Cruz. It would have been funnier if Ted Cruz didn’t consort with people who fancy themselves in the Deliverance Movement and kow tow to Dominionism. These are people who whole heartedly embrace the notion that demons make people do bad things like get addicted to porn, or become gay, rather than embracing the fact that repressed sexuality has a tendency to display itself in some seriously dysfunctional kink.
My thoughts are, that it’s not even close enough or far away enough from reality to be funny. It’s just uncomfortable and it backfired making the hecklers the butt of the joke, not Ted Cruz.
You see, some people are emotionally stunted, selfish, greedy, hateful people. There are no demons to blame on that. If one embraces the occult axiom—“As Above, So Below” then it’s safe to say, that with descent in this life to ever depraved depths of selfishness, greed and hatefulness, that someday someone like Ted may contend with a real demon. But his evil, is all his. It’s his test to see what kind of leader he will be in this world.
Will he embrace hate and greed, and hurt people for being different or poor? Or will he embrace enlightenment and compassion, and make a better country for every citizen, even those who are not in his church or in his party?
I say this, with the notion that we are discussing this as if one embraced anything close to this system of belief. Many of you have no interest in the paranormal or supernatural at all, and find it completely unrealistic and not relevant to life in general.
But to untold numbers of registered republicans, Demons are very very real. Addictions, “lifestyle” choices, and moral shortfalls are often ascribed to evil spirits, or demons. Without acknowledging that, one can underestimate the power of religion in this party, and fail to grasp key aspects of the movement in a way that brings comprehension of it’s essential nature. With or without personally believing in demons or gods or anything supernatural. It is this supernatural bent that is so often utilized by other political powers, as a lever to galvanize entire voting blocks of the conservative movement.
You may laugh at this, because it seems silly to you. But regardless of what you see as ridiculous and unreal, to them it is not only real, it is a powerful driving force. Their fear of evil, and of demons, drives them to reject GLBT people because many of these people believe them to be demon-possessed. Their rejection of religious minorities is the rejection of false gods and idolatry, and the worship of demons directly. Their rejection of women’s equality is also an embrace of Biblical law from the Old Testament, thousands of years of subjugation by religious law, to make women inferior, servants. Servants don’t get a choice, they are after all, servants. Chosen for that servile role due to women being cast as moral and intellectual inferiors, cursed by a pissed off god.
The hecklers in this story inadvertently invoked dog-whistle politics for Ted Cruz. Their presence and choice of topic will be seen as a sign to keep progressing and not as a social critique of a morally inferior candidate. Because for a religious person, the world is infused with supernatural omens giving them direction in a morally confusing world populated with demons and evil ghosts and foreigners.
In deliverance ministries circles, they have just as powerful a belief in the supernatural as any occultist. Their interpretation of what all these supernatural things mean might be wildly different, but the emotional currency is powerful. That’s why you get groups of these people coming together and praying for horrible awful things to happen to leaders they feel threatened by. It’s called Imprecatory Prayer, but an occultist would simply see it as a psychic attack. These same people will get together and march all over towns and states and cities, claiming land in the name of their god, with the hopes of making it energetically inhospitable for anyone not in their church or who is not a straight Christian conformist. They will build giant crosses on highways to block out the sun, casting broad shadows on major highways, marking that territory as “theirs” and not “yours”. Because they see this symbolism as powerful magic to drive away those who will not convert and eat away at those who toy with the thought until they finally, magically, fall on their knees, begging for salvation. A willing convert is the best, someone seeking their ways, but the fire and brimstone sermons make it very clear that using the tactics of breaking horses in lieu of the overtly willing is not beneath them. Loneliness, isolation, lack of resources, lack of prosperity etc., those are just punishments meted out by the divine to encourage the desired “right thinking”.
Their belief is so immature, and their desire so strong, that any leader who pretends to be one of them is embraced into the fold without question. After all the ends justify the means. And any leader who pretends to be one of them is a powerful example to inspire more to give in, and trade their very soul for acceptance and more than that—a powerful, devoted voter base who can be wielded and directed through faith, rather than reason.
Mainstream Christians mostly do not get this. They cannot comprehend what it can be like to live in the midst of this sort of thing. They imagine that their more skeptical, modern version of Christianity is the acceptable norm, not realizing that this other is what is meant by people who invoke the imagery of living in one of the many American Bible Belts. They just do not realize. This isn’t a love of their god, but a faith that bases itself literally on the Fear of their god, fear of hell, and fear of rejection. Fear being the operative word.
Until you are knee deep in this other supernaturally, fearful Christianity, you cannot imagine the differences, and how when it reaches critical mass, it affects the very fabric of society, acting as a filter so that perceived, “purveyors of evil” are filtered out to the fringe, and “right thinking Christians” are put at the heart of everything, making them a power to be reckoned with, that forces even skeptics like Trump and Flush to kiss their ass not only in hopes of votes or financial support, but also in the hopes that this beast will not turn and consume his—their election campaigns, or their entire political and/or professional careers.
Their faith is sincere. And so is their fear. It is after all a free country. Which is why it’s so difficult for the Christians who do not live in the midst of this, who have a clue, to distance themselves from this collection of reconstructionist, politically motivated, religious groups. The No True Scottsman fallacy always applies. The sincerity of belief isn’t the problem. It’s the enabling, that vexes people like me, with denial and a refusal to explore this and understand it. Because without that, countering this can be nearly impossible. That’s why the right has been giving us campaigns stacked with overflowing clown cars and legislation that can’t even pass a smell test, much less a lemon test. The ridiculous candidates that no sane person can believe, actually made it so far in the primaries? You have to look at the base to understand the source of the power that made that possible.
This is so incredibly frustrating for someone like me who is not a Christian at all. Any critique offered at all is perceived to be an attack on the entire body of Christ. It’s a wall of robes and crowns for as far as the eye can see—Turtles all the way down.
Mainstream Christians, you have some reclaiming to do. I can’t do it for you. I have no intention of converting. Maybe the hecklers were really holding up the mirror to you. Here is your spirit of fear that needs to be cast out. The ball is and has been in your court.
Tuesday, Feb 9, 2016 · 9:53:33 PM +00:00
·
GreenMother
For you “Doubting Thomas’” out there, here are some clips to refresh your memory. We can call this clip—While You Were Sleeping.
Pastor Palin Prayed for Witchcraft Protection
Here is more coverage of that from the Huffpo
What would it be like if Straight People underwent Conversion Therapy (Huffpo)
The Harsh Reality of Surviving a Gay exorcism (Huffpo)
Lawyer in Conversion Therapy Case Says Satan is behind homosexuality (Huffpo)
Rather than posting every link, here are a collection of links from the Huffpo on the issues with Gay Conversion Therapy and “delivering” homosexuals from “Teh Gayz”. This is just on one topic.
Gun Violence is also driven by demons
According to D. Barton a big voice on this other side of the fence, Demonic Powers Control Parts of the US Govt. (Right Wing Watch)
Ted Cruz puts extremists at the heart of his campaign (Right Wing Watch)
But you know, all that behavior that “I think” I witnessed—it was probably all in my head. It’s okay, the faithful can stick their heads back in the sand and ignore this. After all, the Extremists like you, they will probably stone you last.
So the next time you hear some RWNJ going on and on about gawd’s punishment for hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, gayz, uppity wimerns, Mooslims, drought, femi-nazis—treat it like the moon landing. It’s all fake, being acted out on a set somewhere.