An open letter to my dearest friend, the fundie

[hyphenate]

Some people here know that my best friend has turned into a righteous fundie over the past years, and that recently she "met" up with this dude in Kentucky who is also "Xtian" and she has become enamored of him and is acting like a teenager in phone calls and emails. She is in her mid-fifties, and while I can't condemn her for being in love with the idea of being "in love" there is only so much a person can take. So tonight, I found myself creating a letter in my head that I wanted to share with people to give you an idea of what it's like to have to deal with someone like this on an ongoing basis. She is still my best friend and I love her dearly, but sometimes my patience with her just runs out and I want to cry, because there isn't anything I wouldn't do for her, but trying to show her the truth and teaching her that life isn't what she pretends it to be is something I can't show her. She has to come to the proper conclusions on her own. If she continues to delude herself, it is she who will suffer, and as usual, I will be there to pick up the pieces, but I can't go down that path with her. That is hers, and hers alone to walk.



Dear B___,

You have changed much over the past fifteen years. I know we hadn't seen a lot of each other while I was living in California, but even since I came home three and a half years ago, I expected we would spend much more time together than we have. And I miss the old you. I really do. I kind of suspected you were getting into some weird shit when you first started to attend seminars by that woman, Joyce Meyer, but I never thought it would lead you all the way around to becoming a fundie, a creationist and an evangelical, because the thought of those cults was just too extreme and so radically right-winged that I thought perhaps you were just trying to find a way of your own, and that you would finally see the world with new eyes and come to your senses.

You know what they say, though--with drugs, anyhow, that smoking pot is a gateway to harder drugs, and that people can't do one without getting into the other--that's kind of how I now look at the way you were gravitating toward a more constrictive religious belief, getting involved in one, and eventually becoming more involved in more and more narrow-minded groups, forcing you to believe in even less freethinking than you might have ever considered.

I never thought I would see you so carelessly throwing insults around about people who are not Xtians, even to the point of calling such people, including myself, liars, hypocrites, phonies or worse. You think you are so "righteous" now because you say you are doing "the "lord's" work," but I assure you, you are even less likely than the rest of us to make it to that "heaven" that you so assuredly speak of.

When someone narrows their thinking to the point where they only believe in a limited number of options, it is their problem when they believe thusly. People need to be exposed to as many different opinions as there are people in order to get an idea of how wide, how expansive and how infinite the universe really is.

I'll tell you a little story. When I was a child, I used to love looking into the sky and see all the stars. I was already writing poetry when I was 10, and one of my poems had the line "star, are you Sirius?" in it. Now I have to laugh at that, but I remember the majesty of the universe, and the simple word "infinity" was a burning question in my young mind. It still is--I continually ask that question, of how "infinite" the universe is, and what lies beyond infinity. Some would give me the answer, "infinity" means "forever" but trying to imagine that is beyond my comprehension sometimes. You know, it's a little like trying to figure out how we could be even so close to a universe creator when the vastness of space and of infinity is heavy on the mind. When you begin to think of "god" as the one in which you believe, you demean the ultimate nature of reality in totality. By trying to say a "god" would choose between different people based on scanty knowledge and on pure speculation, you take a being--if there IS a being who has created something far greater, far more significant than human beings will ever be. And a god who has created on such a grand scale as the universe would no likely look at humans with any more special interest than we look at ants, or fleas, or amoeba.

Your god, if he does exist, isn't a good guy. He's intolerant, he's specious, he's vengeful, he's an asshole, let's face it. Your god is limited by the imagination of those who refuse to look further, who refuse to accept that every human being on earth is special, that every culture, every belief system and every idea ever expressed is more important than the idea that a special group of people is more important than the sum of its parts.

And yet you silently assent that you are prejudiced, that you are no more in touch with the true god than the rest of us, that your point of view hinges on a limited worldview that is contaminated by people whose greed, whose desire for power, whose ideal is to see all those who offend them be literally wiped off the face of the earth.

It is with this kind of thinking that people now are starving, that people are being tortured, that people are being killed and worse--all in the name of your false god and the inadequate humans who follow that narrow path.

That's why you're afraid. That's why you have put the blinders up. You're afraid that you are wrong, and so you shut out the rest of us, that you refuse to accept the truth, that you are so eager to accept such a "savior" and create him out of whole cloth that you are desperate to believe is the truth, regardless of how much you sense he is not.

You probably think your life would be worthless if the dream you believe in turns into dust. You can't see beyond that personal level. You can't understand what the world is really all about, just as long as you can sit in your own little corner and bellow out every now and then about how righteous your handy-dandy little god is.

You didn't used to be so blind. You used to be able to laugh, treat all people fairly, and accommodate any who were brusque or not so friendly. You used to be able to look at life with questions, with the desire to explore, to learn, to go forth and seek out, and to know all of life's majesty and promise. Yeah, we were both much younger then, I know. But I kept those things, because it was important to me. The idea of living only a half life, a life filled with undeveloped promise and potential, to take the one life I have and let it go to waste is abhorrent to me. And trying to believe in something so petty, so self-centered and self-consuming as the god as your newfound beliefs give to you, is without a doubt the scariest thing I have ever contemplated.

And yet you go on, blithely letting people like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and these other false preachers, intimidate you and squeeze the very life out of you. You get tattoos devoted to some mystical figure who may or may not have ever existed as a historical figure, but who definitely did not resemble the white, anglo-saxon christ figure that has entranced so many. Instead of seeking out the truth, instead of looking for conspiracies and secret societies about to "take over the world" as you contend, look to those who spoon feed you lies and presumptions and preposterous scenarios instead. For it is in the eyes of these modern-day presumptors that the real evil is interred--those who create falsehoods and then try to pawn them off as original commands.

You would never believe how wrong you are. You would never accept how distorted your view of the world is, and how each and every minute you limit yourself to the convoluted heresy that emanates from the radical religious right, you are condemning yourself to years of agony, of deceit, of blind devotion to a false god. You aren't fooling anyone but yourself, trust me. And while I love you like a sister, I can not and will not be sucked into the abyss at whose edge you totter.

While there is so much more I would like to say to you, I'm tired and I'm going to go to bed soon. I still care very deeply for you, and I have tried to always be there for you. But I can't say the same about you anymore. You have become egocentric, interested only in yourself and in the false promises of an incomplete god figure, and enamored of a relationship with this selfsame god that smacks of hypocrisy and a lack of understanding of our place in the universe. Because if we really think about the universe, and think about how finite infinity really is, we wouldn't need a false god--we would be staring into the true wonder of life that has had us enthralled for millions of years already, and isn't going to let up very soon. Let's face it--to a REAL god, the apocalypse will be a mere firecracker in comparison to the creation of a new star.

[Mythsaje]

1. Yep...

God's too big a concept to fit inside a "God Box," as I've been known to say.

I'm sorry about your friend. I've had friends wander away myself...thankfully none of them have become fundies...but you never know, do you?

[Erika]

2. Thanks for sharing that.

I look around this world and see the global elitists
and the global starvation, lack of medical care, and oppression of the poor. We, as the richest nation on earth, brag about capitalism and our riches while knowing death and agony is all around us. I see nothing Godly or Christ like about that.

I also see a very strong fear of death in these people and wonder why. If they are going to "heaven" why do they fear death so much.

These people have me mystified but I'm glad I'm not one of them.