GOD-DAMNED HYPOCRITES - PART 11
AFFECTING
POSITIVE CHANGE
Anybody
who has suffered injustice and the hardship that comes with it, especially at
the hands of so-called Christians, will quickly find the Bible does nothing to
really help lift them from their misery. It becomes a collection of fruitless,
empty rhetoric, hollow words and stories that are contradicted by reality. The
promise of Matthew 7: 7-12 is a good example. Those seeking help too often get
the very opposite, and suggestions parents have good will toward their children
becomes a cruel mockery when a child has been brutalised and slandered by a
cruel, vindictive, and or violent parent.
Added
to the hardship is the insistence that victims of injustice must forgive those
who inflict hardship and abuse upon them (Matthew 7: 1-7 & Luke 6: 27-42),
even “turn the other cheek” and enable bad behaviour. This provides no comfort,
justice or dignity for a victim, and ensures the offender will get away with
their reprehensible actions and continue to inflict themselves on others. If
preaching Christianity at others has an aim to change the self-centred,
anti-social behaviour of morally and ethically bankrupt individuals, it seems
counter-productive to act in such a contrary manner, to conceal and enable bad
behaviour.
After
all, Christ flogged people who reduced the temple to a market-place (Matthew
21: 12-17, Mark 11: 12-19, and Luke 19: 45-48), and before him Nehemiah rebuked
Eliashib for providing Tobiah a room in the temple (Nehemiah 13: 4-11) and,
later, even beat some of the Hebrews for marrying women who were not also
Hebrew (Nehemiah 13: 23-28). Hardly turning the other cheek, but who hasn’t
wanted to put some of the very worst child abusers, bigots, money-grubbing
narcissists, and hypocrites in a burlap sack and beat them until they change
their wicked ways?
After
all, didn’t Christ Himself rebuke his disciples for preventing the children
from seeing him (Mark 10: 13-16), in an obvious hint that is echoed in
Ephesians 6: 4 about not behaving in a manner that drives them away from God and,
in so doing, good and productive lives? Didn’t Paul rebuke Peter for returning
to the elitist attitudes of the Pharisees and Judaism when he was supposed to
be preaching the message of Christ (Galatians 2: 11-21)? Peter, who is
considered by the Catholics to be the head of the Church and who they revere
above all other disciples even as their Church returned to the practice of so
many Jewish traditions in spite of the efforts of Paul, a former Pharisee, and
Martin Luther who echoed him centuries later in what helped trigger the
Reformation as the Church fractured under the hypocrisy of Catholicism.
Throughout
the Bible we are subjected to contradictions. We are told in Romans 13 to
submit ourselves to the authorities, to do as we are told and not question in
our blind obedience, and we have seen where this leads in both politics and the
Churches, where children are brutalised, abused and raped, and those most in
need are denied justice as the very authorities and public services unleash a
reprehensible entrenched culture of corruption upon them, leaving them
impoverished, desperate, demoralised, disenfranchised, frustrated and creating
a festering legacy of disillusionment that perpetuates more of the same
violence and injustice. How is turning the other cheek and remaining silent
helping solve this evil?
It starts small, with an individual getting away with something they should have been called to account for doing. An absence of deterrent emboldens their bad behaviour and they repeat it, and even escalate until they do something so reprehensible they are stopped. But we have seen over the decades and centuries that individuals in positions of power and authority do not stop, and are not stopped, because they know people who can help extricate them from repercussions, or are the authority. Donald Trump is one of the worst people you will ever know, but far from alone in his horrid behaviour because nobody will stop him.
Sadly, those who enable Trump and his ilk are not alone either. There are millions of nasty, vindictive, bigoted,
hypocritical little narcissists just like them. Some lurk in Churches, others in
politics, too many can be found in the police and public services, while
asocial media is a coy-pond where trolls spawn in abundance. But it’s the ones
hiding in plain sight, brutalising their partners and children behind closed
doors in private homes that cause the most harm. They shape the personalities
of victims, creating broken survivors who suffer serious psychological issues
or go on to repeat what was done to them.
According
to 1 Peter 3: 16, we must continue to behave like good little citizens, remain
silent and turn that cheek while our abusers, the predators that inflict
justice, continue their malicious behaviour and slander us to discredit what we
might say, because that way our abuser will be ashamed of what they have done.
It seems pretty stupid when you consider it. How is someone who happily
inflicts violence and cruelty upon another, someone who cannot defend
themselves, and then defames their victim, ever going to feel enough guilt to feel
shame? They are not. That kind of idiot thinking is what allows predators to
continue doing their worst without fear of punishment. That kind of idiot
thinking drives victims from the Church.
We know what happens when horrible people get away with the vile things they do. We know what happens when the authorities refuse to help or are the perpetrators of injustices. And we know the benefits of calling out those at fault. When Paul did it, his interests were to help individuals behave as Christ instructed and, in so doing, keep the Church healthy (2 Corinthians 7). That method was designed to maintain a community, to expose any issues before they became problems and, if needs be, weed out people causing problems. The same method applies to other communities, not just those within Churches.
But
even then, as now, those at fault will too often refuse to change their
behaviour. They will slander and defame their victims, and anybody else that
dares question or threatens to expose what they have done. The victims,
witnesses, and anybody who dares help them will suddenly find themselves
surrounded by enemies who, for reasons often known only to them, will do their
utmost to ostracise and silence those who dare to speak of things the offender
wishes to remain concealed. Even Paul encountered the same despicable acts
(Galatian 4: 8-20 & 5: 1-15) in his efforts to preach the message of
Christ, but in two-thousand years we find the very same behaviour being used,
something we would expect to occur only outside the Churches, but which is all
too prevalent within.
Instead
of heeding the warnings from Romans 1: 18-32 and 2: 17-28, corrupt Christians
are turning those words against those outside the Church, demanding those rules
be imposed on people who do not follow their twisted dogma even as they
themselves violate it. The leaders, the elders, the Ministers and Priests, all
have the opportunity to misuse their positions of authority to isolate and
silence victims so the hypocrisy of predators, crime, systemic failure and
injustice can be concealed and enabled. Instead of championing the cause of
justice to defend and help those in need, they are part of the entrenched
culture of corruption.
As a result, meritocracy and accountability
are discarded in favour of nepotism and cover-up so that not only nothing is learned
from mistakes, but the mistakes continue and the disaffected have no means to
seek justice. Evidence of education, competence, empathy and concern for others
is regarded with scorn, and considered a weakness to be targeted and bullied
into silence and submission by those whose bigoted idiocy is regarded as a
badge of honour, a source of pride, the qualities that grant fools the right to
impose their ignorance on others and get away with abuses for which they
themselves hypocritically bitch and whine if but a tenth of what they inflict
was directed at them, especially if they are rebuked for their vile behaviour.
The
global unemployment problem is a good example. Decades of utilising the
neo-liberal Trickle-down Economics Trojan horse has massively increased the
wealth of the tiny minority of people but left the vast majority of people
destitute or struggling to survive day-to-day. Most of us know it has failed.
Most of us, even the ill-educated, have seen and accepted the evidence. But it
continues to be inflicted on the majority by our so-called political
representatives despite our demands for positive change. How is it that those
who are supposed to represent us refuse to listen and act in our interests?
Their remuneration packages, wealth and over-privileged lives has disconnected
and insulated them from reality so that they behave as little more than
Plutocratic Fascists, using opportunistic rhetoric and “alternative facts” to
control us.
That
is why governments can cut spending by defunding much needed public services
like the emergency services for domestic violence victims, reduce Sunday
Penalty rates for low-income workers, and spend an obscene eighty-million
dollars to drag the Unions and political rivals through a Royal Commission (run
by a stooge only to conclude with predetermined findings that had little to do
with the evidence) in an effort to defame and discredit those who oppose the
fascist agendas being inflicted on Australian citizens.
The
average citizen has no ability to influence the employment market other than
through their spending power, and that relies upon their disposable income. The
unemployed even less so. They certainly have no input or control over policy.
Have you ever tried to contact your so-called political representative? How did
that work out? Assuming you got a response at all, it was probably a letter or
email telling you how great said politician was, how busy they were, but be
comforted that your concerns are important. It would have been sent by one of
their minions. They probably never read it. They may have scanned it. They, and
said political representative, certainly don’t give a shit about you, your
concerns or your problems.
They
are aware, in a vague and general sense, of key issues in the community, of
public outrage that impacts upon their polling statistics. They don’t really
understand how it affects individuals unless one of their own children
(unlikely) is disaffected. Their ability to express concern is limited to how
that act might improve their polls or otherwise benefit them. And when they are
out of their depth, unable to control those things they insisted only they
could after accusing their political rivals of incompetence, they do what every
other two-bit dickhead in a position of authority does in the same situation:
they bully and blame underlings.
Projecting
one’s own faults, bullying and blaming others does not resolve problems. If you
have screwed up, you must acknowledge your mistake and take action to rectify
the situation. The alternative leads to the repetition of the problem. If you
change nothing then nothing changes. Repeating an action over and over again
while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Worse,
concealing a problem not only allows it to continue, but allows it to escalate and
cause other problems until we have a situation like the horrors uncovered in
the Catholic, Anglican and several other Churches and institutions.
This
is why there are so many deaths and inquests into systemic failures in the
police and public services concerning child protection and domestic violence.
It is also why there are not as many as there should be, in regards to that and
systemic failures in so many other agencies. We have a system that regulates
itself, a conflict of interest that allows the entrenched culture of corruption
to flourish not just in dark places, but in the light of public scrutiny.
And
where are the Churches, Unions and alternative political representatives to
expose the rot, to demand the controlling political party that forms government
take real action to not just end the systemic failure or injustice, but to
restore justice and dignity to the victims? They are just as rotten or
discredited by corruption in their own ranks. Inquests take years. Sometimes
decades. Recommendations are rarely implemented. If the media decides a ‘story’
is a marketable commodity, it may report it. The victims are too often ignored
altogether. The issue is forgotten when the media loses interest and moves on.
Politicians
and predators alike know that their ability to avoid exposure and potential
prosecution is just a waiting game, a matter of time. If they can discredit the
evidence or distract the outraged public long enough they can use statute of
limitations laws and get away with it forever, the same sentence a victim gets
because authorities value the rights of the ‘accused’ over those of the
‘alleged’ victim. After all, only the accused is given the benefit of the
doubt. The ‘alleged’ victim is assumed to be a liar.
A
victim of crime or injustice often has no support network, no access to Legal
Aid due to lack of funds or point-blank refusal of that agency to render
assistance, and no means to fund private legal representation. They are treated
with contempt and indignity by those who are supposed to help, by disgusting
individuals who heap further hardship and misery upon them because they can and
know there are no repercussions, or respond with unhelpful justifications about
what they can’t do before referring the victim on to another just as unhelpful
agency in a cycle that lasts decades or until the victim gives up or dies.
The
Catholic approach to behaviour modification does not work against horrible
people. The age-old use of shame and humiliation only works against those who
feel guilt. The predators in the Church, and society in general, have used that
method to isolate and silence their victims to great effect for thousands of
years, and only now are we starting to see the evils exposed in the Churches.
But until there is real independent regulation of politicians, the police and
public services, the full-scale of horror will continue unchecked.
As
long as the working- and under- class majorities of society are denied equality
and the means to fund more than basic day-to-day costs, injustice will continue
unabated. Political actions to slash wages and strip away workplace health,
safety, and anti-harassment agreements not only impact individual workers, but
the women and children caught in the middle of brutal temper-tantrums and
unfettered rage unleashed by idiots who are angry they are not getting their
way. Political actions designed to reduce or remove funding from preventative
and emergency services, and rhetoric designed to divide the world into ‘us and
them’ where the ‘them’ is blamed for the excesses and faults of the ‘us’, only
exacerbate the problem.
Think
about it. What kind of person spends their life, from the age of ten, plotting
and scheming to convince their parents or grandparents to sign over land and
assets so they can be sold-off to finance the greed of that individual while
their parents or grandparents are left destitute and heartbroken? What kind of
person goes out of their way to manipulate and defame their siblings and
children to accomplish such vile desires? What kind of person brutalises their
children, steals from them, and destroys their reputation to conceal the horrid
things that parent has inflicted on their child?
What
kind of parent abuses their spouse and then abandons them and their children,
never provides child support, never bothers to remember the children at
birthdays or Christmas, manipulates and defames them, destroys their
relationships with their relatives, and then blames them for all they have
suffered? What kind of parent does that and goes on to repeat this with other
women and children, and then runs a business presenting themselves as a devoted
husband, father, and Christian who provides parenting advice and has access to
young women and children?
What
kind of police officer or public servant goes out of their way to deny help to
those in need? What kind of person refuses to do their job and, instead, goes
out of their way to mock, insult, slander and intimidate a victim into silence?
What kind of person does this, day after day, to one victim after another? What
kind of politician refuses to listen to victims seeking help with what they
have suffered and the systemic failure that forces them to suffer in silence
while their abusers or the injustice continues unabated, impacting on more
victims because nobody will intervene to stop the perpetrators?
What
damage does that do? How does this impact on the victims? How many continue to
suffer in silence? How many must watch the authorities knowingly hand children
over to monsters because the rule of law decides certain evidence is
inadmissible or because a victim or witness ignored flawed laws to speak for
those who are denied a voice? How many take their own lives? How many, in
desperation, end the life of an abuser? How many suffer drug, alcohol or other
dependency problems as they struggle to cope? How many go on to commit similar
offences? Has this horror ever caused a predator enough shame to stop the
crimes they commit and confess to the things they have done?
The
entrenched culture of corruption has simply repeated the sick conduct of
predators. Victims are isolated and silenced while predators, crime, systemic
failure, and injustice are concealed and enabled. Where does a victim go when
the authorities refuse to help? Who polices the authorities? Why are the police
and public services allowed to investigate themselves? We have seen the results
of no real independent regulation. We have seen where this leads. We are living
in a society where the real horror continues to be silenced.
Politicians
insulated and disconnected from reality, incompetent and corrupt, lining their
own pockets while blaming the victims of their own ineptitude as they pass laws
that inflict greater harm on disadvantaged people whose pleas for help they
ignore. Legal systems and news media that reduce legal outcomes and the issues
and incidents in our world to commodities. Trolls bullying, mocking, insulting,
harassing, and even terrorising victims of injustice online, safe in the
knowledge they are immune to penalty or deterrent. And the Churches serving as
a microcosm of what is wrong with society because they are ruled and filled
with some of the very worst people who drive out good ones and inflict
hypocrisy with impunity.
OUR
MISSION
If
there are so many people who claim to be Christians in our world today, then
what is the mission of individuals? There are so many leaders and so many
people who are much better at public speaking and leadership, so are we really
required to observe an individual mission? The answer is quite clearly the
affirmative. We each have our own talents and responsibilities not just to
ourselves, but to our fellow Christians. Christianity is not just what you
claim to believe, but a way to behave. The best way to answer this question is
to reconsider the information you have just read and again ask yourself the
following:
What
is a Christian? Most people think it is someone who believes in Jesus Christ
and that He died for our sins so that we might be forgiven and so repair the
rift between ourselves and God. This is correct only on a surface level. Jesus
Christ died for us as an example of the love God has and the sacrifice He
willingly made so that we could be reunited with Him, but this was not an
unconditional gift: God expects something in return. What, then, is a
Christian?
A
Christian is somebody who not only accepts that Jesus Christ lived and died to
pay the penalty for our sins, but somebody who hears and obeys the teaching
given us by Christ and His disciples as detailed in the New Testament. As
Christ himself said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and
obey it” (Luke 11: 28) and in greater detail in John 14: 15-21 & 23-24.
Indeed, you will know a Christians by their actions, and both unbelievers and
false Christians by theirs (Titus 1: 16). So what is it that God asks of
Christians? How does Christ expect Christians to behave?
Christ
expects us to prophesy, to preach or set the example of His Gospel, telling
others of His life and teachings so that they, too, may be blessed with His
Grace to receive God’s forgiveness and live in peace with justice and
prosperity for everyone. Christ expects us to follow His example and, in so
doing, set an example to others of how a Christian should behave so that they
may see the differences between God’s people and those who are lost. Too many
of the Churches are doing the exact opposite, their Ministry rotten to the
core, the good branches pruned and cast aside until only the twisted, thorny
fruitless ones remain.
Christ
expects us to share in fellowship, thereby providing support for one another
and ensure that nobody strays to preach false teachings or set bad examples
that are contrary to what Christ taught us. Given that these are the duties of
a Christian, perhaps it would be of some benefit to sit down and ask yourself
some hard questions. I’ve no doubt there are trolls out there, gnashing their
teeth and making every effort to tear down all I have said and done, throw it
back in my face, or accuse me of not being a Christian. It is people,
hypocrites, bullies, cowards, and vile creatures like them that make me
question my faith, every day.
What
do I ask myself? Do you consider yourself a Christian? Do you follow the
teachings of Christ? Do the teachings you follow come from the Bible or are
they the directions somebody else has given you? When it really matters, do you
choose to do what God asks or what other people want you to do? Are you willing
to persecute those who put God first rather than do what you want them to do?
What example do you set for others? What do you do when you encounter
ignorance, arrogance, bigotry and hypocrisy? Do you still consider yourself to
be a Christian?
Comments
Post a Comment