by James Glaser
April 28, 2005

I haven't added it all up yet, but I think my trip across part of America took me some 7,000+ miles and the only really upsetting thing I saw or heard was how the work that Jesus Christ left for us to do, had been perverted into a money making scam.

If your car or truck has a radio, you can tell when you get to the so called Bible Belt, because the radio dial is filled with religious programs where you hear "Praise the Lord," adnauseam.

I believe praising the Lord is a good thing and we should all praise Him as often as possible, but when you are praising God in order to pump more money your way, it doesn't seem right to this Northern Christian.

I heard preachers asking for money so that there would be no more Terri Schaivo cases. I heard preachers asking for money to stop activist Judges from destroying America. I heard them ask for money so that they could stop gay marriages. And yes, they are still out there collecting money to stop abortions. How many billions of dollars do you think has gone into that fight already?

Some how I seem to remember that we have in this country a separation of Church and State, but that is not what it sounded like down in that Bible Belt. I really do think that our nation was founded on the premise that people can worship their God without other churches trying to tell them how to do it. Now if I was hearing the Word of God and at the end of the program the preacher would give a little talk about how some group was working on some project to stop abortions or was working on the one man one woman marriage amendment and here is the address to send in a donation, well that would be fine with me, but that isn't what these people were doing. They wanted you to send them the money and they were going to either send it on or they were actually doing the work, so they needed that money for themselves. I very seldom heard a minister actually speak about scripture and that is what I was looking for.

Now I was on this long driving trip and I would have enjoyed hearing how churches in the South explain the words of Christ, but I wasn't finding very much of that at all. Almost every preacher I heard in those couple of weeks I was down there, was talking about secular issues and they were spreading fear about how America was becoming ungodly.

I was thinking that the American Religious Right just won the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. The "God" people just won the whole game. But they are still telling us that everything is going to hell in a handbag and we better pony up some more money to stop this Government from ruining America.

It bothers me when some people use God to get more worldly spending money, instead of working to get more people ready for the next life. I think maybe the "fear factor" that the Right Wing has been using for the last few decades to drum up support has warped many of the ministers in the South. The Word of God has taken a back seat to fund raising and the real sad thing is, these Ministers represent the moral authority of America and it seems to me that "authority" has its priorities wrong.

I guess I would say that I am all for people working to change our government and our laws to the way they think they should be. I believe that is what democracy is all about and we all have the right to work on making our country better. What bothered me so much on this trip was the fact that there was so much fund raising under the guise of religion. Not fundraising to further the work of bringing more people to the Lord or to raise up the quality of life for those who already believe, but fundraising so that the "church" can jump right into the middle of secular/government issues.

I believe churches should work on getting people saved and headed to heaven for their eternal reward for accepting the salvation that Jesus suffered and died to bring us. That is their job. If some church wants to work on worldly issues, then they should form a separate group to work on those issues, a group that works someplace away from the church.

I know about how Jesus said, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" and I know the context of that quote was that Jesus was being asked about taxes, not about working on government issues. Christians have more than enough to work on in their lives and putting the work of the Lord aside so that they can spend time working on American Government problems is in my book, wrong and a waste of time and resources.

So I guess, going down to the Southland and hearing how the Religious Right is consumed with both money and politics, really disappointed me. I was looking for something else. I was looking for the Word of God and found the words of men. It was sad.

I know being a Minister is hard work and probably it is kind of a nice diversion for them to work on things other than the Lord's work, but when they use the name of God to get money, well, that is a scam.

Post Script:

It is nice to be back home and I did sleep better last night in my own bed than I did on the whole trip. I took lots of notes and interviewed over 150 people from all walks of life and will be writing about what I found traveling around. America is such a great country to explore. Nobody asked to see my papers, nor did I see any great amount of police and the ones I did see were polite and nice to talk to.

But, it is great to be back in the Northwoods. The snow is all gone and the ice is off the lake. I have a ton of work to do to get ready for summer and I feel good about starting the gardens and opening up the green house to plant. The trees have started to bud, my bleeding hearts are popping out of the ground, and all the lilies and poppies have a real good start. Yes, there was a dusting of snow on the deck this morning, but by afternoon it was great to be outside.