Political Crosses

A parable about the crucifixion of political others and the absence of the crucified Christ in American history.

“For God so-hated the world that He sent His only-begotten American church to crucify every queer, black, spic, Jew, Catholic, atheist, and woman that they would ever know, so that whoever refused to accept their politics should perish, and not receive everlasting life.” �" John 3:16; RAV (Repulsive American Version)

"For Jesus, church and state could not be separated. They came together to build him a political cross that was tall and high, and then they hanged him on it." -  A Transvestite in Texas

The Puritans were not the sort to gather religious relics. But they heard across the Atlantic there was a world where they might find the original political cross used to kill Christ. They were told that Jesus might still be hanging on it, and he might be found if diligently sought. At once they gathered on ships and sailed to the New World. Once they arrived they were dismayed to find nothing but pagan barbarians, whom they dubbed “Indians.” No cross. No Jesus.

In desperation they began to gather wood and build their own political cross. They built it tall and high so everyone could see it. When they were done they were, once again, met with frustration. Still no Jesus. Only a political cross. “What we need,” they reasoned, “is a victim.”

This first cross was built in Jamestown in 1607. Anti-Catholic legislation began there and eventually spread to all thirteen colonies. The Catholics, you see, touted their rosaries. They already had Jesus on the cross. Being moved with envy, Protestants throughout the colonies began to crucify their Catholic neighbors. Their political cross turned into political crosses, and these crosses could not be left vacant.

In the centuries that followed black slaves and freedmen were destined to hang on political crosses throughout the United States. Then tragedy struck. There was a famine of crosses due to high demand. With cross manufacturing on backlog, lynching became the preferred method. In the years of slavery, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction almost 4,000 black people were lynched. Over 1,000 white liberators were lynched with them. Many of these white liberators had been inspired by Paul setting a slave free in the New Testament book of Philemon. Sadly, the lynch mob knew nothing of this story, for it had been deleted from the Repulsive American Version. Once cross manufacturing re-continued, crosses were bound for the silver screen. In 1915 a silent film entitled The Birth of a Nation was released in major cities around the U.S. Black males were depicted as those who could not control their sexual appetites, and the Klu Klux Klan was prescribed as the cure. The film inspired the KKK to reform. They preferred to set their political crosses on fire as a warning to those who dared to assert that they were humans with certain inalienable rights.

In 1919 the Woman's Christian Temperance Union succeeded in facilitating the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, strictly prohibiting the sale of alcohol �" to certain people. Now the strict abstinence of some Christians could be legally enforced against other Christians and non-Christians. In the Repulsive American Version, Jesus had been crucified by people who had a drinking problem, some AA rejects and now the drunks should be crucified in turn. The sale of alcohol to churches continued, however, as the observance of the Lord’s Supper required.

In the next generation the daughters of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union would be hung on the crosses built by their mothers. Cold corpses were exchanged for warm bodies. The sin of this generation was that its women aspired to work for themselves and to earn a fair wage. But right makes no provisions for rights. Their rightful place was, after all, to stay home, quiet and pregnant. A band of unmarried women used to follow Jesus around and even used their hard-earned cash to support Jesus in his mission to fix the world (Mat 27:55). But this too was deleted from the Repulsive American Version.

The late 20^th and early 21^st centuries would see the rise of strong resistance to the cross. Not because skepticism was so persuasive, but because Jesus’ followers always seemed to be building new crosses for fresh victims instead of carrying the one Jesus gave them. By this time political crosses had been built in communities all along the American border. One such cross was erected in Bracketville, Texas, for the crucifixion of desperate and hopeless illegals. After Eusebio De Haro knocked on a rancher’s door and asked for a glass of water, the rancher went to get his gun. He pursued the thirsty and tired Eusebio down the road and shot him in the back of the leg while he was running away. Eusebio bled out and died because the rancher refused to render aid. The American church did not speak out or make the funeral. They were busy crucifying their opponents in Washington DC. Some from the local church in Bracketville defended the shooter’s character in a documentary feature. The shooter walked away from the incident with probation.

In the 1990’s, high demand would again place crosses in short supply. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” became the policy of the military. Certain Christians thought that, somehow, mysteriously, it might advance the cause of the gospel if they withheld civil rights from those infected by the gay gene. By 2015, it became clear that crosses simply could not be manufactured quickly enough to solve the problem. A smoke signal rallied the Pharisees of America together for brainstorming. Many ideas were put forward, but eventually the Award for Creative Forms of Inhospitality went to a Pizzeria, in the state of Indiana, after they revived the ancient practice of exile. The apostle Paul had plainly told the church that it was not their place to regulate the sexual unions of those in their community who were not members of their church (1Cor 5:9-12). Even though this admonition remained intact in every version of the Bible the American church chose to simply ignore it �" for they did not seem to believe in the things that Paul had written.

It was about this time that a pilgrim from the Distant Land of Secularism ventured to come to the United States as the Puritans did centuries earlier. Like them, he came looking for God and salvation. He had heard about America, that Christian nation, that beacon of light. He knew if he was going to find God anywhere it would be right here in the Land Flowing with Milk and Honey. Due to its great reputation for Christianity, he decided that his first stop would be a Baptist church in Lubbock, Texas.

As he walked through the doors he was immediately overcome by the stench of death and decay. This church was full of political crosses, and its victims remained lodged upon them. Just inside the door he found old dry crosses from the Civil War era. The flesh on these had long since disappeared and nails pinned only brittle skeletons to splintered wood. He advanced toward the sanctuary. Just outside the door he found the corpses of alcoholics murdered by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The smell of death here was very faint, only lingering. He moved into the sanctuary. Here the smell of decay was overwhelming. These victims had been crucified very recently. He saw signs on top of the crosses that seemed to mock the victims and record their sins. “King of the Queers,” said one, and “Queen of the Feminists,” said another. He then looked around and wondered to himself, “Where is Jesus?”

At that moment the right interplay of light and optics availed him a glimpse at a sign buried in the back of the room: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” “That’s it!” he exclaimed, and he charged to see the victim buried behind the cluster of other victims. His cross had been so buried by the victims of other political conflicts that it had become almost completely invisible inside this church. He approached the cross gleefully. And then, like the Puritans so many centuries prior, he gazed at this political cross in astonishment. The cross had no one on it. It only had a sign. It seemed that Jesus was there in name but absent in reality. Then all at once he re-excited. “Easter!” he exclaimed, “Jesus doesn’t stay on the cross! He goes from the cross to the tomb where he is raised on Easter morning!” But then he re-examined the cross and, again, his countenance fell. No nail prints. No blood stains like the other crosses. This cross had never been used. Then it finally made sense to him. The long dark shadow of American history seemed to grow longer until it engulfed him. The legacy of violent hypocrisy penetrated to the core of his being. Jesus was not crucified on the cross in this church. Jesus had never been in this church.

The pilgrim breathed a sigh of exasperation. “How could I be so duped as to think I would find God here of all places?” Exasperation turned to anger. He began toward the door, slowly at first, and then more briskly. Before he knew it he found himself running. He launched the door open and sprang from necropolis of death inside. He had been liberated. He breathed in the fresh air. He inhaled deeply to displace the dogma crystalized in his lungs. He absorbed the sunlight that gave freely without the wag of a finger or the furling of a brow. He had made it out of Washington D.C. disguised as Calvary.

Later as the pilgrim journeyed home he stood aboard the deck of his ship, Bible in hand. He had come to the American church to find the crucified Christ. But what he found was every rejected and despised outcast the world had to offer �" except Christ �" hanging on political crosses. He cast his Bible overboard into the deep blue erasure below. It had been so used and abused. It had been so twisted and bent. It had been used to justify the erection of so many political crosses. It had produced the Repulsive American Version. He was disgusted by the legacy of hatred and death that American Christians left behind them. He went home to the Distant Land of Secularism. There he vowed that he would never lay eyes on another cross so long as he lived. 

Reviews

[JJ Escobar]

I liked this story very much. Your account of history and the pilgrimage put much more emotion into what I have observed. The tragedy at the end is disheartening. I pray that Christ be found despite the damage RAV has done.

[Apollos]

Loved the immense amount of detail!
A much needed Biblical critique of the spirit of Nationalism that haunts an aspect of American culture.
A vivid warning of how Christians can lose the balance of the Holy Spirit if they fall into the same pitfalls that you described. Always refreshing to hear a perspective that exposes harsh truths.