Welcome to My Preface - Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? (or At Least Agree On Who to Hate)

Excerpt from Understanding My Religious Person: A Memoir for the Tolerant


This book is meant to alleviate the companion volumes of fear and ignorance regarding religious people in America or, more specifically, fear of people who subscribe to the evangelical Christian religion, often lazily lumped together with the Religious right. There are a lot of misconceptions about what it means to be a born again Christian. It’s pretty simple really. You just bow your head, say a short prayer and when you open your eyes – you’re a registered Republican with a firearm. That’s the thinking anyway. It’s enough to make me take my rod to my child for no good reason. (More commercial free, stereotypical behavior from a Bible-believer.)

The other night in my hotel room, all 360° of Anderson Cooper popped up on the television screen with pundits in tow biting their nails over Pastor Rick Warren saying a prayer at then President Elect Obama’s inauguration. The word of the day on 360° was outraged. These fine thinking people were outraged, accusing Warren of preaching a gospel of fear, which is kind of like accusing Britney Spears of modesty. (Or singing.) Even the most cursory reading of The Purpose Driven Life will show Warren’s brand of evangelicalism to reek of winsomeness, the pages smiling back at you. The Purpose Driven Life is to hellfire and brimstone preaching what the word fiddlesticks is to cussing. For anyone vaguely familiar with Rick’s book and preaching, it is the intentionally friendly sort of evangelical Christianity. Rick Warren is the Smiley Face of evangelicalism. (Joel Osteen was disqualified due to heresy.)

Warren was then called ignorant by two of the three guests. The third guest just gagged whenever Warren’s name was mentioned. They were sound bite arguments, ad hominine political speak, hopefully not the language of the truly tolerant person, yet two of the guests were CNN political analysts, a job that doesn’t go to just anybody who feigns objectivity. No, it has taken years for these people to perfect feigning objectivity. Calling Rick Warren a preacher of fear is, at best, showing oneself completely unaware of the religious landscape in America or, at worst, a blatantly dishonest remark. Ignorance or fear, maybe a little of both. Does the general populous misunderstand the nature of the religious mind as much as these analysts? Or is it just the media? Isn’t that argument played out already, this idea of a liberal media conspiracy? I certainly don’t believe there’s a conspiracy in the media. The conspiracy’s in the spiritual realm where demons control the media and the principalities and powers that… okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. The point is, there seems to be some misunderstanding of how religious people think, why they believe what they believe and why they sometimes act the way they do when they have homosexual tendencies (i.e. Ted Haggard). Personally, I believe there is a large section of Americans (and possibly Canadians) who are truly tolerant and want to understand religious people. And that’s the issue of this book: why evangelical Christians scare Katie Couric.

There are sincere and tolerant people who don’t share this faith (or perhaps any faith), who would like a better understanding of where these religious people are coming from, if only so they can turn and run the other direction. Still, some people want to know why evangelicals think the way they do about important social and political issues in our country. This book is one messy, personal memoir of religious thinking, of evangelical Christian thinking. There is no hidden agenda to convert the unconverted (so if that happens you have only God to blame), but only an attempt to explain why this author was converted and how it changed my thinking, the advantages and disadvantages it brought to my life and bathing habits, intentionally and unintentionally. This will only be a spiritual memoir, so I will only concentrate on the details of my personal life as they directly relate to my spiritual journey. (And hopefully that’s enough of an explanation for friends and family who don’t get mentioned.)

Being that I consider myself an evangelical Christian, despite protests to the contrary, I now interpret many of my past experiences through that lens. Your life may lead you to interpret my life experiences differently, but the goal is that you, the person tolerant enough to spend some time with me by reading this, will at least gain some understanding of how an evangelical interprets life. If you really want to understand a religious person, my religious person, this is an attempt at full disclosure, as frank and blemished as it may be. I may not understand my story myself, but maybe by putting it out there it will make some sense in light of your story. No matter how different we think or live, maybe we’ll see the common thread of humanity in each other. The hope is that we can face each other with a little less fear and ignorance. (See you at Thanksgiving, Auntie Lisa.)

The Fish Wars: A Comedian Tells the Truth about Issues of the Day (Intro from new book)

Personally, I’m tired of Christians fighting amongst themselves over all these secondary hot-button issues without any guidance. Thus The Fish Wars. In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and, in all things, follow my opinion and you’ll be closer to the truth than not. If you’d like to have a Christian worldview, but are too lazy to read the Bible for yourself, then this is the book for you. I will be happy to tell you how to think like the kind of Christian that God actually likes. (And I’m not so sure it’s the new kind.)

When it comes to theological issues, some are vital, meaning that if we lose them we lose Jesus, such as His deity, substitutionary atonement for our sins and physical resurrection from the dead. Lose those things and you lose Christianity, not to mention the fact that you’ll no longer be trusted with the keys to the fellowship hall. There are other issues that are nonessential to the gospel itself, such as putting cream cheese on bagels. This is not an essential issue in Christianity, but I say, put cream cheese on everything ‘cuz that stuff is good! Others say issues like homosexuality are not essential to the gospel. Still others want to put men on everything. Now, the issue of whether or not your bagel should have a rainbow glow emanating from it is no less important than crème cheese. These are called in-house debates, Christians hiding in churches arguing amongst themselves about what the Bible says about such issues, not to be confused with out-house debates where Christians get involved in politics. I will tell you how to think about issues that aren’t necessary to the gospel, but are evidence that your mind has been changed, that you’ve really repented. In other words, I’ll give you morals to go along with your values. Don’t you want to be part of a movement that frightens godless liberal journalists across this nation?

Godless secular humanistic robotic alien journalists from outer space are not only frightened of what Christians believe (theology), but they are also frightened about what we believe about issues that are nonessential to the gospel, such as abortion (if you’re reading this I can only assume you weren’t aborted), gay marriage (evangelical Christians are so pro-marriage that 50% of us do it again), evolution (just because you have to fight the urge to throw your poop at me doesn’t necessarily mean you evolved from monkeys), politics (and the antichrist is… the envelope, please) among others. This blog will explain where most Christians stand on these issues and then it will explain where most Christians should stand on these issues. There’s no need to explain where godless secular humanist robotic alien nonfat journalists stand on these issues – whatever is opposite of the Bible, that’s where they stand. That’s why they’re godless secular humanistic journalistic atheistic soccer fans. (The Bible is against soccer. The NFL is the only truly biblical sport. Don’t believe me? Then read Blindside, a book about how defensive ends changed the game of pro-football and how left tackles became the second highest paid position in the NFL. It was about that and a kid from the inner city of Memphis who was adopted by a white family and against all odds became a college football player who will probably be the number one draft in the NFL, a spiritual lesson we should all apply to our lives.)

We cannot separate our belief in Christ from our behavior from “the coming global crisis” from the hole where we will bury our heads. “Look, I found a bomb shelter!” We cannot compartmentalize our theological thinking. “I’d love to sit and listen to your problems, but I left my compassion on the dresser.” Once you put the substitutionary atonement of Christ in a different category than “peace-making, poverty-alleviation and creation-care” you’ve defanged the actual Gospel of Christ. Defang the gospel and Goth Christians will be very upset. Theology is and always has been holistic, meaning it will effect all of humanity, all of nature, all of everything. Everything must be theologized. That’s my motto. But it all begins with the essential and non-negotiable aspects of the Gospel, many of which I covered in my last book, A Comedian’s Guide to Theology. (Shameless plug provided by Thor Ramsey, author of A Comedian’s Guide to Theology.) Essential issues are not separated from our hot-button issues like homosexual marriage, abortion and disposing of paint in the local sewer system. Issues are not the Gospel, but they reflect where the Gospel is in us. Whatta you full of, baby? As a matter of fact, I am of the opinion (and I must confess that I am hesitant to share my opinions when I am not awake) that some of our thinking about nonessential issues is skewed because our theology is skewed. In other words, we’re skewed.

As for the tone of my book, which will certainly be a problem for some, let me just add this: “Jesus Christ is the most subversive man to have ever walked the earth.” If I am his follower, shouldn’t my comedy follow suit? Shouldn’t there be something unsettling, discomforting about “Christian” comedy? Or am I simply overcorrecting because of Joel Osteen? I think it was comedian Jann Karam who once said, “Sure there are lots of nice comedians. They’re just not funny.”

I’m sure others may have differing points of view regarding these nonessential issues of the Gospel and you can certainly subscribe to them and probably not lose your salvation. But do you really want to take that chance?

I didn’t think so.

Read on and stay secure, baby.


Thor Ramsey
Emperor of Fools, Protector of Mexico
March 25, 2009