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Open Letter To Southeast Christian Church 11/16/2004 7:33:58 AM
Your last minute pre-election phone message was an unethical invasion of my time and home, and a disgraceful assault on my values. I issued no invitation to your hatred and bigotry. I held this letter for two weeks; long enough to know that it expresses my true beliefs, not emotions.
Southeast Christian Church crossed the line. Your last minute pre-election phone message was an unethical invasion of my time and home, and a disgraceful assault on my values. I issued no invitation to your hatred and bigotry. I gave no indication I wanted to forfeit my intelligence or independence to join a cult or big business disguised as a house of God. I am not Christian or hypocritical. I value independence, freethinking, fairness, and choice. Therefore, I must ask on what criteria you based your assumption that I would welcome your bigoted opinions and what made you think I would endorse your insult to ‘non-believers’?
You opened the door to communication through a recorded message that offered no opportunity for discussion or rebuttal. While preaching might be acceptable in your forum, it is unacceptable in mine, and you were in my home. I will not surrender my voice to you.
In my opinion, the downward spiral you worry about is due in large to Christians, through their hypocrisy, duality, air of superiority, and prejudice for anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs. Your certainty that I must be lost because I don’t want to be where you are and that you have permission to find me, requires a sickening level of gall.
As a ‘non-believer’, I hold myself to a higher set of values than you have demonstrated. I offer those who willingly joined your flock the same choice and individuality that I treasure instead of asking them to share my opinion of organized religion. However, you and they ignore my beliefs and waged a relentless campaign to drag me to your headquarters for indoctrination into darkness (or maybe to help foot the thirty-five-million-dollar commitment). Your cult members annoyed me even after I expressed satisfaction with my own beliefs, (I understood how you earned the Godmart and Six Flags Over Jesus monikers). Then came your television ads, requiring effort on my part to ignore you even when I was alone. And finally, you dropped the gauntlet and crossed the line of civility with the pre-election telephone call.
My silence did not indicate acceptance of your invasion into my life; that conclusion came from an aborted understanding of justice on your part. I will clearly state my position now.
I understand you are proud of your twenty thousand-and-growing number, and you believe it is your duty to evangelize the lost and be a conscience in the community. I remind you it is not your duty to determine my status in the lost and found. You are not my conscience, and you do not have permission to involve me in your beliefs, at any time, ever. My life and my soul belong to me. I am as certain my beliefs are accurate as you hope yours are, maybe more so since I’m comfortable without the endorsement of twenty thousand others. Numbers don’t impress me, nor do they make anything you believe right. Charles Manson attracted believers. Jim Jones amassed quite a crowd. Hitler had plenty of supporters, and Al Qaeda shares your bragging rights. I’d rather know one person on the right track than fifty thousand on the wrong. This is life, not a popularity contest.
I ask you to stop insulting me with your assumptions. Please don’t send others to do it in your name, Jesus’ name, or anyone else’s name. Speak for yourself, and call off the dogs. You have become a nuisance in my community. You have unfairly disparaged non-believers and others who don’t adhere to your version of right and wrong. Christians do not hold the market on values, nor do ‘non-believers’ represent the majority in the downward spiral.
You have invaded my community, and now my privacy. Should the invasion into continue I plan to investigate how far you’ve gone toward eroding my rights.
Sincerely,
Sandy
p.s. If you have any influence with the Mormons, I’m tired of their parking lots crusade also.
