America Hiring a Hit Man 101
The 8 Essential Questions to Ask.
If you are a good conservative Christian in America there are probably lots of people you’d like God to kill, but if he doesn’t, what do you do? Hire a hitman? That tale wags shortly. (If you want to hear me perform this article go to my YouTube channel, No Sex Please — I’m religious, https://youtu.be/UuI5GlGvNw4
Well, I ain’t a conservative Christian but I can tell you I wish more Christians today were as compassionate and loving as many of my atheist friends. This week, a 21 year old Congolese refugee died in Nairobi. We struggle to raise funds to keep refugees alive and didn’t know about this boy. He had kidney disease and efforts from his friends to raise money for his medical treatment failed. He had lost family, his homeland and everything. Now, his life. Who cares? He was a gay refugee and the hate preachers have a lot to celebrate. Please help us help people like this young man with the first name Christian. Ironic eh. https://chuffed.org/project/humans-in-need-rainbow-refugees
Now to the hitman piece.
Ok America, it’s time to hire a hitman in the same way you elect a President. Forgive me, I’m just an Aussie being sarcastic about your culture. Don’t worry, I can be sarcastic about lots of other cultures too, especially my own.
So you need a hired killer for a job. It seems to me the following questions should apply, some of which would also apply to a Presidential Candidate.
1st Question; Is he/she Christian?
2nd Question: What Church do they go to regularly?
3rd Question: Are they on the Ministry team?
4th Question: Do they value good moral principles?
5th Question: Do they condemn homosexuality?
6th Question: Do they own a gun and can they fire it?
7th Question: How many people have they killed?
8th Question: What are the gory details?
Believe it or not, I’m about to enter my 70th year and I have never owned a gun, nor wanted one, and I have never needed to hire a hitman either…not that I know of. What a strange fellow I am.
So my suggestion of asking a potential assassin whether they were Christian before hiring them is just me being plain stupid. No more stupid though, than expecting a church to have a pedophile, or an abuser of women or children on staff, which has happened too often under the watchful eye of leadership that didn’t care. I’m told the Catholic Church has been good at this too.
Now, an assassin can’t have high principles or morals unless the person he is going to murder he considers less than human, or that he thinks he can act as God to determine who will live and who will die. Pretty much the same I guess.
If you are going to kill someone it’s pretty important that you don’t consider them like your Aunty Ethel, or your brother Jim, unless there’s a fair degree of hatred involved. In either case to do the thing they need not to be valued as worthy of living by you.
The same thing goes for the 5th Question, condemning homosexuality. (Some people would think that should be first). When too many preachers have condemned those in any sexual category not to their own standard, as being unworthy of a right to life the same as the rest of us, there is something wrong with their Christianity.
Back to the question “Are he/she/they Christian?”
Close your eyes and read this.
I’m in a terrible car accident. (Sorry, me again, open your eyes but turn on your imagination.)
I’m in a terrible car accident. I’m trapped in the car and whilst I am badly injured, the person with me looks nearly dead. Blood is pouring from them, they are unconscious and the way their body looks they might have a broken neck. I love this friend and I’m deeply troubled. Somehow I use my mobile phone and ring the emergency number and give the details as I plead with tears in my eyes:
“Send a Christian ambulance QUICKLY PLEASE.
We need a CHRISTIAN AMBULANCE,
I think my friend is dying!”
It seems forever, but I hear the siren and the ambulance screeches to a halt. I hear the doors open and the sound of two people walking quickly to us.
As they approach I shout to them with every ounce of my strength”
“Are you Christians?”
“No, I’m an atheist,” one voice calls. “Hindu”, the other shouts.
“What’s it matter?”, the first asks.
“It matters EVERYTHING.
Go away!
I want a Christian rescue!”
Yes, I know this is ridiculous. In that scenario who would care what the person looked like, or their religion or their gender, or even transgender — your biggest concern would be could they do what was needed to save you and the life of your friend?
Years ago when heading an evangelical organisation in Australia, International Needs, I regularly heard recommendations for different people on the basis of “they are a good Christian”.
This irked me then, and more now. What does that have to do with getting a good mechanic, electrician, doctor, lawyer or hitman for that matter? As if good Church going Christians don’t lie, aren’t bad mechanics, electricians, doctors, lawyers or hired killers? Really?
Where does that come from?
Sorry too many questions I know. It’s a habit of mine.
Now, perhaps I’ve lived an uneventful life? Perhaps I’m a bit naive. I grew up in the 1950s and 60s watching America win every war and every battle with a gun, a bomb and sometimes a good line even better than “God Bless America”. Every movie was like that. Every TV drama. Fortunately, occasionally these days they produce movies and tv shows without guns. Not often enough though for my liking.
In a society where a violent and quick response to all problems is celebrated in movies, songs and history, is there some kind of connection with asking that “Christian” question?
Americans have traditionally put a lot of value in faith. I listened to a recent report from America about the next Presidential race and the people going up against Trump in the Republican Party. The commentator said that the first most important question that would be asked of each one would be: are they Christian? Not only that, but whatever declaration of faith or church attendance the candidate gives it will be challenged over months and months by the best and the worst of theologians and experts, Evangelicals, Catholics and TV poison-alities.
Again, as if it really matters.
I know it does matter of course in that culture, but hey, does it really matter? (Sorry I’m being repetitive, another fault). Is there, as they say, empirical evidence that Christian Presidents are wiser, more honest, more intelligent, more capable and have greater integrity than non-Christian? Will a Christian President bring more peace and goodwill to the world? Is there?
Having a Christian faith has certainly not stopped Presidents from lying in office, having sex with whoever, or misappropriating funds or power to their own ends. Yet most of them find time and cameras to go to church.
An article in the Conversation claims that studies show every President since Washington has lied. Most of these have claimed a Christian faith (that is after all pretty well mandated for them). (The article: All American Presidents have Lied the Question is Why and When?) Some have lied to protect the country i.e. in wartime. Others to protect themselves or their Party i.e. anytime.
Of all the liars who were Presidents, it says:
It is likely that President Trump lied more than most presidents. Surprise, surprise.
I quote that not because I never liked or trusted Trump, (confession: I didn’t), but because so many believed he was not only CHRISTIAN, but GOD’S MAN. (That wasn’t shouting, just emphasis.)
In 2020, Bigthink.com published an article “Half of evangelicals believe Trump is anointed by God”. HALF!
Bigthink began the article with the key takeaways:
- Evangelical support of President Trump has baffled many who find his conduct at odds with core Christian values.
- A recent survey found that 49 percent of white evangelical Protestants believe Trump was chosen by God.
- Additional data found evangelicals are mixed on his moral character but view him as critical to political victories.
Researching the subject you can find allegations of lies from Trump’s successor Biden too, as President, and before. Perhaps Presidents like people lie.
So why is it so important to have a Christian President if it doesn’t stop them misbehaving sexually, with finances, the bomb or their hair?
Surely we have seen enough evidence even privately to know that Christians cannot always be trusted — they do not always do the right thing — and that being Christian doesn’t make them the best choice for any office — whether shoeshine boys (do they still exist?) or even hired killers.
In Australia we generally don’t require a Christian faith for high office, even if some Christians do require it for their mechanics etc. In my view, our most publicly Christian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the first Pentecostal to hold the office has not done his faith well by his service to the country. He ascended to the highest seat in the land with some claiming a view of God’s descending from heaven to anoint him. Morrison’s own descension from office occurred when his own party was decimated at the last election. Not sure whether God pulled the anointing, or let it slip, or perhaps Morrison didn’t have it in the first place? He certainly did some strange things as Prime Minister though, including appointing himself as a shadow minister to six ministries without telling the ministers who were being shadowed, the Parliament, or the country. When you think God’s got you in the palm of his hand, you think can do almost anything eh.
I digress from the hitman.
In most cases if a hitman replied that he was a committed Christian, a worship leader and counselor at the First Church of the Redeemer, Two Gun City, it wouldn’t in my view be enough to hire him. I think he would need to answer the gun and murder questions first to qualify for the job. Then if the other questions were also asked I’m afraid I would have to go back to question his integrity, sanity and even the theology if not integrity of any Church that kept a killer on the ministry team no matter how much they loved his faith confession. In the Church’s case turning a blind eye to his liquidator skills would be some gift if not divine. (I actually meant NOT Divine there).
Oh dear, I think I’ve rattled on enough in this article. Time to pull the trigger on it. So what in reality are people asking when they ask the Christian question? I hope it is a hangover from a time when being a Christian was more about character than it was about theology or belief. People who may or may not have gone to church regularly considered themselves Christian because they believed in principles like the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.
In the voluntary work that I’ve been doing over the last couple of years on top of the business I run for people with disability, I have wished so many times for people of true Christian character to step up and help. I don’t care whether they attend church or not, are on a “ministry team” or own a gun. Humanity in Need — Rainbow Refugees is the charity I started with some good friends to help LGBTIQ people in East Africa survive the hate preachers, their families, culture and governments that declare they have no right to exist.
In that time I have heard of so many stories of people chased from their families and their villages, raped to cure them, and other forms of exorcisms to cast out vile demons. Our small organisation has provided food supplementation for LGBTIQ refugees in the largest camp in the world, Kakuma. We have also paid for rents and food and medical care for those unable to live in the camps because of homophobic attacks that have taken many lives. The work is heartbreaking but it is good when we know we’ve been able to save the lives of women and children and young men whose lives are counted worthless and loveless.
History shows it was well meaning Christian evangelists who changed the nature of many nations when the message to indigenous cultures included sex shaming that was added to the message in the first centuries. So many native cultures that accepted queer people as being equal, and in some cases even more blessed than the not different people had to change their tune.
There are many examples of good, so-called Christians today who are happy to endorse a view of doing unto others what you want to do to them because you don’t give a rats about them, rather than the golden rule. For me that’s not the sort of Christian I’m looking for, but I would love to change their views.
Do your own research. I just did a quick search on Medium.com for “preaching against homosexuality”. Search for “hate preach” too on google. Lots of articles. Try this one: REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE SAYS LGBTQ PEOPLE SHOULD BE EXECUTED
There’s plenty of hate on YouTube too. Lots of Pastors who call for the killing, jailing, even torturing of gay people. So sad. Christian? I don’t think so.
Of all the people we have helped the plight of Lesbians caring for their children (sometimes after supposed curative rape by gangs or even police) troubles me the most. What have their children done to be made to suffer, but without our help they will live on the streets begging for food, and their children denied safety, education, medical and welcoming society.. An example was the plight of a young boy rescued only last year when his stepfather discovered his birth father was a gay man. Love immediately turned to hate and fear because to the stepfather the boy was full of demons. We arranged for the boy to be reunited with his birth father and taken to live in a safe house in Kenya. What had the little boy done to be suddenly despised by the man who prior to this was prepared to be his daddy and provide for him?
Please subscribe to my YouTube channel and podcast “No Sex Please — I’m religious” that focuses on sex shame fostered by religion and that has caused immense suffering to people of all sexualities. My interview with Onics Bukenya, now safe in America (we hope), and his story about being discovered as same sex attracted and the horrendous cost he paid for that discovery. https://youtu.be/AM_w1pxXEig I also interviewed him about sex shame in Africa. That too was enlightening. https://youtu.be/G9xarCM0EY8
The podcast is also on most streaming outlets https://nosexpleaseimreligious.buzzsprout.com/
