A Series of Unfortunate Dogma: 6 of 7

This series explores the credo behind the Seven Deadly Sins and the nearly comical manner that Christian based religion disobeys them. As a sober parallel to the Sin’s menace, all paintings are layered with the Eight Auspicious Symbols represented in teachings of the Buddha.

If religion is a stew pot, greed is like the broth, there’s just no way to make the soup without it. Greed for money, greed for power, greed for more, this is a sin that is perhaps the very reason religion still overwhelmingly relevant. Reading over the abhorrent leverage the church receives from the IRS while researching Gluttony, I had sort of a bubble around the whole problem. While, yes, a church as a whole entity can be corrupt- oh yeah, Hi sin of Lust- greed hammers down a much smaller phenomenon in the formula of religious efforts: Leaders.

There is a vast difference between an establishment and the people who run it. Enron could have gone down in history without infamy, if the collective leaders didn’t have as much handiwork with their accounting. Would anyone remember the People’s Temple if not for Jim Jones? Nazis suck, of course, but Hitler will stand as the face of hate for the rest of history.

This is when drawing the responsibility away from the establishment as a whole and focusing on the person at the head is most important. Churches are a blatant offender of this type of top-heavy wealth and fame.

Joel Osteen. There’s one. I bet anyone who lives with electricity and wifi will know that name. The famous Televangelist/pastor/millionaire is sitting pretty good on his Earthly rewards. His preaching of prosperity based on donation- contribute to the church and God will reward you- is hard to stomach when considering that his 2.9 million dollar estate wasn’t quite enough, so he added in a 10.5 million dollar mansion to his assets. The Lakewood Church he pastors is a former sports stadium in Houston, TX, holding 16,000 seats. Inherited from his father, he turned the congregation into a megachurch along with books and tours promoting his tune that God will repay those who invest in his preaching. Praise Twitter and persistent Osteen critics, who began interrogating his church after Hurricane Harvey plundered the people of Houston, and with emergency shelters filling up,  the community noticed this massive church was closed and empty. Of course he ducked and covered, claiming the church had been flooded, though pictures proved otherwise. Finally offering help after days of desperate need, his gesture seemed anything but Christ-like, most likely from pressure on social media and local reporters collecting, knocking on his gates. Even though his wealth is an obvious result of swindling his followers to buy his brand, Christians seem to grasp his word and hold it as prophecy- which is the terrifying idea that just about anyone can claim to be a chosen voice of God, and people will believe them.

Take Prophet Mboro, a charismatic South African man, with thousands of worshipers in his Johannesburg megachurch. Though he wears designer suits and has a posse of Escalades, he is self proclaimed as a telephone to God. The heavily religious and superstitious society brings their sick, disabled, last hope and of course, money, to the prophet, for the chance of an individualized, custom prayer. Unsurprisingly, this comes with stories of fatalities from not seeking medical care. Again, Twitter, that sly broad, bit him in the ass hard, when he announced that being the elite, supreme prophet he is, he was granted a visit to Heaven. If that isn’t an insult of his follower’s intelligence, he also boasted that he had custom photos of his smiling face behind the Pearly Gates. These Heavenly selfies were sold on his Church’s website for hundreds of dollars, or Rand equivalent, each. Worse, was the absurdity of what they actually looked like: his face photo-shopped into a cloud with a sparkling rainbow filter surrounding him- reminiscent of those plate photos in authentic Mexican restaurants: bright, glimmering 90’s era graphics behind a photo of a beige burrito. Once he was called out for clearly lying, he had a digital meltdown, warning doubters on Twitter, that ‘The sky is watching’ then ultimately reducing the price of the portrait on his VIP trip to God.

I try to keep my obsession with John Oliver toned down in my posts, but sometimes, he does an investigation report so fantastically sharp that I want to put a poster of his pale British face above my bed. His exposure of Televangelism is hands-down my favorite account of a corrupt practice on his show. For visibility into the world of the Televangelist ilk, he made a small donation to Robert Tilton’s Church (The star of this painting by the way). From the very first letter Oliver got back from the Tilton Ministry, he was asked to donate a dollar as a “seed” to plant his faith, the first pitch. Dozens of letters later, the instructions to send more money than the time before prove what a slippery slope Tilton’s viewers can fall down. It’s the Christian form of gambling, betting more money for the hope of a miraculous outcome eventually. Oliver also featured the story of a deceased woman, who’s family found that she had been paying the Kenneth Copeland Ministry thousands of dollars, instead of getting full treatment for her cancer, with the hopes that her “seed money” would result in a cure. To make that story so much worse, Copeland’s wife, Gloria, preaches that their church’s products, books, Holy oils- whatever, are the answer to beating serious life-threatening diseases- at one point preaching:
“They tell you that you’ve got cancer and they don’t know what to do about it, except give you some poison that will make you sicker- now which do you want to do- that, or sit here on Saturday morning, hearing the word of God? Let faith come into your heart and be the cure”.

Astonishing to watch this plastic faced suit-dressed woman stand at a podium with nothing but smiling confidence in the voracity she is comfortable with while her power exploits people in the most hopeless points of their life.

The most slimy vermin of the Earth are those who prey upon the less fortunate for gain. There are many out there: Payday Lenders, drug dealers and, without a doubt, churches. For my contrast to the lovely Titlon, painted here using his best tongues-speaking face, is Buddha’s Dharma Wheel- with 8 spokes,  symbolizing the Buddha’s Eightfold Noble Path. Here the wheel stands as token of joy in experiencing good and wholesome deeds. There seems to be no self-serving text in my research of Buddha’s teachings, which makes it that much more reliable. To harness the threats present in the Bible and fuel fear in the vulnerable or desperate is criminal. Millionaire preachers flying private jets, continuing to ask those with little, if any, extra money to give. The frightening reality of these predators, with a bright 1-800 number flashing at chest level, is that humanity is capable of such viciousness.

Pastors and megachurches thriving so shamelessly, is like watching a spider’s nest hatch. Shit! There are more of them and they will only be getting bigger and more disgusting as they grow over time. Perhaps it is a generational problem and the demographic of shopping channel style religion will soon die out- but- with ministries finding clever little ways to push their agenda online, and on social media- like selfies in Heaven, more will fall into the trap, pushing their meager amounts of money, into the un-taxed bank accounts of these suited charlatans. Maybe I’m wrong, perhaps these megachurch leaders are actually sent from God to spread His word and their riches are, indeed from their unique Holy access. I suppose that only makes it worse, for a God that shines on those with mansions and yachts by the hands of the poor, is no deity I want to believe in.

A Series of Unfortunate Dogma: 5 OF 7

This series explores the credo behind the Seven Deadly Sins and the nearly comical manner that Christian based religion disobeys them. As a sober parallel to the Sin’s menace, all paintings are layered with the Eight Auspicious Symbols represented in teachings of the Buddha.

Sex. Sex, sex, sex. I’m not afraid to say it. Billions of people are doing it right now and billions of others are thinking about it. The amazing thing about being human, is the fact that we can tap into areas of our brain wherein sex becomes more than just mating. We can connect, love, allow vulnerability, and enjoy a physical satisfaction only those taboo body parts can accomplish.

How surprising that Western religion took this completely natural deed and spun it into a web of control and shame? Perhaps society wouldn’t be so ‘deviant’ as many followers preach, if we had not been taught that sex is wrong, outside of the sanctity of a woman/man marriage.

If you’ve been raised to believe that your sexual desires are sinful, how much more enticing do they become? Sex is a primary necessity of life. We would have no future without it, so it makes sense that mankind took the role of God and twisted it into a vehicle for population control, societal roles and misogyny. Yet we still accept it. We accept that the church infiltrates a legal union like marriage and can wheedle the laws to make it a Christian institution, with no room for those who are different under the creed of Biblical rules.

According to a survey by Ashley Madison, the infidelity promoting website, members were asked of their religious affiliation. 25.1% identified as Evangelical, 22.75% Catholic and 22.7% Protestant. Other religions and non-believers made up the minority of the rest of the poll. Insert here that emoji that’s rubbing his chin with an eyebrow raised.

There is another point of error I can’t help but notice in the religious war strikes on copulation: Purity. Recently, on a very secular Sunday afternoon, I listened to an NPR interview with Linda Kay Klein, the author of ‘Pure’, a woman who’d grown up evangelical and recounts the stiff rules that young girls had to adhere to, along with overall shaming for just having female anatomy. She described girls in this sect being taught that they are the keepers of their own innocence and that boys are weak in their desires. Therefore, girls must be modest, and responsible when around those weak, horny penises. Any funny business is strictly upon her pubescent shoulders; surely, she dressed too provocatively or didn’t try hard enough to deny his advances. The author interviewed women from the same faith and noted how ingrained these philosophies were into their identity. So much so, that many have been diagnosed with PTSD due to the intense conditioning that their purity could be compromised by their own wrongdoing at any time, making them outcasts of their community.

Oppressing women for thousands of years? Religion has done a stellar job there. A basis to deny progression beyond Biblical standards? Check. Sexually abusing children? Thanks again, God.  

Priesthood is such a trusted, essential role in regard to religious leaders. Of what position do so many people of faith place their trust and hope? There are estimated to be 1.2 billion Catholics in the world, and like many in God’s name, with global power, comes devastating corruption. We have heard all of the stories, we know the numbers, the boys and girls who were victimized by their own leadership, in the house of their God. Can the abuse of power be any more foul than that of a man who desecrates his own beliefs and an innocent child? These priests are so trusted in fact, that after the Boston Globe blew the lid off the Catholic church’s secrets, many Catholics scoffed that the media was merely attacking or picking on the institution. Unsurprisingly, the reports were not limited geographically to the US.  

The true nature of the church is so transparently shady that they managed a worldwide veil of abuse, by simply playing musical chairs with predatory priests, placing them into other dioceses, knowing they’d offend again, but maintaining the silence of the victims. Despite the exposure of these repugnant acts by a beast of a religion, it’s obvious that Dogma can overpower any dirty, creeping hands. Though their fortress was blasted incessantly by flaming cannon balls of evidence, the church stood tall, practically unmarred. To outsiders, it forces the opinion that strict believers, who stand by such an organization, are just as vile as the accused. Therein lies the power of faith: people will cling to their sect, through unholy acts, still so certain that those in power indeed know better than themselves, for they have a closer connection to God. Drink the Kool-aid, disown your loved ones for their difference in beliefs, and stand by men who’ve used their power to assault children.

Lust, by the Bible’s standards, is a creed telling humankind that pleasure from sexual stimuli is a salacious ticket to Hell. Lust, by fallible human standards, is a failure to adhere to laws designed by a system to keep people in check. Creating a role where a man must be so devout, he remains forever celibate, while throwing him unsupervised in a pheromonic crowd of vulnerable children, is quite simply, the perfect recipe for horrible acts to occur. Unfortunately, in my piece, the simplicity of a priest and boy are enough to lead the viewer to conclusion. I’m not much into depicting child molestation in my art, so the symbolic blessing on the head will be a nod to the boundaries these men in power break and invade into their victim’s lives. Engulfing them is the lotus flower, which represents Buddha’s teaching of complete purification of the defilement of our mind, body and speech. As the lotus blooms in muddy water, we can be freed by our scars in it’s image. Such a lovely comparison to draw for the victims of this kind of iniquitous assault, but it will never come close to unraveling the damage done by the so-called servants of God who took everything from the defenseless lives that trusted them.

As usual, it seems like our species should be so much further evolved than to still be cleaning up the messes made by religion. No great wave of progression can be made if men in robes and phallic hats are influencing billions of people. The question begs to be asked: Who will save the world from God?

But, perhaps the most pressing question to those believers who consider their leader’s sins don’t count: if God designed us in his image, does he have orgasms?

A Series of Unfortunate Dogma: 4 of 7

The venom of Envy is powerful. It can make us paranoid, behave in ways we’d regret and blind us from our own good fortune. Why do we allow it to control so much of our short lives? One of my first posts was a diatribe of Pinterest perfection and how it, along with other social media pushes the ideal of perfection onto a generation, especially of women, who are finally starting to question this whole get married and procreate thing. For religious women who haven’t toyed with the idea of pushing back our social standards, a vast majority of them must make a choice.

Times are continuing to change, millennials are breaking the mold of role play in society, and I have a strange optimism that tolerance is becoming more than just a trend. With these changes, the resistance of conservative requirements like marriage and children seem to be fading away. Women want to finish college, men aren’t ready to settle down young, and praise the Universe, birth control is easily accessible (for now). With much of our next generation, things seem liberated.

Those damn Duggars though. When they started plastering the tabloids, I noticed a strange fascination people seemed to have with the perception of the unblemished. Oddly, we gawked at this herd of a family and couldn’t seem to look away as they tried to hold up their values through controversy and sold pictures of their weddings and kids as if they were Beyonce. Though plenty of people loved to hate them, many more downright idealized them, enough so to make two TV spin-offs. What is so remarkable about a God fearing swarm of Pilgrim people? Perfection or the expectation of such is very, very seductive. 

Christianity and many similar fusion-religions have done a remarkable job at keeping their communities in-check and fruitful. By highlighting some convenient Bible passages to live by, gender roles are solid and more future Christians are born. Certainly there are more free-thinking people within the religious spectrum, but the majority of younger church-goers seem to stay conservative, like their parents before them. Of course the “dream” isn’t exclusive to Christians, but with their ideals of family life, it seems they are a pretty large group racing for the same prize.

I have no statistics here, absolutely no fact based data to help me out, so I’ll discuss this in the spirit of religion itself. Most of the research I sought sprung up from scouring dozens of those identical, cookie cutter Mom blogs, which, surprise-surprise, happen to be primarily faith-based. The patterns I noticed in these blogs were regular. A menu at the top of each one with a list similar to:

- My Family- Marriage- Homeschooling- DIY Crafts- Prayer-

with a few extras from Crocpot Meals to Couponing, then always, a cheery picture of the typical white, blonde woman, dripping with annoying innocence. Reading blog after blog, I was getting tired, so much talk about God; oddly, bargain hunting and the Lord are somehow related items, but indignation turned to concern when I found a string of articles with titles like: Submitting to your Husband- How to be a Godly Wife- Following God’s path and your Husband’s Lead- the list goes painfully on. Advice to women of faith in many of these articles pushes a dependence on prayer, trusting your husband’s choices as leader of the household and that ‘we tear down the opportunity of God’s intention of marriage when we fail to submit’. Yikes. If all religious women reading these postings are in healthy, fair relationships I would not be so uneasy. Envy can push people into believing their cruelest insecurities, and to a Christian woman, being a good wife is a critical portion of existence, so it would not be difficult to exploit by a controlling penis. What happens when a woman reads these articles while coping with an abusive partner? Submit? Blame herself for his behavior- I’m not joking, one post noted that since she had gotten too tied-up taking care of the house, kids and cooking, her husband was unsatisfied and it led to an affair with a co-worker. No, just fucking no. The entire dialogue plants women as some menial servant, unworthy of leadership in any capacity, and the root of marital problems. 

Then we have to examine the male side of these Christian groups, are they exempt from the same nagging perfection as women? There aren’t many, but I found some Male authored Christian blogs out there, but they were usually written as part of profession, like pastors and theology experts. One article described counseling married couples, wherein, if the husband stayed home with the kids or made less money than his wife, “It never turns out well for the family”.

Clearly, the push for perfection is almost italicized in religious homes. Again focusing on women, the nesting genre is a huge attraction. Food, home, lifestyle and beauty can be sated through the said pile of ‘Mom blogs’. Reality in many of these clearly wealthy stay at home mloggers, as I will now call them, ™, is considerably different than their reader’s who adore them. I was able to see into this world by pulling up some articles questioning the health of these blogs and reader’s expectations to keep pace. A large majority of the mlogs are Mormon, due to the fact that they are indeed made for the religious wife, mom, homemaker type. That being said, some their content is outrageously extravagant. Scrolling through a ‘most popular’ list of Mormon Mom Blogs, many were clearly privileged white women, in the height of their childbearing years, with a budget that allows for boujee home decor, organic baby food and catalog worthy family photos (my eyes can only roll so far). Without a doubt, they had opportunity in their lives to meet this level of perceived happiness. Funds to help pay professional photographers for their different daily rituals, you know, normal stuff like Mom in full hair and make-up baking cookies with her Aryan children while fresh cut flowers sprout from crystal vases on every level surface. Many of their reader’s do not have this level of time or money, yet this is the standard they believe they are held to. So instead of pursuing individual identity and nurturing self-love, accomplishment means looking perfect, and that is it. Envy need not be bitter and resentful, sometimes it can have the best of intentions, while ruining our purest integrity.

Envy is represented simply in this painting. I consider it the Trinity of all religious based life goals: marriage, a home, children. Go forth and multiply, and according to these blogs, God brings success, but you must look damn good doing it.

Buddha’s two golden fish are represented as the paradoxical representation of envy. Their meaning is of freedom and happiness as they move unrestrained through the water. Since this comparison looks at the institution of marriage within religion, it makes sense that the two fish also symbolize the lunar and solar channels, ebbing and flowing against different balances, much like traditional marriage, opposite strengths and weaknesses of gender, trying to form a singular bond.

This was one of the hardest Seven Sins to portray, mainly because it is so universal. I felt a bit guilty as I dwelled on the religious community, since anyone, of any belief or non-belief is susceptible to coveting what others seem to perform perfectly, especially with social media hemorrhaging our brains on photos and blogs of that family life we always wish we had or could make for ourselves. Like the Golden Fish, we should swim on though. Swim past the urge to look like a Mormon blogger, and float freely knowing our personal identity does not belong to a husband, kids, home nor a God. Our identity is the one unique component of life, something we can share with the ones we love, but never have to apologize for possessing.

Celebrate it, don’t replace it.