Went to a wedding and the pastor’s pre-ceremony sermon was fire and brimstone followed by a rant about how it was God who gave him the right to marry, not the state. Lots of stuff about the wife being subservient to the husband and acting as his servant. The deep state government was being controlled by a satanists who call themselves secular humanists. Marriage can only happen between a man and a woman and the state was defiling marriage by allowing gays to marry, but it wasn’t real marriage according to God. Some really wacky stuff to talk about at a celebration. Killed the mood.
Turns out my friends had joined one of those extreme, right-wing cults and this was their normal pastor. This group was worse than any of the usual bad actors and interacting with any of their congregation was weird. We fell out of touch for some reason.
So I come from a muslim(ish?) background, but no one in my family or extended family goes to mosque or anything, or says “selam aleykum” everytime we meet (we just say “merhabalar” (i.e. ‘hello’)). It’s just a cultural thing. Most cultural christians want a priest at a funeral, and most cultural muslims want an imam.
Anyway, back to my great aunt’s funeral. The imam was there, doing the prayer in arabic because that’s what you do, even though no one could understand what he was saying. At one point however, he switched to a language that we could understand, and it was very clear he was telling us that we were bad people and bad muslims for not attending mosque, and that our aunt will pay the consequences of our failings.
Needless to say, at the next few funerals we went with a different imam. A nicer one. One who understands that religion is not a key aspect of many people’s lives, but that spirituality in times of distress can be a great comfort.
Went to a wedding and the pastor’s pre-ceremony sermon was fire and brimstone followed by a rant about how it was God who gave him the right to marry, not the state. Lots of stuff about the wife being subservient to the husband and acting as his servant. The deep state government was being controlled by a satanists who call themselves secular humanists. Marriage can only happen between a man and a woman and the state was defiling marriage by allowing gays to marry, but it wasn’t real marriage according to God. Some really wacky stuff to talk about at a celebration. Killed the mood.
Turns out my friends had joined one of those extreme, right-wing cults and this was their normal pastor. This group was worse than any of the usual bad actors and interacting with any of their congregation was weird. We fell out of touch for some reason.
Reminds me of my great aunt’s funeral.
So I come from a muslim(ish?) background, but no one in my family or extended family goes to mosque or anything, or says “selam aleykum” everytime we meet (we just say “merhabalar” (i.e. ‘hello’)). It’s just a cultural thing. Most cultural christians want a priest at a funeral, and most cultural muslims want an imam.
Anyway, back to my great aunt’s funeral. The imam was there, doing the prayer in arabic because that’s what you do, even though no one could understand what he was saying. At one point however, he switched to a language that we could understand, and it was very clear he was telling us that we were bad people and bad muslims for not attending mosque, and that our aunt will pay the consequences of our failings.
Needless to say, at the next few funerals we went with a different imam. A nicer one. One who understands that religion is not a key aspect of many people’s lives, but that spirituality in times of distress can be a great comfort.
That first imam, kicking the family while y’all were already down. :/