An entertaining segue today while I was doing my quota for the week. We had this announcement that “faith-based groups” had successfully urged the city to put a stop to a local concert for supposedly being “anti-Christ.”
Had I been in a better mood while working, honestly this would have made me laugh so much more. What fun.
Those of you who know me may be very well aware that I do not look kindly upon these “faith-based groups,” and now that this has happened, I get a chance to sit on my little podium and rant. How nice.
Let me preface this with the fact that I think rather than faith itself, it is these groups, these (term, disdainful) that have caused me to fall out of faith.
I spent my childhood in Catholic schools, and my grandfather is a man of the cloth in one of the many national orders of Catholics (I think, I am not quite sure what the KOC is). The personal storyline of my falling out of faith, however, is not why I write this, it is merely that I find it so amusing that of all the things, this is what causes that mobilization.
Faith has its place, and its place is in giving strength and hope to the weak and hopeless.
Where its place is not is in curtailing the free will of people and press-ganging on political leaders to impose silly little restrictions in the name of all that is good and holy in exchange for a bloc vote. (This group may not be lobbying for specific votes, but we see this every single election season, most prominently with the INC. Courting the vote of religious blocs is as traditional Filipino as “adobo.”)
Faith has its place, and its place is in giving strength and hope to the weak and hopeless.
How golden it is, that these faith groups come crawling out of the woodwork when local musicians from a genre that has been demonized for decades want to put on a harmless little show. Meanwhile, not a single word for a literal blasphemer, a sinner who has co-opted the holy name to grift his flock and hide from the consequences of his sins. You know him, that mega-pastor Apollo, whose continued un-punishment is proof that there is no divine justice.
Golden of them to call upon this as anti-Christ when the Christian value is to love thy neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39).
It is 2025, but all of a sudden we have a little flashback to the Satanic Panic of the—when was it? The ‘80s or so?
This juxtaposes with a recent column I had, the one where I talked about my recently departed friend. I think he would get a laugh out of this incident.
You see, that man was the greatest proof that virtue is not tied to a faith system, but in the moral fiber of an individual man. He was someone whose words would send him directly to hell, but his acts were of pure selfless giving—the one I keep recalling is his refusal to allow a risk of danger to harm a woman he personally despised, not out of any fear of divine action, but because it was the right thing to do. (The lady’s assailant would eventually have the cops called on him, and she has been left alone since.)
I recall as well a conversation I had years ago with a self-professed “satanist,” and while I do not understand their belief system and the role of the Ars Goetia, I still know that that man had given me a long and deep discussion with no judgement, while a neighbor of mine had yelled at me that I am a heretic, a sinner, a murderer’s accomplice who will rot and burn in hell forever, all completely unprompted, as I was walking to the office one fine day.
My conclusion, as this has gone off on a tangent and made me miss that big man (rest in peace), is that iconography and nomenclature is no basis of virtue and sin—and I, as a non-believer, perhaps I will pay for that sin of non-belief by burning in a lake of brimstone for all eternity, but honestly—I’ll take my chances.
