Chicken McJesus, or, Why Christianity Has Lost Its Voice in America

So, I’m a little late to the train: I can honestly claim almost complete ignorance about this “Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day” yesterday. Had a very faint idea of what it was about. Now I know the backstory a bit more, and saw the million-whatever-person result. And I gotta say, wow, yeah, that is a textbook example of First Amendment free-speech rights in action. Kudos. What it also says to me is that those million-whatever evangelical Christians who took part in the exercise are probably better off keeping their faces stuffed with chicken sandwiches, because they basically have nothing good to say about anything anymore.

No, really. Don’t tell me that Jesus loves me, this you know, for the Bible tells you so. Because if you were actually listening to what the Bible tells you is so, you wouldn’t have been standing in line at a chicken shack to spend your hard-earned cash on a double-McWhopperbreast or whatever it is they serve at Chick-fil-A. (I also have to claim almost complete ignorance of their menu; while I’ve had their food and liked it, I don’t live in their market. I live in the godless and healthy state of Minnesota).

I’d really like to think that if you, the millions of Chick-fil-A Christians, were going to decide to do something together to “make a statement” or “take a stand” in the world, it would be to take that four, or five, or six dollars and pool it together to feed some hungry people, like the ones that exist in ever-growing numbers in your own nation. Or maybe you could take the time you’re spending standing in line and go make friends with someone a little different than you? Possibly even of a different sexual orientation than yourself? There are needy, lonely, self-destructing people in this world who need you - yes, YOU - to be their friend. And maybe you’re not the most social type of person; you could at least take a stand for the rights of the downtrodden, the made-fun-of, the ones whose humanity is being stifled. You know, be Jesus to people.

Instead, you’ve truly chosen to put your money where your mouth is. I was taught in church (usually as a come-on to give more money to said church) that you can judge your own values by where you give your money and spend your time. I sort of still believe that. And, by that measure you’ve chosen to give your money to a multi-billion dollar company that specializes in serving food processed in mass quantities that is terrible for yours and the public’s general health, made of meat from a living thing that is usually raised like a crop, treated cruelly and often infected with disease from the aforementioned mistreatment, so that you can support a multi-millionaire who really doesn’t need your money because he said some things about gay people inviting God’s wrath onto our nation. Some things that you happen to agree with, because you feel like God is under attack or whatever.

So, look, I don’t claim to be a Bible expert (I only did one year of Bible school, after all, and that didn’t turn out very well), but I’m pretty sure that God doesn’t feel “under attack” by gay people. I’m reasonably certain that your little “stand” means next to nothing. And I’m completely positive that God has about a million bajillion other things you could do for him in the world besides eating an effing chicken sandwich.

Because really, that’s what your faith has come down to. You no longer believe in the transformational power of reconciliation that this Bible you profess to listen to talks about over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over again. You have no interest in humanity, no care for “all God’s people,” and no desire to act to improve God’s creation. You are now just willing slaves to a series of cultural precepts and anecdotes, usurped by a social and political agenda that has absolutely zero to do with loving other people and caring for the least among us and more to do with protecting this thing, running afraid from that thing, and making sure that the MOST among us feel well-loved and whose every desire is accommodated as God’s will. You don’t believe in the power of your Christ to heal people; you instead rely on the pre-ordained superiority of your twelve-step plan and the vast, shallow numbers you claim in your ranks to spread its influence with jingoistic zealotry. You would rather tear people down (and in the stupidest of ways, mind you) than be a support system for those without one.

In short, you no longer speak for God. In case there was any question about it, your moral authority flatlined on August 1, 2012. Your heart stopped beating from the self-aggrandizement that clogged your arteries. And your tombstone shall forever read:

“God called me unto the world, and I ate chicken.”