Ah, Good Friday. I wondered yesterday why Christians call it good. I guess it depends on which Christian you talk to. Doesn’t it always? I mean, there are the not very nice ones who want to kill gays and bomb abortion clinics (or more likely encourage others to do it for them by quoting passages from the Book of Hate and Rules aka Leviticus), and then there are the more comfortable sane ones who belong to the human race, hold to their beliefs sincerely and don’t lecture others or throw rocks at them (and are therefore invisible to the media because they don’t provide juicy headlines).

I feel for the nice ones, really I do. I’ve experienced the horrors of the Nazi Jesus Crew first-hand, of course. If I ever want to depress myself, which is thankfully not very often, I meditate upon how evil can masquerade as good and force young gay men and women into enduring the horrors of evangelical Protestant exorcism against their will (a form of exorcism which isn’t dissimilar to the Roman Catholic variety, only the men don’t wear frocks and there’s no incense involved). Anyone who’s read Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson will know something about this particularly twisted form of abuse, this spiritual gang-rape that goes completely unreported upon despite taking place everywhere from darkest Texas in the US of A (where guns don’t kill people, hate kills people) to the county here in the UK known as Surrey aka Tory Heaven (where you need three off-shore tax haven accounts just to be able to afford to spend money in the corner shop).

I once wrote on my blog back in 2005 about my experience of evangelical exorcism in 1987 but I deleted the entry some years back in what these days I refer to as the Great Lamentable Purge, a content massacre brought on by a temporary desire to bring some of my personal thoughts and feelings entered into the public domain over the past five years back into the realm of the undisclosed. There were reasons at the time, I thought them good reasons but I was wrong. So, if you want to find out what right-wing Christians do to people with same-sex attraction behind the soft-focus counselling-speak, behind closed doors, go and read Winterson’s incredibly moving and, at times, surprisingly funny novel. It’s supposed to be fiction but most of us are of the belief that it’s thinly-disguised autobiography, and it’s very real.

Despite the best efforts of evangelicals, Christianity remains a powerful loving force for social progress and enlightenment for many. It provides purpose, hope and community. Who but the most impoverished of spirit could ever seek to deny these good and noble things to anyone? Good Friday probably means a number of things depending on which Christians you speak to.  A mean spirit provides for mean perspectives, a generous spirit quite the opposite. As an ex-evangelical Christian turned Goddess-worshipping Pagan, I have my own perspective which is probably not as unique as I think it is. You tell me. I learn lessons for life from the character of Jesus Christ, irrespective of whether he’s misreported, and irrespective of whether he existed or never did.

Continue Reading »