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THE ONLY GOD THEY HAD [1]

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Date: 2023-02-26  

I wish to offer, ahead of time, in case anyone should feel this poem offensive to delicate sensibilities, this defense: If I had tried and used a dish detergent and found that it did not deliver on the promises that its manufacturers made, no one would argue I had no right to offer a negative opinion. (The manufacturers would of course be allowed to counter me with millions in advertising.)

Then why should it be thought unfair to offer an opinion on a much more important matter: a theology in which I was raised, and which I accepted until reason forced me to conclude it did not deliver on its promises? —A theology with respect to which I might, entirely reasonably, be considered a dissatisfied customer? (It isn’t as if they never asked me for money, you know.)

Perhaps no one will argue my right; but somehow I hear, nevertheless, the self-described “believers” crying foul.

THE ONLY GOD THEY HAD

Theologies are theories, like those in science—

never subjected to verification or reason, though—

instead enforced by fiat, the corrupt reliance

on terror: commanding trust, forbidding us to know.

So generation after innocent generation

is brought to grief and wreckage. It’s the old, old story:

Some joker has a vast and blazing revelation,

catches a glimpse of light, of pure ineffable glory,

phrases it in his effing and insufficient terms,

they valorize the phrasing and not the comprehension . . .

Our parents told us to “go out to the garden and eat worms”

when we dared analyze that wholly wretched invention,

but I don’t blame them: The southern Baptist brand is bad.

They did the best they could with the only God they had.

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