Homo Insipien Christianus

It may seem that the other day I was saying Christians are stupid. I bet some are, but is it fair to say that Christians are any stupider than most other people?

There's a lot of stupid out there and it's not all Christian. Skin Industries, Montgomery Gentry, grills, and The Real Housewives of Orange County are all stupid, and not the product of Christianity. So where does that leave us.

I was willing to say, "No," and still am, but we have to account for this. "This" being The Eagle Forum's Conservapedia. It turn's out it's not simply about conservatism, which, in the hands of a Grover Norquist or John Yoo is its own kind of stupid, it's about a particular type of quasi-religious, almost classical in its divine-right imperialist, type of conservatism mingled with Christianity.

If you go to Conservapedia you could learn "faith" is a uniquely Christian concept. It isn't, but you can learn that it is.

We can't always go by the entries alone. They are turning into a hilarious bit of wikicomedy so don't really serve as an artifact of conservative Christian culture. But the debates and rules about what is and isn't an appropriate contribution are revealing.

That whole foolishness to the Greeks bit can cover a lot of ground. But stupid is stupid. And just because there's a lot of stupid that's not Christian doesn't mean the unique stupid that Christians make isn't plenty stupid.

Still, I think it's unfair to say Christians in general are stupid. I qualified my previous post by saying some aspects of American Christian culture are stupid. Classic Grandpa offered the sad perspective that this stupidity goes beyond US borders, but I will not say all Christians are stupid. I will, however, say conservative Christians of the conservapedia type are stupid.

But ever gracious and optimistic, I will say I am holding out for the day when so much of this is revealed as performance art and the artists, Christians no doubt, can be hailed as geniuses who have been prophetically warning us all this time about the dangers of religiosity and legalistic showiness.

ed. note- The conservapedia page may not load and if it does, you may not be able to create new accounts to help out with their entries because the site has become very popular recently