God is Dead - Nietzsche.

Daddy and I are always here, you know,

Whenever you want us.

We didn’t like the things you said

The last time home.

Bourgeois, you said, and a word which sounded

Very like Atrophied.

Daddy doesn’t like the way you collect

Toilet graffiti,

God is dead - Nietzsche, and the reply

Nietzsche is dead - God.

…

You can’t expect Daddy to go round

With plate in church

With thoughts like that in his head.

I worry too.

Structuralism sounds like a building-site,

Semiology sounds rather rude

In a medical kind of way.

The dogs are well, both almost human,

As we’ve often said

To you.

…

Please wear a vest, the days are getting

Colder. We hope you will not be so rude

The next time home.

Daddy and I have just re-done your room.

The blood hardly shows

After two coats of paint.

Cambridge must be very pretty just now.

I am, in spite of everything,

Your loving Mother.

(Elizabeth Bartlett)

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I like to think of myself as pretty open minded. Alternative lifestyles, sexual orientations, varied belief systems and personal philosophies - I can accept most things, even if I don’t agree with them. Live and let live right? Somewhat to my chagrin though, I am finding myself increasingly frustrated with certain devout Christians. I’m struggling with this because I know that in some cases I am being unfair. I am agnostic so religious faith doesn’t (at least consciously) inform much of how I live my life. But despite knowing academically that I am being prejudiced at times it is extremely difficult to stop the mental eye-roll inspired by someone spouting the gospel in response to something.

I suppose it is a testament to my vaguely Judeo-Christian upbringing that I feel slightly blasphemous saying all this. Slightly. Usually my annoyance is intense and unalloyed. Some background here. I’m not just irrationally opposed to Christianity; it is rammed down my throat almost every day, usually in situations where in my opinion it has no bearing. The Caribbean is all about religion. It is to be expected - after all it was one of the pillars of our colonization. People talk a lot about morals here and for the most part those morals are grounded in the church. While I don’t believe that one’s sole point of reference for moral behavior should be the Bible I don’t have that much of a problem with people using it as a guideline. What I do have an issue with is it being used as an easy out.

I live in a country with a variety of social problems. There are many inequities. People have children young and don’t know how to raise them. The poor have limited access to and depressed standards of health care and education. There is increased involvement of youth in the drug trade and the violence that accompanies it. Given all of this, we see a lot of the fallout in education, which is my field. The coworker who frequently accompanies me when we are called out to an incident at a school is a Seventh Day Adventist. A devout Seventh Day Adventist. I am really trying to respect the fact that his faith is important to him and it is the code by which he leads his life but it drives me crazy when he tries to apply it to the work we do.

We go to a school. A kid has attempted to stab another kid. My coworker envisions himself as an evangelizing army of one - a literal Christian soldier. He jumps all over the kid asking if he goes to church, and making references to a number of religious tenets all while pausing every now and again to demand that the kid meet his eyes, or telling him to stand up straight, or nit-picking over some detail of his uniform. Then when he’s done he tries to hand him over to me saying “I’ll let Ms.____ speak to you now”. I’m a psychologist not an inquisitor! So I refuse, and try to reassure the kid that I will talk to him later, in private. And besides, it’s clear that none of this has penetrated with this kid - if we’re lucky he’s just glazed and disaffected, if not he’s actually defiant and hostile. The parents and principal are there and they all get caught up in a discussion of what is to be done. Somewhere a long the line they start to bemoan the attitude of kids today and church will resurface again. My coworker will say it’s because they don’t teach religious education in schools and go on to talk about how the country needs to make its way back to Christ. Meanwhile I am quiet, internally fuming.

He’s not the only person like this. Person after person offers religion as the solution to every problem. It is all I can do not to be totally dismissive. How does religion address the fact that rural schools are inadequately resourced? How will a student “letting Jesus into his heart” assuage his frustration with the school curriculum? I can’t help but become angry at what I see as an avoidance of practical issues. Come on people. Real student support. Remediation for academic difficulties. Psychological intervention for mental health issues. People need to make the effort and do the work to supply the services students need. Stop bullshitting.

Watch, someone is going to read this and tell me I need a closer relationship with my personal savior.

Ugh.

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