How to do what’s wrong right
HOWARD LEWIS RUSSELL | Special Contributor
askhoward@dallasvoice.com
Dear Howard,
I recently started dating someone who describes himself as a Christian even though we met, naturally, on Grindr. Every week, he teaches little kindergarteners from his church something called “Vacation Bible School.” The only thing religious about this man is the faithful devotion in which he pursues getting laid.
So far, I’ve successfully bit my tongue whenever he espouses — as he always does during our post-sex pillow talk — whatever zealot crap he’s planning to fill the little kiddies’ heads with next morning, but I blew my top the other night when he announced his next day’s sermon would illuminate the tired old fairytale legend of dogwood trees being used in Christ’s crucifixion.
I mean, sweet Jesus! Isn’t it bad enough that these poor, brainwashed kids are fed such idiotic crap as evolution being just a “theory,” that dinosaurs never roamed Earth 65 million years previous to homo sapiens’ appearance, or that God created our entire planet, with all its current-day flora and fauna, only a mere 5,000 years ago — as if our world, in all its glorious diversity, is nothing more inspiring of awe than something created in six days by a two-bit intergalactic Houdini performing a hat trick? Now he has to fill them with this story about trees, too? — Raymond R.
Dear Ray,
Howard here grew up Southern Baptist … in Alabama. I feel your pain, Ray, believe me. That they’re still hawking that nonsense these days about Christ’s cross being made of dogwood is amazing — it’s a Southern folk myth, Ray, nothing more; otherwise, upon Jesus’ death, God would have made all trees to grow just as short as the dogwood, especially since the Romans sure didn’t abandon crucifixion as their preferred torture death for Christians after Jesus. Additionally, dogwoods are native to North America, not Israel. Indeed, the “dogwood legend” first appeared in The Victoria Advocate on Easter Sunday, April 18, 1954 — hardly biblical times. Lastly, the Bible itself never mentions the dogwood tree. Never. Perhaps you can ask Christian boy to explain these incongruities to the children. Better yet, let them think for themselves.
Do you have a question — about etiquette, love, life or work — that needs an answer? Send your problem to AskHoward@Dallasvoice.com and he may answer it in a future column.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 31, 2014.
