Now it’s hard to get in the door:
of time tracking the religious right’s assault on human rights and
secular democracy. But it’s also important to think about how they
financially exploit their own followers, who are lured in with Jesus
and fetuses and fears of dudes kissing, and told to open their
wallets. You can usually tell what’s going on with the wingnuts by
what they claim The Left is doing, and so it’s not for nothing that
there are constant, baseless claims that feminists are in some
baby-killing money-making conspiracy—classic projection, a way to
push their own angst about the way they really do financially exploit
the everyday follower. As this Kinkade lawsuit shows, the exploitation
is endemic, and reaches way past just the televangelist begging.
The merchandising of Christianity has driven me nuts sincethe crucifix nail necklaces that accompanied The Passion of the Christ got released. It goes on and on and it never ends, like the Pokemon from hell. My favorite example of this isthis china, which is advertised in an entirely secular magazine I get.
I’m torn between wanting to laugh at the thought of early Christians’ reaction to the trinkets now sold in their names and an abiding disgust for the people attempting to profit from exploiting a market that, while maybe not now, was once made up primarily of people sincerely searching for truth in the world. Who are then told that in order to find that truth, they need a set of plates with Holy Writ upon them, and a painting by Thomas Kinkade.
A.