The Ten Commandments

Within a few weeks, the University of Central Arkansas was visited by two different groups of far-right Christian proselytizers, come to spread the gospel of hellfire, damnation, homophobia, Antisemitism, and other messages of Jesus Christ's love for humanity. It's all in the Bible, under the Gospel of Douche and the Epistle to the Westboro Baptist Church. If you don't have the same version as these fine exemplars of Christ's love then I'm afraid that you've just bought yourself a one-way express ticket to hell. Also, if you're a male and have long hair, shorts, premarital sex, drink, smoke (anything at all, including tires when showing off for some Sigma Kappa's on the sidewalk), are Catholic, masturbate, curse, or don't give unquestioning drone-like service to the Republican Party you will go to hell. If you're a female, then you're going to hell if you have short hair, wear short skirts, tank tops, spaghetti strap tops, halter tops, tube tops, smoke, drink, curse, have premarital sex, take or practice any birth control, aren't subservient to a male of any sort, or adorn yourself with jewelry.

The second group, a group of people who looked like a fine collection of rejected extras from Witness with their bonnets and skirts and whatnot, had probably the most offensive display of pro-life paraphernalia I have ever seen. There's one way of going about informing people of the pro-life arguments, and then there's forcing your beliefs down someone else's throats by abusing a free speech area to fill it with repulsive images of supposed abortions right outside of where people eat lunch. What are you trying to prove? That you have no sense of where to draw the line? That your life is so pathetic and worthless you have to forgo a normal life for yourself and your children to throw your collective efforts into a cause so you can have enough meaning in your life to justify you not being aborted? Indecent in the least, and absolutely disgusting at the most, this is just a more radical version of a geist that has been sweeping UCA for some time now: Over-zealous Christian proselytizing.

What is it that makes these people think and act the way they do? Why do these people pursue their goals with a fervor equal to that of a mujahedin? Well, luckily for us, there have been numerous excavations done in Israel in recent years, uncovering a plethora of ancient Christian texts and various materials. The Gospel of Judas has filled our news recently, but there have been numerous unearthings just as important as this apocryphal text, one in particular. Found in an Essene fortress close the Dead Sea, a simple list carved into a stone tablet in classical Hebrew discloses a set of rules for the budding religion of Christianity and its adherents. Without any further time wasted on trivial details, I give you the Ten Commandments For On-Campus Protestant Proselytizing. (Amazing that this actually predates Protestantism by a good 1300 years. Our God is an awesome God, and such.)

I - Thou shalt not recognize nor respect the simple command of "no." Yea, these heathens are but an uneducated lot, who must be taught the particular version of the Gospel that thou hath adhered to by promising fealty to the (name of particular sect is missing here). Much like the babe who will not sip upon a cup of warm ale to cure his colic, the Word of Our Saviour must be forced down their throats in order to save their wretched and unworthy souls from the damnation that they other deserve (and we still secretly believe they are going to).

II - Thou shalt act in accordance with that of an oppressed minority when rejected by an infidel, even though thou art the clear majority in the nation, being white, middle class, and Protestant.
Yea, for whilst thou art simply a religious professional, your rejection means that you are, most assuredly, being rejected because thou art Christian. Let there be woe! Gnashing of teeth! Crying! Whining! Seeking of camaraderie and empathy from other people in a comparable and secure socio-economic standing. Yea, for whilst thou art spared the lions and the cross and the floggings and public humiliation and immolation and slave labor that befell your religious forefathers, you must believe and claim that you are as, nay more! persecuted than ever before despite the fact that ye constitute well over 75% of the nation's religious identity.

III - Thou shalt abuse free speech areas for radical diatribes of whatever Christian ideology you have.
Thou shalt read the introductory paragraphs to see what model thou shalt follow.

IV - Thou shalt adopt a seemingly innocuous appearance of nomenclature to make the congress of believers seem more "cool."
Verily, calling thine church services on Wednesday night "Wednesday Night Worship Service" is not enough! Take on a name worthy of a failed PR campaign for a nightclub! Thou shalt design a logo and make flyers, banners, bumper stickers, and keychains! Thine name shall be of a most short nature, like StuMo, The Rock, The Well, Elevation, WOW, 2fifty2, YOW, Ye Church ALIVE!, The House, and Greek letters that are only slightly incognito on campus. There is no end to the marketing blitz thou must undertake! Remember: Tis better to cheapen and materialize the name of our Great Saviour and promote Him and the Great Bumpersticker-Inspirer-In-The-Sky than it is to be the quiet zealot praying in the closet, secure in thine faith and sharing a truly intimate relationship with the Lord.

V - Thou shalt try to lure people into taking the Gospel by offering them a most generous slicing of pizza.
Ethics be not of concern! Ye Olde Gospel is of priority to thee! Not telling the folk partaking of the pizza and the chips and Dr. Pepper gone flat in plastic two liter bottles is a tacit, and subconscious, encouragement for the witnessing of the Gospel! Verily, doing this in the name of Jesus is not a lie!

VI - Thou shalt have not a single second of education in theology nor philosophy, yet thou shalt declare thine self a theological prodigy.
Whilst this may appear contrary to the cause of Mother Church(es), it is most necessary. Yea, spouting thine mouth off on basic philosophical issues and misinterpreted verses to anyone who will listen to thine idiotic banter is the most Christian thing a true believer can do. Verily, making statements contrary to Christian theology and arguments such as humans will never understand the God who made us is the most Christian of arguments and will most assuredly draw heathens into the fold as they are stunned by thine armchair, amateur, pedestrian knowledge!

VII - Thou shalt not convey love, nor peace, nor hope, nor anything of Christ.
Verily, thou shall use a most illogical version of reverse pyschology to draw them into the faith of a man who preached unconditional love, peace, friendliness, acts of kindness, and so forth. Yea, thou shalt be ornery, cold, unresponsive, elitist, gossipy, and as hypocritical as possible for this will appeal to their heathen intellects in some manner which we haven't thought out yet.

VIII - Thou shalt decry everything as a sin, worthy of much damnation and hellfire!
Sex, cigarettes, rock music, movies, Democrats, homosexuality, fine art, fine wine, fine cheese, Europe, Russia, Communism, free-trade agreements, foreigners, Jews, Oxygen TV, Disney, clothes, hairstyles, caffeine (for Mormons), the internet, secularism, humanism, philosophy, foreign-made cars, books not printed on onion paper, not going to church on Sunday, intelligence, critical thought, questioning the God-given mandate of the GOP, Barak Obama, abortion, microfibers, not driving SUVs, hybrid cars, not buying magnetic ribbons, not reciting the Pledge of Alliegance, the Bill of Rights, dance, trance, trip hop. Stephen King, Mexicans who work for less wages, the modern welfare state, separation of church and state, studying other religions, cheap beer, the BBC, Disney and all its affiliates (ABC, ABC Family, ESPN, Lifetime, Pixar, Miramax, Touchstone, etc), XM radio, Sirius radio, standard transmissions, Greek mythology, Norse mythology, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the internets and all rumors therein, Green Party, Ralph Nader, independent voting, WIC, iMacs, iPods, iBooks, iRaq, iRan, Gary Cooper, Steve Buscemi, the stock market, Hollywood, Britpop, zombie fiction, microfibers, and any other denomination beside thine own.

IX - Thou shalt fuse politics and religion in one most highly divine mixture of bumper stickers and ill-informed single-issue votes with little or no concern to the destruction of the intrinsically sublime metaphysics of thine religious beliefs
The democratic process shalt be yet one more arena in which thou shalt bring the logic of all the above steps into half-informed political manifestos. Yea, though not a single Republican hath taken a single step towards banning or limiting abortion, making them pro-choice by default, the votes of your spiritual brethren shall most assuredly be in their favor. Also, God loves guns and every single Founding Father had a most red sanguine fluid basis to their life and was a God-fearing (name of sect missing), despite all evidence otherwise.

X - Thou shalt, in a most impressive combination of any of the above commandments, make such an ass of thine self that any hopes for conversion is shot whilst either ruining a day for a heathen or providing unintentional comedic relief at the expense of the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.