The Exodux, Part II

Occasionally a blog entry drops out of the news like manna from heaven. You just snap it up and hope another piece falls into your desert encampment soon. In baseball, these moments are like hitting a hanging curve ball. In fishing, it’s like catching fish in a barrel. In hunting, it’s like shooting old men on the Armstrong Ranch.

The manna of which I speak – a news story about all conservative Christians (CCs) moving to South Carolina, where they will inhabit a new Promised Land and live happily ever after. This nascent movement is cleverly dubbed the Christian Exodus (CE). Well, let my people go! May God bless this exodus; and may it take them much less than 40 years to vacate our wilderness. The prospect of the religious wrong all being gathered in one place is just too sweet to dare dream of. It portends a state of affairs where everyone wins. Forty-nine states will be free of their malicious agenda; and one state will become everything they want in life. Mercy! I’d better lie down; I think I’m getting light headed.

The original exodus, led by Moses dressed up as Charlton Heston, proved a bit tricky. Only two of the captives who fled Egypt (Joshua and Caleb, the sole survivors from the Sinai tribe) actually got to cross the River Jordan and enter the Promised Land. The rest of them, including their leader, got busted by God for an array of serious shortcomings, including that raucous spring break they spent frolicking with a golden calf. They learned that being right all the time is like getting water to flow from a rock – it’s damn tough work and very few get it right.

But, unlike the CE, the Jewish Exodus didn’t have the help of the League of the South and the Patriot Network, two southern groups dedicated to secession from the U.S. version of ancient Egypt. These good-old-boy groups are staunch supporters of the CE dream to “advance the cause of liberty” (sound familiar?). In their new world, liberty is advanced first and foremost by outlawing homosexuality. That’s because, as all of us can appreciate, gay guys are the single most threatening menace on the face of the earth. Reportedly, the CE will allow girl-on-girl frolicking to continue as long as they don’t want to share health insurance or adopt pets together. Next on the advancing-liberty agenda is to end public education and have all of God’s children attend Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC. That’s the Christian “college” where they dropped their ban on interracial dating only after a W. campaign stop there accidentally flipped the switch on the national klieg light. It’s amazing what will crawl away in the glare of public attention.

As gleeful as I get over this prospect there are some troubling signs on the horizon. First, the CE leader, Brother Cory Burnell, has yet to make the move. It seems he’s been too busy recruiting from his home in Lodi, California, to pack up and head east. He says he’s “working out the logistics” to move his family. Apparently, he can’t find the phone number for the nearest U-Haul dealer. Every Sunday in church his family can be heard quietly singing the CC Revival hymn, “Oh, Lord! Stuck in Lodi again!” Furthermore, only about 20 CCs have actually exited the wilderness and found their way to South Carolina under the CE banner, although 1,200 want-a-be trekkies have signed up on the CE website. That is certainly less-than-modest results from the faithful. But, I’m not going to lose hope. I’m going to continue to have faith that God will lead these people in a rousing rendition of their anthem, which until 1931 was our national anthem, “Hail Columbia, happy land!” Cue the chorus:

Firm, united let us be,
Rallying round our liberty,
As a band of brothers joined,
Peace and safety we shall find.

(If they don’t mind, I’d like to carve Charleston out of their new and improved republic because the beautiful gardens and antebellum homes in that marvelous city need to be preserved for us heathen. Perhaps Charleston can become the New Berlin, walled off from the surrounding commune with a corridor connecting it to the west.)

One thing that strikes me as curious about this movement is that it reverses the Great Commission from Christ to “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” Instead, these disciples have decided to bring good news to all creation by leaving the world and huddling their masses in the Palmetto State. By the way, it’s a curious irony that the CCs have selected the only state in the union where the state flag includes a crescent moon, a symbol somewhat prevalent in the Islamic world.

I’m not sure what South Carolina did to earn this honor. Maybe it was that little dustup over the Confederate flag flying over their state capitol, under the crescent moon. That kind of allegiance to the flag is just the kind of thing that rings the liberty bell for the CCs. I have nothing against South Carolina. But I am willing to surrender it for the good of the free world. Their sacrifice will go down in history as one small step for CCs, but one giant leap for everyone else on the light side of the planet. If all the uber-evangelicals move to South Carolina then we will finally have realized the dream to see freedom on the march. We will have spread liberty through 49 states and the people left behind will be free at last!