Artwork > Political Art

The Accusers
The Accusers
Monotype
8 x 10
2012

They have always been there. Each civilization has dealt with them. Those who have a voracious appetite to punish others solely because they are different. Today, they are scripture quoters, saying their words are God's instructions, not theirs. They are dark hearted persons, using religious dogma to encourage their listeners to be mean-spirited for the sake of biblical dogma, without guilt. They are pickers and choosers, skimming the words of the Old Testament, taking what they can use and ignoring verses that would expose their false intellectualism. They look past the scriptures that say it is better to kill unruly children than have a household disrupted; or the verse that calls for death of a person who picks grain on the Sabbath. Those pronouncements wouldn't sit well with Oklahoma parents and wheat farmers. They search in vain for a verse where Jesus ask God to hurt others.

AMERICAN GRACE: IN THE NAME OF GOD

God said, I will make man in my own image,
he will be master of the fish, the birds,
the cattle, wild animals, and all that crawls.
He has blessed our way of living;
He has led us away from the road
toward eternal damnation.
We are God’s chosen, masters of all.

We condemn the most vulnerable,
oppress the poor, the hungry and homeless;
remain silent in the face of wrongdoing,
ignore the Beatitudes, opting for
our own version of American grace.
We are God’s chosen, masters of all.

We claim planet Earth as our own,
to use and do with as we want.
Our means shall justify the end,
our wants are the same as our God.
We are God’s chosen, masters of all.

Now standing before the pearly gates,
they cry out for entry, shouting:
“Lord, have mercy, we were lost and did not know.”

dgh