[lbo-talk] Any Christians left in the U. S.?

[Miles Jackson]

Here's an interesting data point about the experience
of religion in the U. S. today.  On a recent exam (yep,
me and the truly diligent and/or desperate students
are in summer school), I prefaced a question with
"Imagine you've decided to serve mammon rather than
God, and you've been hired as an ad consultant for
Nike."  The question went on to ask about applications
of classical conditioning, but the interesting thing
was how many students were confused by the mammon/God
reference.  Many students thought it was information
that should go in the answer or asked me in class to
define "mammon".

At the next class session, I put the entire Matthew
6:24 quote on the board ("you cannot serve both
God and mammon") and asked the class if they had
ever read or heard that before.  Two students had.
"How many of you consider yourselves Christians?"
Every hand goes up.

I was astounded. I'm a fucking atheist, and I know
more about the teachings of Jesus than people who think
he's God.  It seems pretty obvious to me that if you
believe somebody's your savior, you'd pay attention to
what he says. --And here's the thing that killed me:
they just shrugged!  Evidently, being a Christian
has nothing to do with understanding or even caring
about the teachings of Jesus.  Are all of the various
forms of Christianity in the U. S. today this
superficial?

Miles