Almost all of my life has been a result of the Southern experience and most of that in Mississippi. The few places that I have called home were a far cry from the hustle and bustle of the city streets. Places where tradition is respected as well as revered. As a boy, I never questioned the way life was.
I grew older and learned there were so many unwritten laws along with the written ones that I was to abide by and never ever challenge. You are not to cut anything (hair, grass, etc) on Sundays nor are you to wash clothes. Selling or buying alcohol after 10 or on Sunday was just plain wrong.
The rules of the world were explained as apart of the "Great" Southern Culture. I was blessed to be an inhabitant of the "Bible Belt" (I placed in quotations because it is of my imagination). This region of the southern US that is mainly known for it's deep rooted Protestant domination (mainly Baptist) from Texas into the Carolinas. While it is true that this region is the most known for heavy Christian worship, it is not known for upholding strong Christian principles as it leads on. Follow me please.
As an 18 year old high school senior in 1999, I attended a high school that still practiced separate but equal officers, proms, and homecoming courts years after Brown v. Board of Education. I soon learned that it was no isolated case; that many communities far from the eyes of critics or government still upheld some version of Jim Crow and called it way of life. Why? Because that was the way it had always been and no one complained.
The way it has always been is the cry of the conservative "Bible Belt". The theme suggest that any change, modest or radical, to the way of life is un-welcomed and in some cases un-Godly even if the change became law, or recently, President of the US. Deny the change 'til death is the cry of the "Bible Beltian". I'm not shocked at the actions of the people of the mentioned region just the audacity of them to proclaim they are THE model Christian.
History has shown the rebellious nature of Americans. There was the insistence that a slave was not indeed a human but a fraction of one, the resistance to a Constitutional Amendment banning alcohol, the "banning" of alcohol stating that it was causing criminal activity (you should know what that was about), so on and so forth. It is understandable that somewhere an idea will blossom to promote a change, for better or worse, and there will always be opposition. What I cannot comprehend is how it can become a practice of one's faith.
To sum up my gripe, the majority of southern Americans are worshipers of Christianity. When it came to abolition, desegregation, and race relations in general, a certain number of the southern American population (white, black, other) did and still are hesitant to accept changes. All that religious practice must make some blind to the Truth. I don't claim to be any expert, but maybe it's stems from the ongoing segregation in the practice of religion.
One thing I can say is that I am far, far from the perfect, but I am no hypocrite (not saying that anyone else is either). I know that I cannot select part of what I am taught as law; disregard others and still expect my life to be Christ-like. So the next time I catch a "Bible Belt" or similar law (Holly Springs, MS stores closing at 5 pm on a certain weekday), I'll challenge it with the question: How is keeping this tradition making us closer to God?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
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