Round about a month or two ago, I found myself sitting on a stool with a microphone in front of my face, center stage before about a hundred and fifty people. Digital images of some of my paintings were being projected on a screen behind me and a fellow with a doctorate was asking me questions. So I talked.

I talked about how an artist should be a prophet – not in the sense of telling the future, but by identifying problems in the present and then speaking that truth to people. I saw a lot of rigorous nodding of heads. If they’d been southern Baptists, the “AMEN!s” would have been shaking the roof. Encouraged, I started to get into it – laying into consumer conformity with both barrels blazing and chastising the lazy, status-quo addicted gang that is us for standing idly by while fifty million children die every year of malnutrition-related illness. I finished with a flourish and a challenge as the name-brand attired people with their Starbucks coffee mugs continued to nod and smile.

I have done this sort of thing before and gotten the same response. In the moment it feels good. (Inner monologue: “oh, yeah – I’m Josh – I’m Awesome – It’s my birthday”.) But eventually I get back to reality and start to feeling like I have once again run smack dab into the great stone wall of Nothing Doing.

My conclusion is this: I am either not communicating correctly or I am not a good prophet. When you are a good prophet, people will do one of two things. First, they become aware of their shortcomings and fall down crying and begging God for forgiveness. (This almost never happens). Or second, they run you out of town with much cursing and flinging of heavy projectiles. They don’t nod pleasantly.

Here’s a trivia question. You may recall that in the beginning of the Bible God goes crazy on Sodom and burns it to the ground. Even if you have not spent your life swirling around in the vortex that is organized Christianity as have I, you have probably heard that story. It’s famous. Do you know why the Bible says God did that? Well, if you’re like me, you will probably say “God destroyed Sodom because the people were really freakin’ naughty.” If pressed you will probably add, “They were wickedly sodomous, of course. Where do you think the term sodomy comes from?”

This is sort of telling – that this is one of the “famous” Bible stories. This is the one that gets taught to kindergarteners to keep them from looking over their shoulders in church. This is the one that gets used to show that God hates people who do the dirty homosexual deed and wants to destroy them all in flames. The best part is that it is easy. Most people are not homosexually oriented, so it is easy for the average church person to sit back and smugly throw stones, confident that they are more righteouser than all those (insert derogatory term here) homosexuals.

You can use the Bible to prove anything, attack anyone, and justify all manner of evil behavior. If, however, you come to the Bible with an honest desire to understand what it actually says, you will find a startlingly different truth being taught. While the rape and attempted homosexual rape described in Genesis nineteen were clear indicators of the nasty depths to which the people of Sodom had sunk, there is only one verse that actually describes specifically why God destroyed Sodom. Here it is. Ezekiel 16: 49 – “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”

So. Um. Ouch. Not exactly the easily ignorable lesson taught from a thousand pulpits, the sort of lopsided teaching that can whip us into a “holy” rage and open our pockets to the latest politically-intentioned religious figure. “Arrogant, overfed and unconcerned”? That strikes a bit too close for comfortable apathetic nonchalance.

I am truly sorry, Mr. Ancient Scribe Person, but you’re going to have to strike that verse from the record. What’s that – you won’t? Well, damn you for judging me. Let’s see – how can we get around this? No problem. Nobody in churches actually ever reads the Bible, so we will just ignore it. We will teach pleasant things. We will smile and we will nod and we will watch the world burn.