South Carolina or Bust

"Christian Exodus" is on to something. Led by Cory Burnell, the Christian Exodus movement works to transplant 2500 like-minded Christians to two South Carolina cities by September of 2006 in Phase One of its proposed take over of the state. True, only twenty families have made the move so far, and, also true, Burnell isn’t one of them, still, this is a cool idea.

Burnell chose South Carolina because it is already overwhelmingly in the Christian Conservative camp. A few well-placed Christian Exodus majorities could tip the state into a Christian theocracy that legislates Burnell’s Christian values such as no abortion, no pornography, no social security, no homosexuality, no public education, and no gun control. You can read the details of their values oriented politics by putting “Christian Constitutionalists” into your favorite search engine.

The idea isn’t at all far fetched. Christians moving to South Carolina to set up a holy land is no different than the Israelites moving into Canaan to set up the Promised Land. It worked for them, and it will work for Burnell’s group as well. In fact it harkens back to our colonial period where different colonies elevated one denomination of Christianity over the others, and parallels the Mormon domination of Utah. It is very American.

So in the spirit of American ecumenism, I would like to suggest that every faith make a move to the state of their choice. Of course smaller religions like Judaism or Buddhism should be realistic and choose smaller or less populated states. Jews may have a leg up in New York, though they may opt for a city-state, i.e., New York City, rather than the whole state of New York. Unitarians used to dominate Massachusetts, and still have their headquarters there, so they might just invite all their members to move back to the mother land. Christian Science also claims Boston as its home, so there may be a bit of a shooting war to determine who gets rights to the state. I would place my money on Christian Science. First they have the better newspaper, and second, they aren’t supposed to die.

Even though they don’t constitute a religion, gays and lesbians might want to go for there own state as well. Feminists might have a state so they could secure abortion rights. I mean there is no end to the possibilities here.

So this is what I suggest. Sit down and figure out what your core values are. Then check to see if there is a group that already supports them one hundred percent. If there is, join
it and push for state control somewhere. If there isn’t, create one, target a state, and get your friends to move there with you. This would be phase one of my plan.

Then once the country is divided into neat warring camps we can start phase two and begin to invade one another’s territory, kill one another’s clergy, and bomb one another’s places of worship. We could have riots and marches and murders—I mean it certainly looks like fun in Iraq— why not do that here? There is nothing better than living among people that are just like you. You don’t have to think or compromise or worry that someone might say something you don’t want your children to here. Go for it, Christian Exodus! South Carolina or Bust!