If you held a gun to my head and asked me about my religious beliefs, I’d have to say I’m an agnostic. I don’t believe in God—mostly because Donald Trump was president. But I don’t necessarily not believe in God—because there’s still a chance he’ll go to prison, where he’ll be forced to bribe his guards with toilet gin and radiator Steak-umms in exchange for significantly less exercise time.
Though if you pinned me down even further, I’d say I’m more of an atheist than anything. I’ve never seen convincing evidence of the existence of any god, much less the god of any of our current major world religions. And if you’re a proselytizing Christian, you really don’t want to talk to me. I spent 11 years in Catholic schools, studied various faith traditions as kind of a side hobby, and know where all the truly embarrassing Bible verses are buried.
That said, I’ve found that the same people who repeatedly say I’m going to be punished eternally in hell for not believing what they believe get pretty snowflake-y when you challenge their assumptions. So I’ve pretty much thrown up my hands and decided to live and let live.
Unless, that is, the conspicuously religious decide their beliefs should dictate—or forestall—my or others’ free, legitimate choices. Or if they assume I somehow haven’t heard the good news about Jesus and need another earful of everything I rejected decades ago. Then we’ve got a problem.
So I found it a little disturbing to discover that ride-sharing services like Lyft have apparently become fertile new grounds for Christian missionary work—and, unsurprisingly, not everyone is cool with it.
The Associated Press recently wrote about a new cohort of Lyft drivers who are using their side hustles to preach about the Bible—which is presumably a good strategy, since rolling out of the back seat of a car at 40 mph is still marginally more jarring than listening to a stranger wax rhapsodic about a “miraculous” plane crash that only killed 209 out of 210 passengers. But such noxious overtures seem pretty inappropriate regardless.
One proselytizer the Associated Press spoke with, the Rev. Kenneth Drayton, said he started driving for Uber in 2015 and now drives for Lyft, which he uses as a platform for sharing his faith.
Okay, it’s nice that he’s “respectful” if people aren’t receptive, but I honestly don’t want to hear any of this. I don’t go down to St. Paul’s Church dressed as a feathered serpent and demand a full-day solstice blood sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl. Or I don’t do that anymore, I should say.
“The car is such an ideal place to do this because it’s personal,” Drayton told the Associated Press. “I can share my faith and it’s so important because that’s what I live for.”
Uh huh. And I live for peace and quiet. We seem to be in conflict here. Tie goes to the paying customer.
OnlySky, a website “dedicated to protecting America’s secular democracy through reality-based journalism, storytelling, and commentary,” noted the absurdity of a supposedly inclusive, for-profit company allowing its drivers to engage in this kind of overtly religious rhetoric.
Amen … or whatever the atheist equivalent of “amen” is. (“YASSSSSS, bitch”? “Fuckin’ A”? I’ll let you know when my secular humanist friends reach a consensus.)
OnlySky also dredged up several tweets from individuals who were none too impressed with Lyft’s nonpolicy on religious proselytization:
Meanwhile, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is also weighing in. While the FFRF usually focuses its efforts on maintaining a strict separation between church and state, in this case the group would likely settle for a partition between the front and back seats of these preacher-drivers’ cars.
Fuckin’ A right, FFRF.
Now, to be fair, this isn’t a First Amendment issue. If a private company wants to open its doors to this kind of overt and calculated campaign, that’s totally up to them. The question is, should it? Is it a ridesharing service or a church? Because I rarely step into a church these days, and if this is the kind of reception I can expect in a Lyft, I’d prefer to wind back the clock and take a cab rather than wind back the calendar and listen to some self-proclaimed vicar of Christ tell me women shouldn’t have authority over their own bodies.
But hey, that’s just common sense—a commodity that appears to be in short supply these days at Lyft corporate HQ.
Sen. Raphael Warnock is still defending his Georgia seat, and the Dec. 6 runoff is coming fast. If you can—and if you aren’t too tired from saving America on Nov. 8—please rush a donation to Team Warnock now! You can also write letters to Georgia voters with Vote Forward! Let’s finish up strong!
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
Though if you pinned me down even further, I’d say I’m more of an atheist than anything. I’ve never seen convincing evidence of the existence of any god, much less the god of any of our current major world religions. And if you’re a proselytizing Christian, you really don’t want to talk to me. I spent 11 years in Catholic schools, studied various faith traditions as kind of a side hobby, and know where all the truly embarrassing Bible verses are buried.
That said, I’ve found that the same people who repeatedly say I’m going to be punished eternally in hell for not believing what they believe get pretty snowflake-y when you challenge their assumptions. So I’ve pretty much thrown up my hands and decided to live and let live.
Unless, that is, the conspicuously religious decide their beliefs should dictate—or forestall—my or others’ free, legitimate choices. Or if they assume I somehow haven’t heard the good news about Jesus and need another earful of everything I rejected decades ago. Then we’ve got a problem.
So I found it a little disturbing to discover that ride-sharing services like Lyft have apparently become fertile new grounds for Christian missionary work—and, unsurprisingly, not everyone is cool with it.
The Associated Press recently wrote about a new cohort of Lyft drivers who are using their side hustles to preach about the Bible—which is presumably a good strategy, since rolling out of the back seat of a car at 40 mph is still marginally more jarring than listening to a stranger wax rhapsodic about a “miraculous” plane crash that only killed 209 out of 210 passengers. But such noxious overtures seem pretty inappropriate regardless.
One proselytizer the Associated Press spoke with, the Rev. Kenneth Drayton, said he started driving for Uber in 2015 and now drives for Lyft, which he uses as a platform for sharing his faith.
Okay, it’s nice that he’s “respectful” if people aren’t receptive, but I honestly don’t want to hear any of this. I don’t go down to St. Paul’s Church dressed as a feathered serpent and demand a full-day solstice blood sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl. Or I don’t do that anymore, I should say.
“The car is such an ideal place to do this because it’s personal,” Drayton told the Associated Press. “I can share my faith and it’s so important because that’s what I live for.”
Uh huh. And I live for peace and quiet. We seem to be in conflict here. Tie goes to the paying customer.
OnlySky, a website “dedicated to protecting America’s secular democracy through reality-based journalism, storytelling, and commentary,” noted the absurdity of a supposedly inclusive, for-profit company allowing its drivers to engage in this kind of overtly religious rhetoric.
Amen … or whatever the atheist equivalent of “amen” is. (“YASSSSSS, bitch”? “Fuckin’ A”? I’ll let you know when my secular humanist friends reach a consensus.)
OnlySky also dredged up several tweets from individuals who were none too impressed with Lyft’s nonpolicy on religious proselytization:
Meanwhile, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is also weighing in. While the FFRF usually focuses its efforts on maintaining a strict separation between church and state, in this case the group would likely settle for a partition between the front and back seats of these preacher-drivers’ cars.
Fuckin’ A right, FFRF.
Now, to be fair, this isn’t a First Amendment issue. If a private company wants to open its doors to this kind of overt and calculated campaign, that’s totally up to them. The question is, should it? Is it a ridesharing service or a church? Because I rarely step into a church these days, and if this is the kind of reception I can expect in a Lyft, I’d prefer to wind back the clock and take a cab rather than wind back the calendar and listen to some self-proclaimed vicar of Christ tell me women shouldn’t have authority over their own bodies.
But hey, that’s just common sense—a commodity that appears to be in short supply these days at Lyft corporate HQ.
Sen. Raphael Warnock is still defending his Georgia seat, and the Dec. 6 runoff is coming fast. If you can—and if you aren’t too tired from saving America on Nov. 8—please rush a donation to Team Warnock now! You can also write letters to Georgia voters with Vote Forward! Let’s finish up strong!
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.