Last night I had the strangest dream. My country had turned into a Christian nation, and everybody who wasn't part of the church, lost most of their rights.
Suddenly, only Christians could drive on our nation's major highways. Only Christians could buy property. Our legal system had split into two forms of justice, one for Christians and one for the nonbelievers. In fact, nonbelievers were put under military justice, with few rights and long prison terms for being another religion. Even their children were routinely rounded up and sent to jail.
Some of the prisons for the nonbelievers were immense open air camps behind barbed wire. Christians could shoot into such camps at will, often killing men, women and children. Their fields were destroyed and we cut their food supply to keep them all at the brink of starvation. We didn't let them fish in international waters and routinely shot at their boats. Life for millions of non-Christians was made short and brutish, a sort of punishment for not being of the right faith.
A funny thing had happened to my Christianity. I knew my religion was full of wise teachings, but I couldn't remember any of them. Now my beliefs were nothing but love for my country and hatred for all non-Christians. I didn't allow anyone to challenge my beliefs either. To me, anyone who questioned what my country had become were simply anti-Christians.
Last night I dreamed my country had turned into Israel.
Fred Nagel
