The people who are killing Christianity are the Christians themselves; far right zealots whose altered version of the religion, and demands for loyalty to certain politicians and political beliefs, are driving people away in droves.
You are! You've managed to take a religion whose tentpoles are based on peace, welcoming, love and compassion, and have mutilated it into a weapon against your perceived enemies. You've distorted Jesus' teaching to unrecognizable levels, and in some cases just made crap up, creating new far right Christian tentpoles intended to vilify, torment, persecute and condemn. Let me show you how your version of the religion is a mockery, and is devaluing the Christian faith as a whole.
Let's start with the demand any Christian adhere to a Republican only standard, and how you're making fools with such a demand in the age of Trump. News break: Trump isn't a devout Christian! At best he's the guy who begrudgingly wanders into a house of worship on the major holidays. He loves to brag how Christian he is, but he does very little to show any religious habits. He doesn't go to church on a regular basis. HE DOESN'T! He clearly has a very limited grasp of the Bible. And when you compare his political agenda to the teachings from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John [the four books of the New Testament which make all Chrisitians Christian] it's as if he's purposely trying to do everything the exact opposite of how Jesus told us to live our lives. Yet you Christians have anointed Trump a new biblical deity, commanding all Christians to support him no matter how anti-Christian he gets.
Meanwhile, the same exact people constantly vilified former President Obama, a man who was clearly a Christian! You discounted and dismissed his faith because it allowed the Christian right to hate him. Under the far right Christians' new Biblical rules, love, compassion an forgiveness for your fellow man could be negated as long as you labeled the person you wanted to hate a non-Christian. With President Obama, the right ignored his faith to feed their flames of hate. And before you clowns on the right say "I never did that," you're lying! Every Evangelical Chrisitan pushed the 'Obama as a fake Chrisitan' narrative, or at best you silently said nothing as you nodded in agreement.
You far right Christians watch Trump do the most unChristian things and you say nothing. Jailing asylum seekers seeking safety, denying sick people life saving medical coverage, gutting social programs for the poor, and embracing a grossly unfair economic and justice system, things Jesus taught us to fight against, are all given a pass by the Christian right. Evangelicals just hum their psalms loudly to drum out the cries and screams from young children, lost in Trump's chaotic immigration system, some of whom have been sexually assaulted repeatedly, some of whom have been handed over by Trump to sex traffickers, as these young children lose hope of ever being reunited with family. And over a dozen kids have died under Trump's 'benevolence.' Yes indeed, Trump has done all of this, yet you far right Christians say nothing, endorsing his evil behavior with silence.
And yet the far right/Evangelical Christians feel as if they are pious for one simple reason; they've created a hierarchy of sins. For Evangelicals and far right Christians, their version of Christianity is that abortion is the biggest sin, then being gay, and the rest of Jesus' teachings are just lip service; great if you do them, but no necessary because "I saved a baby and condemned a gay man!" For the record, that's not how Jesus or Christianity works. There was never supposed to be a Lord of the Rings type of list, 'one sin to rule them all,' but that's what the Right's done with Christianity
Abortion. As I wrote years back, I'm personally against it. Christians, being anti-abortion is never mentioned in the Bible. IT ISN'T! Not only that, the Bible says life begins at Breath (not conception), Numbers mandates certain women need to get an abortion, and God himself not only demands slaughter of infants and fetuses, he himself has killed them (you think Noah's flood didn't kill a while bunch of unborn and born kids?). And for the record, Jesus never once mentioned abortion, but he did directly condemn the death penalty.
Christian Right, you care nothing for that baby when the baby is born. You don't. I know you'll say that's not true, but it is. When was the last time you screamed at a politician for not feeding them, not offering them medical care, not sheltering them, not offering free daycare options? Jesus would be for all of these things, plus much, much more, AND YOU KNOW IT(!), but yet you never get into a politicians face when they threaten to cut these programs or argue the poor are just freeloaders.
I know the Christian Right, when confronted with all of this, fall back to the "but I'm saving an innocent life," but two points: the death penalty and wars. If all life is sacred (according to the Bible), why do you tolerate executions and wars? Don't give me 18th and 19th century revisions to the Bible meant to justify corporal punishment in the lawless West. "Because he deserved it" was NEVER valid reason to execute a person, according to Jesus. And we have executed innocent people, something which has been proven. How many politicians have you called about that? How many sermons have you heard about the wrongful imprisonment and killing of an innocent man? The entire sacrifice of Jesus at Easter was a condemnation of execution, period! And war? Come on, you think wars are still fought with guys on one side and the other guys on the other, like WWI. We bomb from the stratosphere, killing innocent civilians. Modern war kills FAR MORE civilians (including woman and children, both born and unborn) then it does soldiers today. Trump is now offering to pardon war criminals, people who murdered innocents in war zones, and you Evangelical Christians say nothing because your sin outrage hierarchy tells you their death is not as bad as an pregnant teen getting an abortion (and [let's be honest] you're not bothered because the dead in war zones are usually Muslims - you know, the non-Christians excuse I mentioned earlier).
While I agree (personally) a baby is innocent, I feel it's innocent both inside the mother and outside the mother. But not you far Right Christians. The baby is innocent until it's born, then it's a moocher "wasting my taxpayer dollars!" And I'll even cut deeper, outside of cute caucasian babies, your world view embraces many non-caucasian kids living life in a harsh and unpleasant foster care system for 18 years, with no chance at adoption, as 'Christians' insist they don't owe those children anything after demanding their birth.
At best Christian Right, you're not pro life. You're pro de-womb-ing only, AT BEST!
As far as your strange fascination with the LGBTQ community, a group of people who were made in the same exact manner as heterosexual people, never once did Jesus condemn gay people. He didn't, no matter how much you try to say he did. You're just elevating lesser teachings from the Old and New Testaments to OVERRULE Jesus, an attempt to validate your hatred. Whose teachings make up Christianity? It is Jesus or Paul? Is it Leviticus or Jesus? Trick questions, it was Jesus! Your hatred of the LGBTQ community is not Christianity. It just isn't.
And by the way, your hatred of gay people always seems to boil down to your fascination with the kind of sex the LGBTQ community has. That's weird and it tells me far more about you than it does about them. Instead of vilifying others for engaging in something you secretly think about, maybe you should try it, with a willing partner, either heterosexual or otherwise. Maybe you'll realize God made us in this form, and he never gave us no fly zones. ENJOY! Explore the beautiful thing you've been given, yourself, and stop hating others who your seem to be jealous of.
This is the Evangelical Chriatian today. "Here's the Bible, now we're going to throw out 99% of it. Seriously, completely ignore most of it! In regards to the pro life potion of Biblical teachings, here's some fan fiction we wrote which overrides actual Biblical scripture. The only lives that matter are babies, Republicans and those in your immediate family who agree with your politics. And here are a random group of non-Jesus Biblical passages on why we have to stop the LGBTQ community from having sex. Seriously, obsess over the types of sex those people are having. And just remember when you hear a Bible passage which focuses on the needy or contradicts what we preach, nod you head with a smile and immediately ignore it!"
It's a mystery why you guys can't fill up the pews!
The reason people are leaving the church in droves is you Evangelicals and Far Right Christians. Stop being jerks, stop weaponizing the Bible, stop validating your personal hatreds with a religion which supposed to be based on love and compassion, and embrace a welcoming spirit, screaming out loud "you are loved here, regardless of who you are!"
That's always been Christianity's strongest selling point.
Great read. It is also painfully accurate, which gives it that extra umph.
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