Bad Christians

I consider myself to be a Christian, I don't feel the need to hide that. I'm probably not as active as I should be and I don't go to church every Sunday but I appreciate the good causes that certain aspects of the community are involved with and I also believe having faith in something is important for me. Maybe it's my science background - the more things are described in elegant equations and theories makes me further appreciate the thought that there's something bigger behind it all. Sometimes the world just seems too perfect to happen solely by chance and the idea of a catalycst behind it all is comforting. I can also see it coming from personal experiences. As a young adult there was a lot of hardship in my life. Three family members dying of AIDS-related complications (including a young cousin that received a bad blood transfussion), an uncle that died unexpectadly over the Christmas season, and other family members that passed away too young from unfortunate circumstances. It's comforting, to me, to think there's something out there for these people. It helps me move on.

Having said that, I'm the last person to impose any sort of belief on anybody, mainly because I'm a realist (I realize that might seem contradictory). I don't believe in a literal interpretation of the bible at all. I'm fully aware of the inaccuracies and the impossibilities of a lot of the text. I believe it's audacious to look at this universe, look at our insignificant roll in how it all works, and believe that there's a force out there that meddles in our day-to-day lives and looks out for us simply because we believe that it exists. I believe more in karmic rewards, that good people are good people no matter what they believe in. I believe that this reality is here for us to appreciate and learn about - that God is a builder and he wants to show off what he's built. He wants us to understand it and learn from it. But he doesn't get involved - and why should he? It's like us getting involved in the lives of ants and asking them to worship us.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Christians out there who believe in the exact opposite. And that brings me to this video:



The smugness of the woman in that video disgusts me. The judgemental, holier-than-thou attitude is as un-Christian as you can get. The eye-rolls, the hatred, and the superiority complex that she carries is the reason why a large portion of our population is so fucked-up right now.

Here's the thing. This woman is evil. There's really no other way to put it. Look at her - from this short clip we can tell that she's guilty of four of the seven deadly sins. You can tell she's gluttonous and slothful just by looking at her. You can tell she's wrathful and full of pride just by the way she carries herself. And yet, for some reason, despite the fact that she is a sinner by the definition of the church she attends, she has the audacity to believe that God's going to look out for her.

Assuming I'm wrong. Assuming God does get involved in our day-to-day lives provided that we strictly follow the rules set-forth in some ancient text. How on Earth can this lazy, hateful woman believe that God's going to look out for her? What is this Christianity that she knows?

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. I think Religulous kicked the whole thing off. Robin and I walked out of the theater and I said, "Kind of makes you feel like an asshole, doesn't it?" I've loosed up a bit since then, since my own faith is a very personal thing and not something I use as proof of knowledge or superiority. Hell, my faith is what I use to keep humble and remind myself that we'll never know all the answers. So I don't think I'm destructive because of my beliefs, but the movie certainly opened my eyes a lot more to the people who are destructive in the name of their faith.

And, of course, like all things I can't help but tie it to politics. The evangelicals and southern baptists and Pentecostals and other denominations that tend to make up the religious base of the Republican Party are the first people to decry liberalism on moral grounds, usually pointing to abortion and gay marriage as the main reason why liberalism is evil. Abortion - ok, I can get that moral dilemma. It's not an easy thing to resolve if you're a person of faith. I believe in a woman's right to choose, myself, but I kind of see a cut-off (extreme circumstances aside) when it gets to the point that the baby can survive without the mother which, as of writing this, is around 22-weeks. Which is really what we have in place right now, anyway. The gay marriage issue, however - I firmly believe that being against gay marriage is un-Christian. It's not like churches are going to be forced to marry homosexuals so, you know, why the hate?

Those two things aside - the rest of liberalism is Jesus' teaching, practically verbatim. The same "moral majority" that decries liberalism would also use the GOP sound bites like "socialism" and "state-sponsored welfare." Isn't the main goal of Christianity to take care of those less fortunate than you? Would't things like lower taxes for the poor, higher taxes for the rich, universal health care, welfare, unemployment, higher minimum wages, peaceful resolutions, the belief in rehabilitation, etc be in-line with Jesus' teachings? Wouldn't tax breaks for the rich, wars, the death penalty, and the abolition of social programs be more in line with the people Jesus was rallying against?

How can a true Christian believe that the GOP's the right call? I can see someone of faith not standing strongly behind either party, or going solely for centrists, but the Republicans? Really?

In my mind I keep coming back to one term: Bad Christians. There are way too many of them in this world. They look at the bible and think it's written permission to do whatever they want and say whatever they want as long as they believe that Jesus died for their sins. One of these Bad Christians would read this and probably classify me as a sinner simply because I don't subscribe to their particular version of Christianity. Despite the fact that I do more good in this world than they will ever do, despite the fact that there are the same fundamental beliefs unifying us to an extent, despite the fact that I'm actually reaching back to the bible to justify my own political leanings, I'd be a sinner.

It's a shame. A community as large as the Christians could do so much good for the world. And they do, don't get me wrong. But it seems like there are the fringe members that do nothing but good, the fringe members that do nothing but evil, and the one's in between that do jack-shit and assume the Lord's looking out for them. The latter two types of Christians are the bad ones, and they're unfortunately the ones that are growing in number.

Labels: editorial, politics, religion

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