Where are the good Christians?

[SecularMotion]

(CNN) -- Christianity in America is being hijacked. The faith known for Jesus Christ's teaching of "love thy neighbor as yourself" is in danger of being redefined by the far right as: "Hate the gays, Mormons and Muslims."

Just this past weekend, Christian missionaries -- including members of the organization Bible Believers -- traveled to one of the biggest Arab-American festivals in the country to taunt Muslims. These so-called Christians held up a pig's head while spewing hateful words about Islam. In the past, they have also attacked Catholicism as a "false doctrine."

If they were the only Christians spewing hate, they could simply be ignored. But they are not. Alarmingly, some well-known Christian leaders and pastors have articulated thoughts that range from intolerant to truly hateful.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/21/opinion/obeidallah-christians-radicals/index.html

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Fundies not Christians ,same people that crucified Jesus

and would again.

[Angry Dragon]

2. fundies call themselves Christians

[jorno67]

5. tea baggers call themselves patriots...

anyone can claim they are something they are not.

[mr blur]

6. Ah, no no TRUE Christian...eh?

Got it.

[orpupilofnature57]

13. If you say you are ,you aren't

plain and simple ,it's a result not a team jersey.

[Goblinmonger]

8. Problem solved!

I see them fading away to nothing just moments after you typed that.

But, seriously, got anything to say that might, um, actually make a difference rather than just make you feel better about your brand of Christianity?

[orpupilofnature57]

16. No!

But I have a feeling it wouldn't make any difference with you ,oh well.

[Shadowflash]

3. Good question.

the silence is deafening.

[left coaster]

4. "Hate the gays, Mormons and Muslims." .. AND WOMEN, ffs. nt

[canoeist52]

7. I found a great group on Facebook called "The Christian Left".

"Mission
To follow Jesus by taking actions on behalf of the oppressed, the sick, the hungry, the poor, the incarcerated, the lonely, the disabled, the mentally ill, the mistreated, the war-torn, and the weak.
Description
Ps. 140:12 I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy."
General Information
Our Blog: http://www.thechristianleftblog.org/
Our Website: http://www.thechristianleft.org/

I'm not religious, but I enjoy sharing their posts with my fundamentalist friends!

[orpupilofnature57]

17. Thank you ,I'm a leftist Christian.

And I enjoyed it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. Me, too

I now consider myself a Democratic Socialist.

[orpupilofnature57]

22. Better than a Fascist Republican.

[cbayer]

9. Good article. I agree that mainstream religious leaders need to

more aggressively counter the hate mongers that have stolen the name Christian.

[dimbear]

10. Consider the panorama of Christian history. What comes to mind? Is it seriously something like

love your neighbor?

Reread the descriptions of the conquest of Jerusalem after the First Crusade. Recall that the Crusaders slaughtered everyone, Jew, Christian, and Moslem. Blood flowed thick in the streets. Tell me again how something has changed.

That's one incident. They are legion. We all know them. Why ignore them?

[Leontius]

15. So true just like the sack of Baghdad, tens of thousands slaughtered, city a wasteland for years,

Damn Christians, oh wait that was the Mongols, never mind it doesn't fit the agenda forget about it.

[humblebum]

18. One could consider the "panorama" of Atheist history, too.

"Blood flowed thick in the streets" there, too. It has no equal.

[dimbear]

19. Finally some agreement between the camps. Two wrongs do make a right.

So relieved.

[humblebum]

23. In fact, there are no separate "camps" when it comes

to the instigators of blood flowing in the streets. There was only one camp: that of radical, militant human beings.

[dmallind]

11. Unlikely to be at an Arab-American festival sadly

Yes I know there are Christian Arabs.

Yes I know there are Christians who associate happily with Arabs of all faiths.

But only a fool would expect the percentage of Christians at an Arab festival to be anything less than far below the norm for other gatherings in the US, so the microcosmic answer is "not there to interfere or remonstrate with the loony Christians".

The more germane macrocosmic answer unfortunately is not that different. There are plenty of Christian groups doing very good things of course - lots of soup kitchens with saints names for a reason. There are even some Xian groups trying to present at least a somewhat gentler and more inclusive sociopolitical view of and from Christianity. But they do so in far fewer numbers, far less aggressively and far less consistently than the loony kind.

Why? Partly it's pure numbers. Apologists talk about Mainline Protestantism a lot, but despite the name that's a theological distinction not a statement of majority support. They are far outnumbered by more reactionary denominations. And even Mainline churches run the gamut that ends well into loony territory.

Partly it's enthusiasm for this kind of activity. Bishop Robinson says some nice things. He has far more supporters than Pat Robertson had when he started buying media stations that built him a massive megaphone and explosive growth in that support and quickly made him a leading face of US Christianity. Bishop Robinson is not buying media stations. No kinder gentler loving tolerant type of Xian seems to be. They are not giving more to charity or volunteering more than conservative believers as is often suggested, but they certainly are giving less to fund modern outreach and media access. Who then speaks for the faith by dint of megawatts and audience reach?

Partly it's because hate sells. It's simpler. It's an easier pitch to tell an uninvolved blank slate audience that gays are filthy sinners and Muslims are heathen terrorists and atheists will fry in hell than to explain the sparse biblical injunctions against homosexuality do not come from Jesus, or that Islam is just an alternate revelation of the same god, or that hell is a metaphor stolen from Zoroastrianism. "Hate the other!" penetrates the mind of the mouthbreathing masses far more deeply than "the other is far more like you than he first appears, and is merely the result of slightly different biological and/or social factors".

[cpwm17]

12. That's anecdotal and those "Christians" only represent themselves and their supporters

Last edited Sat Jun 30, 2012, 12:35 AM - Edit history (1)

- no collective guilt

"Christian" is a name that many people who are inclined to believe in invisible superheroes and other religious trappings give themselves. It has limited meaning (though it does lead some to support many of the evils of the bible when convenient). One person's Christianity is very different than another's Christianity.

Many of the most prominent atheists are some of the most virulent anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigots you'll find. Here's Hitchens, as told by PZ Myers, at a Freedom from Religion convention:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/10/14/ffrf-recap/

Then it was Hitchens at his most bellicose. He told us what the most serious threat to the West was (and you know this line already): it was Islam. Then he accused the audience of being soft on Islam, of being the kind of vague atheists who refuse to see the threat for what it was, a clash of civilizations, and of being too weak to do what was necessary, which was to spill blood to defeat the enemy. Along the way he told us who his choice for president was right now — Rudy Giuliani — and that Obama was a fool, Clinton was a pandering closet fundamentalist, and that he was less than thrilled about all the support among the FFRF for the Democratic party. We cannot afford to allow the Iranian theocracy to arm itself with nuclear weapons (something I entirely sympathize with), and that the only solution is to go in there with bombs and marines and blow it all up. The way to win the war is to kill so many Moslems that they begin to question whether they can bear the mounting casualties...

...He was asked to consider the possibility that bombing and killing was only going to accomplish an increase in the number of people opposing us. Hitchens accused the questioner of being incredibly stupid (the question was not well-phrased, I’ll agree, but it was clear what he meant), and said that it was obvious that every Moslem you kill means there is one less Moslem to fight you

Fortunately the audience was hostile to Hitchens, but many atheists still love him

Harris, Maher, and Pat Condell (the most popular YouTube atheist) are also extreme bigots, and they're very open about it. Harris, in a less bellicose manner, has also supported genocide against Muslims. Maher (agnostic) has said that the only way to deal with Muslims is through violence. There is a big problem with extreme bigotry among prominent atheists.

I'm an atheist and none of these atheists reflects negatively on me, but only on those atheists that continue to promote them.

[Leontius]

14. Meanwhile tens of millions of Christians in the US went about

their lives and quietly worshiped in churches all around the country without incident or controversy.

[Starboard Tack]

20. Where? Standing next to the good atheists, jews, muslims, hindus and other people of tolerance.

Tolerance is a prerequisite of being a christian.