Privately, I consider myself a Christian, but I am embarrassed to admit it publicly. I am embarrassed because the modern face of Christianity has changed. Today, the most frequently seen Christians are the religious zealots who wave angry signs in the streets, who cry over burning candles at vigils for people they have never met while television cameras roll, who flock in droves to interfere in the very private, difficult, life-and-death decisions of individuals and who generally clamor for publicity and attention at every turn.
I consider myself a reasoned, thinking individual, and those Christians--with their angry certainty, with their lack of logic, with their holier-than-thou attitudes--alienate me from my faith.
I imagine this is somewhat like the feeling a moderate Muslim must have for the men who flew planes into the Twin Towers in New York City.
When I read about Christians who lie in wait for a doctor who performs abortions, with the scope of a rifle pointed toward the door of his family home, or who threaten the judge in the Terry Schaivo case with death for simply doing his job—upholding the law of the land—I feel as if I must not be a Christian, because I could not kill to advance the cause of my religion, my religion, whose highest tenet is “Thou shalt not kill.”
God gave us minds. He intended us to use them. Just why are so many Americans adopting issues with a black-and-white mentality that would shame the reasoned, thinking men who founded this great country of ours—founded it with religious freedom as one of its main goals?
More importantly, why are we moderates not speaking out and telling those extreme Christians that they do not follow the teachings of our God? Why are we letting them speak for us, letting them be the mutated faces of modern Christianity? We’ve decried the moderate Muslims who failed to publicly condemn the terrorists, yet we are doing the very same thing in our own country every time we say nothing when an abortion provider dies at the hands of a Christian extremist. These fundamentalist, extremist Christians are stealing my religion. They are taking it and twisting it to their purposes in exactly the same way the Muslim terrorists have twisted the gentle, peace-loving religion of Islam. And it is wrong.
Any time religion turns into war, it is wrong.
6 comments:
So eloquently said, Mary.
I think one of the things that makes standing up to these people feel impossible is they seem to be so vested in their insanity and you cannot reason with insanity.
It's the same kind of thinking that drives some pharmacists to refuse a young woman contraception and at the same time want to kill the doctor who performs abortion.
It's the same kind of thinking that says there is only one kind of person God loves and that person is a white heterosexual american--be damned with the rest of the world.
it's the same kind of thinking that fears globalization and big ideas.
It's the same kind of thinking that runs from the Truth like a roach from the light.
You just did speak out Mary. You are so good at writing about these difficult issues.
Amen, Katrina. Like a roach from the light. Yes.
Thank you, Mary, for articulating so beautifully and clearly something I have felt for a long time. I agree with you completely.
This is great, Mary!
I honestly think that most of those people are truly mentally ill and not Christian. They have lost the notion of what it means to contribute to the kingdom of god in favor of brainwashed nonsense about who gets to enter the kingdom. Truly sick.
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