Christians!

There's an apocryphal quote, probably falsely, attributed to Mahatma Gandhi.   "I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ."  And that has always been my experience as a Believer and still is.  I'm not letting myself off on this one, I can be a wretched asshole whose faith isn't at all visible, but I often try to never let my faith be the most visible part of my being such.  And that's what's bugging me in this entry.

A few days ago, I had a friend die.  He was only 44 years old, in bad health, and one of the smartest men I knew.  I decided to venture back to a website I used to be a moderator on, to ask for prayers for the repose of his soul, and thus far, two people have said they will.  Neither of them though, is the guy who is ranting at an atheist about how women should be forced to carry to term even if the baby will be stillborn, or is blasting someone else who said his dad often found it interesting that Catholics act holy at Mass and then becoming raging jerks at the grocery store.  He blasted that man's father as being the real sinner.  Not looking for the good in people, etc.  No, let me assure you, from having worked retail and food service previously, Sunday is the worst day of the week to work in a service profession; "church people" are the most vile customers one can receive.  They're angrier, louder, more demanding, more demeaning, tip less, and holier-than-thou than any other customer you'll get all week.  And they always assume you're "UnSaved" and therefore, after being the worst witness they can possibly be for Jesus, will proceed to tell you about him.

Likewise, there's a former friend I follow on Facebook, who is a youth minister for a megachurch now.  All of his posts fall into five broad categories:  1) Woe is me for being single, I'm a nice guy.  2) Notes that decry things like empathy, compassion, or making your future spouse happy.  3) Church stuff.  4)Trying to whip up a moral panic against a person.  5) Telling people how they don't get Christianity.  Today was number 5 and he went on a tear about how Jesus never "hung out" with sinners, and how it's part of the "liberal agenda" to make Christians more "tolerant", "and "accepting" and "less judgmental" of blatant, unrepentant sin. Becoming a "new creature" means that the old one has to die, and that's what Jesus does." 

How do you think people are reached, man?  If you read the excellent Triumph of Christianity by Dr. Bart Ehrman, you'll see that his personal theory is that Saint Paul would talk to people while he worked and plied a trade.  Paul "hung out" with his customers and would tell them about his God.  Jesus dined with prostitutes and tax collectors.  Or as we would call it today, "hanging out".  He wasn't going "no brah, your sins don't matter," but He also wasn't being a jerk to his hosts, unlike yourself.  One of the kindest women I know told me recently, about youth minister, "I hate him."  She never uses that word lightly, but she uses it for the same reason I do:  When a person is so into controlling others, their behaviors, and has to always be right, it's difficult to feel any compassion for them while they try to enforce a broken view onto others.

And that, Youth Minister, is what you're trying to do with the AmeriGod you worship.  To borrow from a far better writer than I, you've been raised in a broken system.  A self perpetuating harmful environment cloaking itself in the words and rituals of Christianity, but it does not know Christ.  You seek to perpetuate that which you have been taught, including your misguided and heavily misogynistic form of "love" for people.  You outright state that you want others to become a "new creation" like you have, because Jesus says the old one has to die and you become new in accepting Him. 

Dude, I worship Jesus the Christ.  But if I weren't a Believer?  I never would be watching you.  I would think, "If that's what accepting Jesus does to a person, then I want no part in that!"  Because since you were "Saved" a second time, and went to a Christian high school, and got involved with your Evangelical megachurch, you have left behind love, compassion, and empathy.  Now your "love" is about controlling others.  Now your Christ is about ideological purity, not about Christ.  You have become the epitome of Saint Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing." 

You have nothing man, nothing but your broken system and your indoctrinated desire to help perpetuate and preserve it.  Nothing but a lust for power and dominance.  And for that, I pity you.