An Observation
I should probably be quicker on the draw with stuff like this, but I'm both lazy and rather busy and, more and more lately, a bit intimidated by posting anything remotely controversial. I used to relish it, as any number of folks in my FList can attest, but the arguing has gotten to be more and more of a burden lately, one I'm happy not to pick up
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If someone doesn't like how Christians are portrayed in movies and television, don't watch movies and television. Go read a Bible. However, I have to say that my wife watches that show "7th Heaven", and don't see anything particularly wrong with that show. Certainly nothing insulting to Christians - on the contrary, the show is full of Christ-loving goodness.
Oh and Dave: "Now, for my part, though I understand the feelings, I don't understand why Christians protest the ridicule and persecution that they feel, since, as Matthew 5:12 says, "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
The reason some people protest loudly is because it's just another way of evangelising their religion to people. If they were arresting Christians, they would have a valid reason to protest. Protesting movies and that kind of nonsense is simply advertising their religion.
I firmly believe that the reason Christianity is losing favor with people are this vocal minority you're talking about. The evangelicals come across as obnoxious morons, so why would a sane person want to go to church to be exposed to what they perceive as more of this? You and I grew up going to church so we know that most people aren't like these nutjobs, but if you didn't grow up in a church, how are you supposed to know?
I can relate to these feelings using U of M as an example. Every single Wolverine Alumni I've met has been an insufferable a-hole, therefore I root for MSU. You can start to see the problem - if someone is turned off of Christianity by a handful of obnoxious practitioners, what are they going to do? If they're not going to church, the best we can hope for is they at least live the key tenent of the Christian lifestyle, which IMO boils down to the "Golden Rule".
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And I'm not sure that that's the only reason Christians are getting a bad rap. I think a lot of it comes from the lapsed, those who did grow up in the churches, and found terrible experiences there, either through bad teachers, or through teachings incompletely understood, or what-have-you. I knew quite a few who were virulently opposed to the very idea of Christianity, partly because it did not make enough room for their view of the world, and thus it must be EEEEVIL. And the followers, individually nice though they may be, are sheep supporting the EEEEEVIL.
That's a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much, I think.
And I'm not trying to paint those folks as some kind of misguided assholes... they've generally got good reasons for feeling how they do, as much as I have wanted to try to prove that they've just seen isolated cases, or not enough of the big picture. I just think that there are some distinct social pressures, of which the phenomenon of the angry lapsed is a part, which will ultimately lead to a reduction of Christianity to a minority in America.
The ridicule of which I'm speaking is a symptom of that and the Christians who fight back against it, I think, are wrong, and it's the resisting that I think is doing much of the damage. "They" are trying to hold onto privileged status, and in doing so coming off as bigger assholes and jerks than they previously appeared, when they were waving a Bible in your face and asking if you'd found Jesus yet. The latter is far more ignorable than the former, I think.
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