Thoughts
"A true Christian would never use the Bible to justify slavery"
This is the most frightening thing I've heard someone say in a long time. And it came from someone very close to me, too.
The truth is, people use the Bible to justify horribly misguided/hateful/wrong things all the time. CHRISTIANS do it all the time. Because Christians are just like any other person in the aspect that they make mistakes. Lots of them.
The Bible was used to justify slavery. It was used to justify the crusades. It was used to justify a "convert or die" mentality while colonizing (and killing) indigenous people all over the world. It is being used to justify hate crimes against homosexuals. It is used to justify all kinds of hate. The irony kills me.
And it's not just that all the people who are doing these things "aren't real Christians". I'm sure that many of them truly believe that they are right, that they are doing something moral, that they (however crazy it seems to me) are doing what God wants them to do.
I just think it's so so upsetting that the person who said this thing will not acknowledge the failure of Christians as loving people. People are people and we all use each other to justify our own selfish desires, however unconscious they are... and that includes people using God. It happens, it's real.
Please don't misinterpret me here, I'm not saying that all Christians are hateful people... I'm just saying that we are capable of hate and capable of being confused and that it is a reality that must be addressed. There are dark chapters in our history that we MUST remember happened. Many, many people have a negative view of Christians because of these acts of hate, because we do not acknowledge our mistakes, because we are ignorant (I certainly won't deny my ignornace either).
I'm saying that it's NOT ENOUGH to just ignore these failures in the Christian community and say "I'm my own person and I'm not like that" and live your life like these things never happened and cannot possibly still happen. Because whether we like it or not, people have certain PERCEPTIONS about Christians (especially Evangelicals). And they are largely, in this country, negative.
I'm saying that some of us need to understand that not everybody loves us. And it is damn insensitive for a Christian to say something like "That's history, people need to get over it, it's in the past." The present is the product of the past, and so the past is ALWAYS WITH US.
Wake up. Honestly. That includes me.
This is the most frightening thing I've heard someone say in a long time. And it came from someone very close to me, too.
The truth is, people use the Bible to justify horribly misguided/hateful/wrong things all the time. CHRISTIANS do it all the time. Because Christians are just like any other person in the aspect that they make mistakes. Lots of them.
The Bible was used to justify slavery. It was used to justify the crusades. It was used to justify a "convert or die" mentality while colonizing (and killing) indigenous people all over the world. It is being used to justify hate crimes against homosexuals. It is used to justify all kinds of hate. The irony kills me.
And it's not just that all the people who are doing these things "aren't real Christians". I'm sure that many of them truly believe that they are right, that they are doing something moral, that they (however crazy it seems to me) are doing what God wants them to do.
I just think it's so so upsetting that the person who said this thing will not acknowledge the failure of Christians as loving people. People are people and we all use each other to justify our own selfish desires, however unconscious they are... and that includes people using God. It happens, it's real.
Please don't misinterpret me here, I'm not saying that all Christians are hateful people... I'm just saying that we are capable of hate and capable of being confused and that it is a reality that must be addressed. There are dark chapters in our history that we MUST remember happened. Many, many people have a negative view of Christians because of these acts of hate, because we do not acknowledge our mistakes, because we are ignorant (I certainly won't deny my ignornace either).
I'm saying that it's NOT ENOUGH to just ignore these failures in the Christian community and say "I'm my own person and I'm not like that" and live your life like these things never happened and cannot possibly still happen. Because whether we like it or not, people have certain PERCEPTIONS about Christians (especially Evangelicals). And they are largely, in this country, negative.
I'm saying that some of us need to understand that not everybody loves us. And it is damn insensitive for a Christian to say something like "That's history, people need to get over it, it's in the past." The present is the product of the past, and so the past is ALWAYS WITH US.
Wake up. Honestly. That includes me.