I can’t blame you for thinking that. There are absolutely terrible people who love nothing more than to use Christianity to justify their evil. And I can point out how what they do is the exact opposite of what Jesus said, but they ignore it or shout it down.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t also lots of Christians who do try to follow Jesus’s words. At the moment, for example, the Dutch parliament is considering a law that would make it illegal to help undocumented immigrants (whether asylum seekers or otherwise). A lot of churches are protesting that, because that’s one of the core things that churches have always been involved in: helping people in need, including undocumented immigrants.
The irony that this law is proposed by conservative parties that love to lay claim to the Christian identity is not lost on me, but it should be clear to anyone with the slightest knowledge about the bible which side is actually trying to do what Jesus asks of us.
I guess I should say my perspective above is kind of exclusively an American-centric one for the topic. I don’t know much about rank and file European Christians. Among American Christians there is a real hatred of “the other” at their core. Not everyone, but probably a significant majority.
I’m not American, but as far as I can tell, it’s also not universal among American Christians. Obama is not like that at all, and he’s a Christian. (And from my perspective, he’s a lot more Christian than any Republican.) It’s not even true for all Evangelicals, because Jimmy Carter was evangelical.
It’s just that Republicans try to paint the image that to be a Christian, you have to be a self-righteous hypocritical bigot, and too many people are buying into that narrative. Please don’t.
Sorry, this I thoroughly disagree with and know quite a bit about. There is a deep hatred at the core of American Christianity. And no, Obama does not count as a “good” one, his administration took countless deliberate actions against those less fortunate that would’ve made “Jesus” fly into a rage like the money-changers incident. You can’t be serious. Drone strikes on innocent civilians? Deporting people seeking a better life for themselves and their family? How about Guantanamo, real Christian stuff going on there? Closing that was a direct campaign promise.
This is the kind of stuff I mean, I don’t think you have a very accurate view at all. Again, all the truly loving and caring Christians I meet become less “Christian” over time. It’s just the ones who can tolerate the ugliness that retain the label, with exceptions (in my experience) being extremely rare.
I’m not calling Obama a saint, I’m just saying he didn’t preach hatred like Republicans love to do. His drone strikes, his failure to close Guantanamo, his betrayal of whistleblowers, deportations, were absolutely not good. Personally I think a big part of it was his eagerness to compromise with Republicans. But even if it was all him, I’d say there’s still a massive difference between him and any recent Republican president.
But you can have Obama if you want. It’s not about him, my point is that good Christians do exist even in the US. They just don’t make the most political noise. Jimmy Carter, MLK, plenty of unknown Christian activists who fight for justice in many ways. Maybe they are a minority, but at least some exist.
My point is that Christians don’t get to enjoy an assumption that they don’t wish for the suffering of others.
There’s a kernel of hatred at the core of the religion, by way of “source of all moral truth also insists that some people will be sentenced to extreme suffering for not believing the same”.
In my experience, and unsurprising given the discrimination at the very core of the belief system - the vast majority of Christians (American ones, regardless of political persuasion or even voting record) are more than happy to let that seed grow and express itself in various ways.
Your point seems to have ended with “one group of those are very vocal about that hatred” and also “there are some good Christians”.
Okay.
Those are weak uninteresting points. They certainly don’t justify any assumption of Christian good will. Much like any assumption of some kind of “benevolent imperialism” by the cultural “West” is thoroughly behind us today, so is any such assumption. Christians have had ample time to emphasize what matters about their Christianness and they have done so. The evidence speaks for itself.
I can’t blame you for thinking that. There are absolutely terrible people who love nothing more than to use Christianity to justify their evil. And I can point out how what they do is the exact opposite of what Jesus said, but they ignore it or shout it down.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t also lots of Christians who do try to follow Jesus’s words. At the moment, for example, the Dutch parliament is considering a law that would make it illegal to help undocumented immigrants (whether asylum seekers or otherwise). A lot of churches are protesting that, because that’s one of the core things that churches have always been involved in: helping people in need, including undocumented immigrants.
The irony that this law is proposed by conservative parties that love to lay claim to the Christian identity is not lost on me, but it should be clear to anyone with the slightest knowledge about the bible which side is actually trying to do what Jesus asks of us.
I guess I should say my perspective above is kind of exclusively an American-centric one for the topic. I don’t know much about rank and file European Christians. Among American Christians there is a real hatred of “the other” at their core. Not everyone, but probably a significant majority.
I’m not American, but as far as I can tell, it’s also not universal among American Christians. Obama is not like that at all, and he’s a Christian. (And from my perspective, he’s a lot more Christian than any Republican.) It’s not even true for all Evangelicals, because Jimmy Carter was evangelical.
It’s just that Republicans try to paint the image that to be a Christian, you have to be a self-righteous hypocritical bigot, and too many people are buying into that narrative. Please don’t.
Sorry, this I thoroughly disagree with and know quite a bit about. There is a deep hatred at the core of American Christianity. And no, Obama does not count as a “good” one, his administration took countless deliberate actions against those less fortunate that would’ve made “Jesus” fly into a rage like the money-changers incident. You can’t be serious. Drone strikes on innocent civilians? Deporting people seeking a better life for themselves and their family? How about Guantanamo, real Christian stuff going on there? Closing that was a direct campaign promise.
This is the kind of stuff I mean, I don’t think you have a very accurate view at all. Again, all the truly loving and caring Christians I meet become less “Christian” over time. It’s just the ones who can tolerate the ugliness that retain the label, with exceptions (in my experience) being extremely rare.
I’m not calling Obama a saint, I’m just saying he didn’t preach hatred like Republicans love to do. His drone strikes, his failure to close Guantanamo, his betrayal of whistleblowers, deportations, were absolutely not good. Personally I think a big part of it was his eagerness to compromise with Republicans. But even if it was all him, I’d say there’s still a massive difference between him and any recent Republican president.
But you can have Obama if you want. It’s not about him, my point is that good Christians do exist even in the US. They just don’t make the most political noise. Jimmy Carter, MLK, plenty of unknown Christian activists who fight for justice in many ways. Maybe they are a minority, but at least some exist.
My point is that Christians don’t get to enjoy an assumption that they don’t wish for the suffering of others.
There’s a kernel of hatred at the core of the religion, by way of “source of all moral truth also insists that some people will be sentenced to extreme suffering for not believing the same”.
In my experience, and unsurprising given the discrimination at the very core of the belief system - the vast majority of Christians (American ones, regardless of political persuasion or even voting record) are more than happy to let that seed grow and express itself in various ways.
Your point seems to have ended with “one group of those are very vocal about that hatred” and also “there are some good Christians”.
Okay.
Those are weak uninteresting points. They certainly don’t justify any assumption of Christian good will. Much like any assumption of some kind of “benevolent imperialism” by the cultural “West” is thoroughly behind us today, so is any such assumption. Christians have had ample time to emphasize what matters about their Christianness and they have done so. The evidence speaks for itself.