Violently forcing people to believe the way we do, or taking away their basic human rights because they believe differently cannot be humanely justified.
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Extremists have overtaken the Christian community, to which I belonged for decades.
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My friend, Suzanne Marie Dewitt-Hall, posted an article a few weeks ago called Jesus: The First Transgender Man, a thought-provoking expose on how we think about gender. She soon found herself lambasted by Christian extremists, who called for burning down the Huffington Post headquarters and raping her, along a with a list of other vile acts.
Growing up in a Christian home, and then becoming a Christian minister for 25 years, I’d been horrified by a lot of things, but my Christianity, as misguided as it was perhaps, was about God’s love. So on my Facebook author page, I posted some of the responses Suzanne received.
One person wrote to me, “You’ve never experienced the new birth and have nothing in Christ to protect, or you wouldn’t think so lightly of Christians who are angered by the foolishness of your accusations…and neither would you be vilifying Christians instead of LGBT beliefs.”
I understand faith and belief well enough, but being accused of “vilifying Christians” who call for death and rape of an individual is unconscionable! And perhaps in my backwards opinion, it’s un-Christian.
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Building walls, and a political career on the backs of people’s fears isn’t Christian, it’s unscrupulous.
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Extremists have overtaken the Christian community, to which I belonged for decades. Pastor Kevin Swanson, who hosted three of the fundamentalist Christian presidential candidates, has famously called for the death of gays who don’t repent. None of the candidates denounced his statements. To do so, would almost certainly have caused them to lose their targeted supporters. Fortunately, those candidates are out of the race.
The Gospel of love has been turned into a religion of dogma. The purported great and powerful Son of God, has been reduced to an overly-sensitive, frightened, angry, hateful and vengeful overlord, incapable of standing up for himself. He’s looking more and more like the ISIS version of Allah.
Refusing to let people use the restroom, serve them meals, give them flowers, or bake them cakes while citing Scriptures doesn’t make someone spiritual, it makes him a sociopath. Invoking the name of God doesn’t give a person authority, it makes her an ass.
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Indecency does not discriminate, nor does a religious label make someone less indecent.
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One Christian sent a message to me justifying her vote for Donald Trump by saying, in spite of all his faults, “at least he’s pro-life.” Trump has changed his position on abortion more times then some people change underwear. Still, whatever his position, it does not justify his racism, sexism, xenophobia and barely discernible religious affiliation. Building walls, and a political career on the backs of people’s fears isn’t Christian, it’s unscrupulous. On a side note, as I’ve written before, many Christians who call themselves pro-life are really just anti-abortion. Supporting Donald Trump on this single issue only proves my point.
There are nearly as many versions of Christianity as there are followers and perhaps even more versions of Scriptural interpretation. Calling one version un-Christian, as I am here, will indeed evoke backlash by those who believe they hold THE TRUTH.
Why do we tolerate the evil and hatred of those who identify as Christian, while refusing entrance of others into our country we fear hold the same beliefs, but who identify as Muslim?
Indecency does not discriminate, nor does a religious label make someone less indecent.
Violently forcing people to believe the way we do, or taking away their basic human rights because they believe differently cannot be humanely justified, no matter how much we invoke the name of God or religious freedoms.
And using a purposefully provocative analogy of Christ as a transgendered person makes someone just as much of an asshole as the jerks who draw Mohammed cartoons, support needlessly restrictive bathroom bills, call practicing Christians sociopaths, bully transgendered people , stab neo-nazis or make fun of Sikh people’s turbans. Your friend didn’t deserve death threats but she’s a jerk- a categorization that spans across the political spectrum.
“Extremists have overtaken the Christian community” Extremists probably hold the strongest, most rigid beliefs and more closely identify with a group. Why hasn’t routine infant male circumcision been banned? Why should a parent have the right to commit violence (mutilating a person’s genitals by cutting off a piece of flesh can’t be considered anything but) against another in the name of religion? What gives a person the right to permanently mark another individual as a follower of that faith? Yet you’ll have those who say calls for banning routine male circumcision are anti-emetic. Some of the strongest supports for keeping… Read more »
“There are nearly as many versions of Christianity as there are followers and perhaps even more versions of Scriptural interpretation. Calling one version un-Christian, as I am here, will indeed evoke backlash by those who believe they hold THE TRUTH” Accordingly, you appear to be one of the many versions that say YOUR version is the right one. More power to you … You have the right to call them out but they don’t have the right to call you out.
Yep. He uses the same sort of logic and tactics that he rails against- he just called everyone who doesn’t want to take an active role in a same sex marriage a sociopath. Tens of millions of Catholics in this country- any and all who follow the doctrines of the church are sociopaths? For pete’s sake- people on the far left certainly don’t have to look hard for hate speech- it’s right here waiting for ya.
All the monotheistic religions essentially say that everyone ekes is going to H*ll. People seem to be OK with that. Just don’t tell gay people that having same sex relationships will do the same thing.
Ever notice how Dr. Rymel uses an identical argument style to the fundamentalist extremists?