More than loaves and fishes, more than water into wine, more than healing the sick, or feeding the poor, or forgiveness for sin, Christianity in America is becoming associated with hate.
The other day, we featured the video of a guy who declares Cheerios to be “the treat of the homosexuals”, setting a box of Cheerios on fire with a propane torch.
The video is great, because the torcher is a goober in a pink shirt whose act of zealotry seems to be met with a near-instant response from nature—or Karma, God, whatever—a gust of hot midwestern wind that quickly sets the lawn of GM’s headquarters on fire. In an accidental moment of cinematic genius, The Cheerios Torcher flees the scene, commanding his comrades to hurry up and get in the car.
The video quickly went globally viral, and in response, evangelical Christian blogger Fred Clark perfectly summed up the reasons why The Cheerios Torcher is a symbol of how evangelicals are viewed in modern society. In a blog on Slactivist, Clark notes that most people assumed The Cheerios Torcher to be an evangelical preacher, or at the very least a Christian, though nowhere on this video is it stated that he is. Clark explains:
So why did everyone assume that this man was an evangelical Christian?
Because he’s anti-gay.
More specifically, because he’s disproportionately concerned with being anti-gay and he’s choosing to express that concern in a goofy, obnoxious and destructive way.
Clark continues with a plea to evangelicals, and Christians in general:
Please let that sink in. Please contemplate what that means for the witness of evangelical Christians in America in 2012. Please consider what that means for the reputation of the church.
That’s three “pleases” there, because I am begging — I am begging my brothers and sisters, my fellow evangelicals here in America, to step back and think about how we got to this sorry state of affairs.
That video? This is who we are now in the eyes of the world. And they are not wrong to see us this way.
And, as Clark points out, “Everyone was right” about The Cheerios Torcher being an evangelical.
If you are a Christian, it is time for you to speak out against the intolerance and bigotry coming out of your community. It is time for you to stand up for your neighbors and declare that this is not to be done in your name. It is up to us to put a face of love, acceptance and equality onto Christianity.
This is a call, folks, from a respected man within your community, begging you to see that more than loaves and fishes, more than water into wine, more than healing the sick, or feeding the poor, or forgiveness for sins, Christianity in America is becoming associated with hate.
Read Setting the World on Fire for Jesus by by Fred Clark
Also read 10 Things I Wish the Church Knew About Homosexuality by Jim Rigby
About Joanna Schroeder
The rambling nut jobs at the Occupy movement were hardly paraded out as the spokespersons for that movement. how many times have we heard “not a feminist are like that”, and yet Christians need to clean up there house before they “earn” the right to have a say. I guess that standard only applies one way.
Until the Christian faiths unilaterally abandon a great many core beliefs they will continue to be branded with the hate mongering title. I doubt that’s going to happen, certain passages even confirm that the world will hate them for their beliefs, so to many individuals rabid opposition only enforces the beliefs you’d like to see changed. .
I don’t dispute that they have more than their fair share of nutjobs, wackos, and tricksters. The message of love and acceptance is so lacking or perverted as to be almost absent in too many circumstances.
At the end of the day though, people just can’t stand being told what they are doing is wrong. After being absolved of sin, the sinner was instructed to go forward and sin no more. The only acceptable answer to join the cool kids club seems to be, be absolved of your sins and we’ll rewrite the book so you don’t have to feel bad about yourself.
A lot of references of “white” evangelicals …let’s not make this a race thing …. Okay?
{“For instance, in an opinion piece published by News One, the Rev. Jamal Bryant, pastor of Empowerment Temple AME Church, a megachurch in Baltimore, Md., Bryant expressed disappointment with the president’s new position on same sex marriage”}
{“The church has no shades of gray when it comes to marriage. Our faith reserves marriage for a man and a woman. President Obama, as a product of the Black church, is fully aware of that. Knowing this, the President made this endorsement without calling or preparing any of us. For many of us, it felt like a betrayal,” Bryant wrote.”}
{“W. Franklyn Richardson, chairman of the Conference of National Black Churches, who moderated the conversation between theologians and ministers throughout the room, said, “The CNBC felt this was too important of an issue to have a two-day conference and simply say nothing about it.” While he pointed out that all nine denominations that comprise CNBC officially oppose same-sex marriage, he also acknowledged that black Christians are pluralistic on the issue.}
{“Americans who attend church are more likely to oppose same-sex marriage than are others. According recent Pew polls, 70 percent of black Americans who attend church regularly oppose gay marriage, compared to 47 percent among those that do not.”}
It seems you want to go there.
So we will. Let’s have a piece on the hatefulness of Islam. Its core beliefs. Its violence. Its views on gays.
No?
Why not?
For the last few years folks have been asking why don’t the “Moderate Muslims” speak out against their more radical brethren?” Now Christians are being asked the same question.
As an American now living in Europe, I totally agree with the author of this article. American Evangelicals like it or not are often associated with intolerance and hate now.
Seems some of the folks leaving comments here want to shoot the messenger rather than take a long hard look in the mirror.