I value that you do this. It needs to be said, louder and more often. People need to understand this. People need to hear this.
But I mean this in the nicest and most loving way possible: You and the borderer and other people like you and me saying this are not enough.
We need leaders in the church willing to call them out. We need the United Methodist Council, the Pope, the Archbishop of the Lutherans, trusted religious officials and leaders from all the other branches to call them out as evil and wrong and inconsistent with the words of Christ.
Instead, the Evangelicals are defining what Christianity is in the public view, and many, many of these other churches are not challenging it, in their services or in their public words and works. Unchallenged, it becomes the policy of all Christians. Unchallenged because the perception of what a Christian is has been shaped by the evangelicals for so long that if a minister told them what it was really about - love, kindness, grace, mercy- most of the congregation would walk out. Unchallenged because they are afraid of offending people. Unchallenged because they are afraid of loosing.
This is why I am no longer a practicing Christian. I don’t just want a minister who won’t scream transphobic statements from the pulpit, I need one who will scream from the pulpit that transphobia is wrong. I don’t just want a minister who won’t scream homophobic slurs from the pulpit, I need one who will scream that homophobia is wrong and support LGBT+ people. I don’t just need a minister who won’t scream racist screeds from the pulpit, but one who will scream that racism is bad, that Black Lives Matter, that police brutality is wrong, that systematic racism is a thing and needs to be ended, that it is the responsibility for everyone to take care of everyone else, that “socialism” is the Christian way of life and fascism sure as hell isn’t, that if you have hatred of any kind in your heart you are not a Christian.
It seems like the only people willing to make a stand on these issues are the ones on the wrong side of the issue.
That’s why I left the church. My church wasn’t bad. But I was tired of being a “good German” who was good as long as I hid who I was from the people who were supposed to be my friends. That was my experience, yours is likely different.
But I’m not unique. Go to any Pagan worship service; you’ll find plenty of people who had that experience too.
For the record: the Christian religion is valid and beautiful. Too bad almost no one practices it.
