Oh, don’t get me wrong: In a free association test, “Christian” still comes up with the association of “murderous, hypocritical bigot” with a further association of “waiting for an excuse for a pogrom”, but that’s cultural history and personal experiences for you.
I’ve been stalked by Christian missionaries who believe that converting a Jew is guaranteed admission into heaven for them.
I’ve had Christians come up to me in public and ask where my horns and tail are.
I’ve had Christians tell me to shut up about antisemitism, and that I’m so privileged these days because we’re not being massacred in gas chambers anymore and that I should just shut up and be quiet already, Christkiller.
Heck, more days than not, I get Christian Neo-Nazis in my inbox threatening to murder me, in exquisite detail, and using misquotes and prooftexting of the Christian bible to justify it. (This morning’s threats lacked imagination, so I had to give him only a 1/10, especially since it was mostly C&P’d from Stormfront, and I’d seen it before).
I run a Jewish experiences blog on Tumblr, and I have to manage a Block List of antisemites for the rest of the community to use to keep themselves safe from bigots–the majority of whom are Christians.
And don’t get me started on Messianics, or we’ll be here all day.
I’ve just met a minority of people that actually live the words that the Christian zombie god gave them–to do good works, to care for the poor, to be kind, to work towards a better world–enough to know that the minority are not singular aberrations. These days, I’m working on shifting that association into splitting into two classifications: True Christians and Loud Christians™.
But, getting back to the original point:
Yes, “Christian”, to me, is synonymous with hate, bigotry, authoritarianism, mass murder, oppression, hypocrisy, wannabe martyrdom, persecution complexes, and abdication of personal responsibility and moral agency.
And while I can say #NotAllChristians fall under that, I’ve also noticed that the individuals who it applies to almost never announce that they are Christian, but instead work to make a better world and let their actions speak for them.
