Why Christians Suck: Behind the Curve, Catching the Trough

You really have to hand it to Christians. Somehow they seem to get the brunt of the anger and spleen on HubPages. They're stupid, homophobic, apt to rants (and cutting and pasting long stretches of arcane Scriptures). They believe in bombing Iraq and killing Muslims in the name of a peaceful God. They believe in blowing up abortion clinics and shootin abortion providers in the name of saving lives. And wasn't it Christians who wrote a white man's Constitution to defend the institution of slavery?

Good grief. How did this happen? When did the Christians take over the world and start doing all this awful stuff? When did the neocons take over our country? It's really funny to see how shrill the screaming gets, because it is so grossly inaccurate. Yes, a lot of it is the fault of the Christians, but it's not what you might expect.

Another day, another dollar You see, every single generation of Christians goes through the same garbage. Every single generation of Christians falls prey to the same ploy. The world - i.e., Christianspeak for those who are not Christians - decides on something. At first, the Christians resist it. "No, that can't be right," they say. Then they get marginalized, laughed at, maybe persecuted a bit. So eventually they ease up. "Okay, maybe this is fine," they say. As time passes, they decide that this thing is God's Truth to Mankind. And from then on, it will take nuclear annihilation or Martin Luther himself to move change their mind - a long, long time after the world has moved on and left them on their old (once popular) belief systems.

Ahh ... the Favorite One. What about the flat earth? Yeah, what about it? It was scientists who decided that the world was flat. The Bible never said that. In fact, it seems to suggest the opposite. But when Aristotle the famous scientist decided that the world was flat . . . well, that changed things. It took time, but eventually Christians decided the ignore the oldest book in the Bible and it became God's Truth to Mankind that the world was flat and it was the center of the universe. By the time the Catholic Church persecuted Galileo for suggesting that Copernicus was right, they were so attached to their little theory that they hadn't noticed where science had gone. Or maybe they didn't care.

What about the Crusades? Didn't Christians go out there and kill Muslims in the name of God? The people who charge Christians with the Crusades forget that the Crusades were, by and large, trade wars rather than a religious ones. The Bible does not tell Christians to go out and kill people of different religions. And before you start with quoting from the Old Testament, let me explain. According to the Bible, the Nation of Israel was supposed to kill the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perezzites, and all those other "ites." That was done to protect the Nation of Israel, and that command was only for a specific time and place. Once that time was up, so were holy wars in the name of God. Period. So, back to the Crusades. Jerusalem is more than a holy city - it's also the center of a critical piece of trading real estate. It was where all the stuff from two continents had to go. So whoever controlled the city of Jerusalem controlled trade. Kind of like the Panama Canal. So naturally, evil men decided they had to control it. They did what they always do - whipped up a religious frenzy, lied to people, and launched a series of wars. Silly nominal Christians who hadn't read their Bibles went along with it because they didn't want to be left out. Or because they were greedy. But most who went thought they were going to get a better place in Heaven. Which is sad, because if they read their Bibles, they never would have believed such a thing. But of course they couldn't, because the Catholic Church at that time had a monopoly on it and it was only available in the Vulgate Latin, which wasn't much use to a poor peasant. Why was this? Because "Christians" wanted to keep power. But the Bible commands religious leaders to share what the Word really says, and they didn't. So were they acting in the name of God? Or in their own names? You decide.

Well, what about G.W. and his minions? Iraq, oil, the War on Terror, gay marriage, and all that Bazznass. Sigh. Christians really earned this one. For some reason, the world thinks that every Christian, in the words of a recent Hustler Christmas card, are "Right Wing Republican Racist Homphobic Gun-Toting Nut Jobs." How did this happen? Because every faith has some certain guidelines. Unfortunately, back in the late 80s to early 90s, the Republican Party discovered that Christians really, really cared about some issues like protecting the family and abortion. So what did they do? They bet that Christian voters would flock to the polls if they claimed to be their champions. And ignoring what Jesus said about leaving their brains at home, that's exactly what the Christians did. In other words, they were manipulated. Going back to what was said about the Crusades, members of the political elite decided that they wanted the oil in Iraq (or whatever it was they wanted). So they sold votes to the Christians by playing "we like you" for a while and dumped them as soon as they could. And the Christians, confused by everything that had happened, were afraid to distance themselves from what they disapproved of because they figured that the world would lump them in with it anyway (which they did) and that if they attacked the President, the world would continue blaming them for his actions anyway (which they did). They defended things like the War on Terror, not because it was The Christian Thing to Do, but because it was the political agenda of the president who had lied to them. (I personally was against the War on Terror from Constitutional grounds, and I never voted for Bush; so this is not trying to clean my conscience.)

So where are we now?  Well, as I look around, I see Christians beginning to take some really silly positions. All of a sudden, global warming is a big concern in the Christian church - right about ten years too late. All of a sudden, Christians are coming around to supporting abortion - right as the world takes a cosmic shift in the opposite direction. In fact, I predict that in a few years, the world will point at the church and say exactly what they say now about Christians and slavery when it comes to Christians and abortion. "Hey, it was Christians who were abortion doctors.  And Christians ran abortion mills."   Abortion doctor George Tiller was shot at church, wasn't he?  When abortion takes its rightful place on the world radar of past atrocities, Christians will only deserve the contempt they'll face.  Because back when it was popular to own slaves, Christians found all kinds of justifications to salve their filthy consciences.  

I could go on, but I hope you get the picture  So much of what the world mistakes for Christians doing stupid things and being stupid is in fact what the world was doing ten years ago. As Christians, we are regrettably behind the curve. That doesn't mean we're wrong on everything, but we're usually wrong on what matters. There are certain standards of right and morality that must be maintained. The rest?

Well, that's politics.