“…the Christian Church … Breeds Hate and Intolerance and Fear”

Christianity Is Very Oppressive

The aim was to generate honest conversations about Christianity. Focus group participants were asked about four key concepts used by a number of evangelical Christian groups to define Christianity—the Bible, the cross, activism, and conversion.

Bible:  The Old and New Testaments are the authoritative source for all matters of faith.
Cross:  God died as a man to save sinners.
Activism:  Belief in Jesus Christ should lead to practical change in how a person lives and treats others.
Conversion:  People must be converted to faith in Jesus to escape eternal punishment.

In each group the moderator explained the goals and ground rules before asking the first question: “What are your thoughts when I say ‘Christians’ and ‘Christianity’ and ‘the Church’ and ‘Jesus’? What she heard in response was nearly all negative. The women in Austin, for example, said things like:

“I have a negative connotation with all of those words. I feel like they might try to recruit me or the place might go up in flames when I walk through the door. I feel judgment and all that.”

“Part of me goes on the defensive. I feel like I have to defend myself.”

“When you say you’re Jewish, people try to convert you and it’s like, ‘Okay, met the guy. Not interested. Thank you.’”

“Pushy and unrespectful, because growing up I just felt like I was pushed into going to church.”

“The evil Southern Baptists. There are great Southern Baptists that you drink beer with and then there are the evil ones that you just want to get away from.”

“I often associate those words with extremists. Though I know that that’s not the case—I have lots of friends who are Christian and go to church every Sunday—but those words generally tell me the extremist view. Extremists of all religions terrify me. It almost invokes fear in me.”

“The concept of Christianity is very oppressive and it pisses me off most days.”