If you set out deliberately to destroy the church and pervert the gospel, you probably still couldn’t come up with anything as diabolically effective as the teavangelical nonsense of the angry white religious right.
It’s not quite accurate to say that the top pastoral leaders of the Catholic church in the U.S. are doing nothing to address the exodus of younger Catholics from the church due to the church’s homophobia. As a collective body, the bishops of the Catholic church in the U.S. are, in fact,actively contributing to this exodus by throwing the institutional weight of the Catholic church behind homophobia.
Instead of addressing the departure of younger Catholics from the church because they can no longer stomach the defense of indefensible discrimination, the church’s top pastoral leaders are placing the Catholic church in the U.S. squarely on the side of such indefensible discrimination.
To young adults, Campbell and Putnam wrote in a 2012 article in Foreign Affairs, “ ‘religion’ means ‘Republican,’ ‘intolerant,’ and ‘homophobic.’ Since those traits do not represent their views, they do not see themselves — or wish to be seen by their peers — as religious.”
Congratulations to the Arizona Legislature for doing such an excellent job at de-evangelization.
Despite enjoying majority status, significant privilege, and unchallenged religious freedom in this country, we evangelical Christians have become known as a group of people who cry “persecution!” upon being wished “Happy Holidays” by a store clerk.
We have become known as a group of people who sees themselves perpetually under attack, perpetually victimized, and perpetually entitled, a group who, ironically, often responds to these imagined disadvantages by advancing legislation that restricts the civil liberties of other people.
But living in a pluralistic society that also grants freedom and civil rights protection to those with whom one disagrees is not the same as religious persecution. And crying persecution every time one doesn’t get one’s way is an insult to the very real religious persecution happening in the world today. It’s no way to be a good citizen and certainly no way to advance the gospel in the world.
… I fear that we’ve lost not only the culture wars, but also our Christian identity, when the “right to refuse” service has become a more sincerely-held and widely-known Christian belief than the impulse to give it.
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