Fundamentalist Hate, Unfundamentalist Love

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! – Matthew 23:23-24

One of the things that drove me away from the conservative, evangelical church was realizing they had taught me to hate and demonize anyone who was ‘other’. Other, meaning of course, anyone non-white, non-rich, non-straight.

And if you dare say anything about it to them, they have all these words and phrases that they couch their beliefs in.

We’re all sinners.

I’m not judging anyone.

The Bible clearly says.

Love the sinner, hate the sin.

And they say they’re not being hypocritical. ‘I hate all sin equally’.

But that’s not true!

We see you.

We see the conferences you put on. We see you heap praise on people who support pedophiles. We see you and your boycotts. And it’s not even *just* that you do this. It’s what you’re silent about. Who you don’t stand up for and put on your stages.

You willfully ignore the LGBT people who are Christians. You are not upset about the high suicide rate among LGBT youth. You’re not upset that calls to the transgender suicide hotline in North Carolina have doubled. You have not apologized for or learned from your responses to AIDS in the 80s. You’re not centering victims. We see you giving a stage to Doug Wilson, a Confederacy-loving, pedophile-protecting pastor. We see you legitimizing his views, and we see your conversation he has with a man who preaches nonviolence, without realizing that you are doing violence by engaging him!! You’re not protesting to get C.J. Mahaney thrown out of every conference he is given a platform at.  You’re not boycotting those conferences!!!!

As much as you want to make everyone else invisible so that you might get your own way in society, you are not invisible. We see you. We see you, we see you, we see you.

And what we see is a religion not based on welcoming the stranger. It is not one that is known for embracing the margins of society. Bro, do you even Jesus?

Jesus is better than this, and deep down, I think you know it.

Thank God there are so many people who don’t take their cues from how to follow Jesus from your whitewashed tombs and dirty cups.

You worship the violence and exclusion of the Old Testament while walking by Jesus lying on the other side of the street because he is beaten, bloody, and brown.

You are not together for the gospel. You are together for business of being rich and powerful.

You do not care about the abuse of children. You want to deny people the right to be functional human beings.

Where are those 700,000 signatures supporting funding for abuse services, for suicide hotlines, where are those 700,000 people volunteering to reduce hunger, homelessness, abuse, violence???

Where are you? Where are the millions of conservatives volunteering at refugee centers or food banks? Where are the 700,000 signatures supporting the victims of abuse?

“See, now you’re going too far. Some of us volunteer and care.”

OK. Maybe some of you. But 700,000 of you can collectively make a stand for hate and bigotry but you can’t collectively make a stand for something actually necessary and beneficial?

F.T.S.

Your fundamentalism is killing people. And you don’t seem to care.

That’s not the Jesus my kids will know about.

I may not do this parenting thing perfect.

But I hope I’m doing it a hell of a lot better than you are.

Oh, and P.S.: