Christians are working overtime to turn America into a christo-ethnic state that prioritizes white nationalism, fascism, anti-Blackness, anti-Latino, Anti-abortion, Anti-immigrant, Anti-democracy, Anti-LGBTQI+, Anti-Books, Anti-public schools, Anti-police accountability, Anti-international allies, Anti-healthcare, Anti-vaccination, Anti-debt relief, Anti-environment, Anti-worker’s rights, Anti-freedom of the press, Anti-voting rights, and…..
You get the point, I think.
Some Christians will reflexively respond with: “They aren’t real christians” as if non-Christians can discern and delineate christian denominations and factions.
Self-identified Christians dominate the supreme court and they have decimated voting and women’s rights, and are tearing down civil rights gains one by one.
Self-identified Christians are shooting up schools, grocery stores, workplaces, shopping malls, nightclubs and bars, and people who knock on their door because they are lost and looking for directions.
Self-identified Christians have committed almost all the gun violence in this country, and almost all the assaults and robberies, rapes, child abuse, and domestic violence.
Report: Nearly 2,000 children abused by more than 450 Catholic leaders in Illinois
A multi-year investigation into child sex abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Illinois found at least 1,997…
And yet through all the turmoil that is the average American day, week, and month, the good Christians are quiet and self-muted while their brothers and sisters in Christ… do all the aforementioned violence.
We’ve spent the past few years witnessing christian Karens break every social contract — in real life and online — harassing Black, brown, and Asian kids, women, and men with alarming and sometimes deadly frequency.
We’ve seen too many too count christian police murder — mostly, but not exclusively, Black and brown people.
We are still processing and prosecuting christians who planned and executed a domestic insurrection of the United States Capitol at the behest of the president the vast majority of white Christians voted for and continue to support, hoping he will again be president.
And through all this mayhem… where are the good Christians? And who are the Christian leaders who are fighting white supremacy and advocating for protecting the least, the meek, and the vulnerable?
Firstly, I think it is important to note that we can certainly rule out white evangelical Christians because they supported/support Donald Trump and said he is Christian and god sent him, despite all evidence to the contrary.
And it must be said that the same evangelicals said that President Obama, a self-professed christian, was in fact, not christian and was certainly sent from Satan.
Let’s also rule out Catholics because we continue to know they won’t stop their priests and bishops from preying on kids and children because we have decades of coverups, inaction, victim blaming, and hiding of pedophile priests.
But where are the rest? Where are the Methodists, Baptists, Lutheran, Episcopal, Pentecostal, and the rest? Why don’t the Mormons and their hidden $150B help fight hatred and white supremacy?
Why are they and other christians silent, and why won’t the push back and speak up to their brethren?
Why don’t we see a parade of the good christians on all the daily cable news panels and talk shows advocating for better behavior from their fellow christians?
Perhaps the media should start identifying criminals by their self-professed religious identification as part of their storytelling.
“…. The man, a Christian according to the records we checked, shot up a mall today….
“…The man, a Christian based on his lengthy online posts, gunned down his wife and kids today…”
“The woman, who family say was a devout Christian who taught Sunday School, harassed a group of teenagers today as you can see on this video”
“The CEO, a major donor to his Christian church, Church of the Holy Dollar, is accused of illegally funneling money to Christian republican candidates..”
When the accused is Muslim, Atheist, or Hindu that is how the stories are framed. And when media report on overseas crime, especially in the middle east, religion is the key identifier.
Why not here?Why not call a thing a thing?
Christians demand that everyone adhere to every Christian rule, no matter how absurd said rule is. They require everyone to accept their holidays, and they demand their views of religion dominate in movies and television. They demand their politicians visit their churches, pledge to honor their god, and guarantee they’ll pass laws that…harm those with different beliefs, gender identity, and of course skin color.
All the while they will lay their hands on a man who hates the very people who they depend on to line their pockets.
Why don’t we hear the good Christians push back against them? Why are they so silent, passive, and accepting of the worst of their faith?
The most common response from other christians is “That person isn’t really a Christian.” Christians use that response as a silencing tactic and deflection, but it is nothing but mass gaslighting that is as offensive as it is dismissive.
But the statement, “They are not really Christian” provides distance, deniability, and an escape from having to confront the others who share the body of their Christ.
The denial though, is, sadly, a continuation of other Christian denials and dismissiveness of their own history. A history that is objectively against everything their savior stood for.
Sins that include imperialism, colonization, genocide, the Holocaust, Missions, Stolen Indigenous Children, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Chattel Slavery, Jim Crow, AIDS denial, Tuskegee and other medical experiments on Black people.
There are simply too many Christianity sins to list.
Southern Baptist leaders release a previously secret list of accused sexual abusers
In response to an explosive investigation, top Southern Baptists have released a previously secret list of hundreds of…
The desire to remake this nation as a white christian ethnostate where only white christians have power and rights is being tacitly assisted by the silent christians who’d rather pray than confront, hope rather than fight back, and allow the worst acts by their peers rather than standing up and loudly proclaiming that what other christians are doing is antithetical to the teachings of their savior and his teachings.
Until the good christians begin consistently speaking up, we will continue to be at the mercy of the christians who believe that hatred is a commandment.
We need more from the good Christians and more than “Thoughts and Prayers” because we’ve seen how ineffective that particular prayer has been.
Until then, the rest of us need to loudly and consistently push back and refute the lies and hate of American Christians.
With the 2024 election coming up, Americans will again have an opportunity to decide between a leader, President Biden, who professes and respects his faith, and who works to help people, or a leader who professes their faith but who will actively work to harm everyone except wealthy and white Americans.
Both candidates will be christian.
Voters will again need to decide which version of christian we want to lead us.
Dear Dean 
I’m in full agreement.
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