I know that I have written about this in the past, but the recent flurry of nonsense out of the federal administration has brought this to our consciousness one more time, so – one more time – say it with me – There is No Anti-Christian Bias in America. I could type that in caps, but it would seem a bit much, don’t you think? It isn’t that there aren’t people in this country who hate Christians – in fact, as a nation, we are pretty dang good at hating on people for all kinds of reasons. Just watch kids at the school yard – they will bully each other over the most nonsensical things, and almost every single one of us has had somebody try to bully us for stupid reasons. Maybe we were too smart or dumb – too big or small – had a strange name or wore something different from others. Whatever the reason, people bully each other, and we, as Americans, do it well.
The only reason I have seen hatred towards Christians has been as a result of Christians being jerks. Or fake Christians using Jesus as a reason to hate or dominate some group. Read a paper or listen to a podcast any day of the week and you will probably learn about some form of government in America doing something to give the “still slightly in name only Christians” some advantage. One of the reasons so much of this is happening is that the majority doesn’t like being treated like they have treated everyone else! Christian Nationalism has had a hold of this country since before its birth, and we don’t like to share our toys with others. We have always had institutional bias against non-Christian, non-white, non-heterosexual, non-male, non-rich people, and we have all seen the results of those biases. Anti-everyone else words are being said out loud – again – and that should disturb us all.
Mostly, Americans who used to be active Christians have decided that they are either bored, need something else, or have better things to do than practice their faith with a bunch of other people, so churches are dying left and right and everywhere in between. Christianity is losing its alure, and the church is partly to blame. Jesus once made a joke about how His hometown crowd was skeptical of Him, so in Luke 4 He said that they might say, “Physician, heal yourself” (a phrase that existed before He was born, by the way – just found that out); and I think we might say the same to ourselves. The only way we – the multitude of different flavors of Christianity – will change people’s opinions about us is if we stop doing terrible things and start actually following Jesus all the time, instead of when it suits us. We need to stop judging and trying to gain advantages and start loving and helping more. We all could do and be so much better. Then, people might start liking us again. That would be nice.
Prayer – Merciful God, forgive us for not living as well as You want us to, and give us the courage to actually follow Your ways. Amen.
Today’s art is “Deuteronomy 7:9 – Everlasting Faithfulness” by Mark Lawrence.