Mainstream Christians: Standing for Nothing

Hoping Christians will resemble Jesus is like pissing on a rock and expecting peonies.

You can see this because a movement of thousands of violent immigrant Russian evangelical Christians is threatening gays and lesbians in the Western states, and the mainstream Church has risen, as one, in loud, mass condemnation. Not. You can also see it in the rabid and white racist fundamentalization of the US military. Can you spell p-o-g-r-o-m?

In my last and final attempt to reconcile myself to Christianity, I joined a loudly self-styled “progressive Christian church.” When the rubber hit the road a year later, they said the reason they couldn’t take a position on a pernicious anti-gay state amendment was that it would cause division, which couldn’t happen because “our” tradition is to agree to disagree, and isn’t it wonderful?

There must be something wrong with me.

No, it isn’t “wonderful,” and thanks to friends like mainstream Christians, we’re getting more afraid every day. It isn't wonderful to be hung out to dry by your church, your "friends," your pastors. It isn't wonderful when anti-gay bias is treated as if it is a legitimate option, something about which reasonable people can agree to disagree. It isn't wonderful when one-half of the Christian community is organized, vocal, and highly influential on how to loathe gay and lesbian people, and the other half is off somewhere having a 40-year navel-gaze.

When you don’t stand for something, you stand for nothing. That’s the meaning of the mainstream Christian church in the USA.