It’s a bit hard to grasp but most practice ‘ social’ Christianity. Church is a social space to hang out, sing, read the Bible and be with people they like and are like them. Cookout and camping Christians. The people discriminated against as ‘sinners’ are just people they make them uncomfortable and they don’t want around.
So the poor, homeless ,trans, gay are vilified because they. Really really don’t want them to show up in their church. It would make them uncomfortable.
On the same side there is 0% backlash against the guy who drinks to excess specifically looking to hook up with as many hot women as possible on Friday or Saturday nights. As long as he is from the in group it’s fine to them and will be forgiven.
There is 0 remorse, thought or strain over this. You’re judging them by rules they don’t consider important.
This isn’t even something people are recently aware of. There’s this old gospel song from the 1920s that Tom Jones does an amazing cover of, called Run On. I keep thinking about these lyrics every time one of these scandals comes up. Of course, the people in the song will supposedly get their comeuppance, but it’s a gospel song, so that’s to be expected:
Some people go to church just to signify
Or try to make a date with the neighbor’s wife
But brother, let me tell you sure as you’re born
You better leave that woman alone
One of these days, you mark my words
You’ll think your brother is gone to work
You sneak up and knock on his door
Look out, brother, you’ll knock no more
Exactly. The alcoholic cheater who sometimes hits his wife is a fun guy to them, a good Christian who’s trying his best. But a trans woman who spends Friday night driving around to pick up food for food not bombs needs to repent and live as Jesus said.
I’m not pretending Christianity is amazing, I’m an apostate for a reason, but I’ll say this: I’m still a better Christian than a large portion of Christians I know despite the apostacy and the paganism.
I don’t even think it’s like that. If the trans person happened to be a church member before they may be somewhat comfortable with them thus, one of the good ones. If the wife was liked in the church the guy would be out.
The whole notion of good and bad is comfort level. That is why anyone who questions their faith is rejected as an other. They viscerally dislike being uncomfortable and externalize it as hate so they don’t need to feel bad.
That’s fair. One formative experience i had was seeing my childhood church have many parishioners reject our priest. He was pretty radical for a catholic priest having gone on record asking his bishop to perform two separate lesbian weddings (his sister and neice), when I came out of the closet he offered to talk to my ex father about how there’s a commandment about loving family but none about gender, and he routinely called for his parishioners to think and actually strive to be better people. They did not like that. They also really didn’t like when he kept telling the teenagers that he’d rather we think about our beliefs and convert away than to just stay catholic because we were raised that way.
It’s a bit hard to grasp but most practice ‘ social’ Christianity. Church is a social space to hang out, sing, read the Bible and be with people they like and are like them. Cookout and camping Christians. The people discriminated against as ‘sinners’ are just people they make them uncomfortable and they don’t want around.
So the poor, homeless ,trans, gay are vilified because they. Really really don’t want them to show up in their church. It would make them uncomfortable.
On the same side there is 0% backlash against the guy who drinks to excess specifically looking to hook up with as many hot women as possible on Friday or Saturday nights. As long as he is from the in group it’s fine to them and will be forgiven.
There is 0 remorse, thought or strain over this. You’re judging them by rules they don’t consider important.
This isn’t even something people are recently aware of. There’s this old gospel song from the 1920s that Tom Jones does an amazing cover of, called Run On. I keep thinking about these lyrics every time one of these scandals comes up. Of course, the people in the song will supposedly get their comeuppance, but it’s a gospel song, so that’s to be expected:
Some people go to church just to signify
Or try to make a date with the neighbor’s wife
But brother, let me tell you sure as you’re born
You better leave that woman alone
One of these days, you mark my words
You’ll think your brother is gone to work
You sneak up and knock on his door
Look out, brother, you’ll knock no more
(I’m an atheist, but it’s Tom Fucking Jones.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuYn4Oq4ivs
Exactly. The alcoholic cheater who sometimes hits his wife is a fun guy to them, a good Christian who’s trying his best. But a trans woman who spends Friday night driving around to pick up food for food not bombs needs to repent and live as Jesus said.
I’m not pretending Christianity is amazing, I’m an apostate for a reason, but I’ll say this: I’m still a better Christian than a large portion of Christians I know despite the apostacy and the paganism.
Well, being trans means you believe god made a mistake when creating your body! An opinion held by many Christians wearing corrective eyeware.
I don’t even think it’s like that. If the trans person happened to be a church member before they may be somewhat comfortable with them thus, one of the good ones. If the wife was liked in the church the guy would be out.
The whole notion of good and bad is comfort level. That is why anyone who questions their faith is rejected as an other. They viscerally dislike being uncomfortable and externalize it as hate so they don’t need to feel bad.
That’s fair. One formative experience i had was seeing my childhood church have many parishioners reject our priest. He was pretty radical for a catholic priest having gone on record asking his bishop to perform two separate lesbian weddings (his sister and neice), when I came out of the closet he offered to talk to my ex father about how there’s a commandment about loving family but none about gender, and he routinely called for his parishioners to think and actually strive to be better people. They did not like that. They also really didn’t like when he kept telling the teenagers that he’d rather we think about our beliefs and convert away than to just stay catholic because we were raised that way.