The Bible claims God created mankind in his image. Regardless of your belief, what seems extremely evident is that we have created him in ours. We have molded him into who we see in ourselves and who we want him to be. Through depictions of God as an old white man to depictions of his son as the only Middle Eastern white man of his day. I have heard people viewing a depiction of a God of color laugh or condescendingly remark “of course they would want to think of him as they are,” without a hint of recognition of history, geography, or self-awareness.
We want God to bless our country, as though somehow we rank at the top of God’s top ten list of favorite countries. We want God to help us pass a math test, or guide a favorite sports team to victory. We celebrate someone surviving a dangerous accident, claiming the hands of God reached out to save them, while neglecting to examine the reality that were this true, God evidently deemed many others unworthy of his saving grace. We even want God to support our hatred and we’ve convinced ourselves that he actually does.
I am not Christian, nor any other faith, but I grew up Christian and I can speak to my own understandingand interpretation of Christianity. Jesus was all about love--loving our neighbor, loving our enemy. Love, even when it was hard. Even when it was uncomfortable. Love. Jesus was a rebel who stood up against corruption, who spoke up for those whom society looked down upon. Who cared about the less fortunate, the poor, the sick, the needy, the stranger. His love had no geographical or societal bounds. No exclusion for skin color. No minimum salary.
Fear, hatred, and xenophobia were not the marks of the Jesus I learned about. But those things rear their ugly heads all too often, under the proclaimed safety net of Christian beliefs. Over and over, too many Christians neglect or mock or attack the immigrant, the Muslim, the person of color, the homosexual, the transsexual, even doing so while specifically citing their religious belief as a basis for their verbal, or even physical, attacks.
They have molded their faith to fit their hatred.
The reason so many Christians speak out against homosexuality is not Biblical and it is not complicated. It is because they don’t like homosexuality. Many use religion as a justification for their hatred and disgust. If these words and actions were because they believed every word of the Bible, and every infraction they saw in the Bible, equally without bias, without contemplation, then there would be lots of “Jesus hates people who eat shellfish” protests outside Red Lobster. Christians would be protesting Kohl’s for their inclusion of clothing from more than one fabric. They would demand women were silent in church, and certainly not allowed to become pastors. But these, rightly so, are not their demands. Their "righteous wrath" does not land here.
People who covet their neighbor’s wife, tell lies, steal, are greedy, or work on the Sabbath aren’t equally ostracized from the church, even though those all made the big ten. In fact, Christians – to an alarmingly large degree – support a president who has broken and continues to break all five of those commandments, in addition to shredding all boundaries of human kindness, compassion, and decency.
No, the focus on homosexuality is not because of a perceived Biblical basis, it is precisely because these people don’t like homosexuality. It creeps them out. It disgusts them. It seems weird and wrong to them so they justify their disgust, their hate, their attacks on personal freedom and rights. The protests against homosexuality are not from a place of love, but from a much darker place.
I’m not here to tell anyone what to believe. If someone builds their faith around love, if love for their neighbor doesn’t end with just the neighbors who look like them, pray like them, and love like them, then we will likely get along just fine. If, however, they have molded their religion to justify hating others, taking away someone’s rights or freedoms, or separating them from their parents as they seek asylum, then that isn’t their religion talking. It is just bigotry behind a mask.
23 Jan 2020
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