Thanks to 365gay.com, I ran across another one of those really troubling stories that I felt obligated to comment on. There was an anti-gay protest in Bloomington, Indiana that, although it did not involve thousands of people, demonstarted two very disturbing views.
As reported by the Indiana University student newspaper "The Daily Student," the group was comprised of about 25 members of the Old Paths Baptist Church. They gathered on the IU campus to begin their demonstration, them moved on to a gay-owned store called "The Inner Chef," and burned a gay pride flag.
One of the chants the group shouted in front of the store, according to the report, was "Fags Die, God Laughs." I only wish I was making up such twisted, sacreligious behavior. I challenge anyone to find one single example in the bible where God showed any pleasure at ANYONE perishing. There are plenty of situations in the Old Testament where He wiped out large numbers of people for going against his will, but the part where God laughed, smiled, or was anything but saddened by it didn't make it into any translation I've ever seen.
Perhaps the most basic principle of Christianity is that God LOVES us. He doesn't always like us when we drift away from his will for our lives, that's for sure, but he NEVER stops loving us. He is the epitome of unconditional love. In that light, hearing of a group proclaiming itself christian shouting what these protesters did in Indiana makes me sick to my stomach.
The other part of this story that troubles me even more was where it was reported that the demonstration was "complete with children playing instruments and singing songs beside the sign-weilding adults."
What ARE we teaching our children? This group is teaching them how to hate, and to do it in God's name. Sadly, there are situations where hate IS a family value.
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Well, I'm afraid 'hate' is becoming a virtue in that Bushistan of yours... If people steal Love out of religion, how can they call themselves Christians. But they do!
ReplyDeleteI was raised to hate Catholics in the name of religion. Lots of folks were raised to hate Jews in the name of religion. Lots of folks are raised to hate Muslims in the name of religion... and on and on and on.
ReplyDeleteI ran across this today in Karen Armstrong's A History of God where she is talking about the Cappadocian Fathers and discussions of the mystery of the Trinity in the fourth century: "People might start thinking about God himself in too human a way: it might even be possible to imagine 'him' thinking, acting and planning like us. From there, it was only a very short step to attributing all kinds of prejudiced opinions to God and thus making them absolute. The Trinity was an attempt to correct this tendency."
We have too easily made this short step.