When Liberal Christians Attack
Recently I have gotten into conversations with multiple Christians who claim to be liberal and progressive. These are the Christians who mistakenly think that Jesus was this peace and love hippy. These are the Christian who are always telling me that the fundamentalists are not real Christians, but are “misusing” the Bible (despite no solid Biblical evidence for that claim).
Whenever I point out the specific verses in the New Testament in which Jesus says something crazy, hateful, or violent, many of these more liberal Christians don’t even attempt to dispute it. Instead, they start to level personal attacks against me and scream intolerance. Rather than continue that road, I try to stick to the evidence. But no matter how hard I try to keep the discussion civil and to keep it on point and present facts showing that the character of Jesus as portrayed in the Bible was not a nice guy, a surprisingly high number of these more liberal Christians continue with personal attacks and slander. These are the same Christians who are constantly quoting only one verse from Jesus over and over again and that verse is ironically enough the “Turn the other cheek” verse.
This is the essence of the culture war. While many claim that the culture war is between secularists (those who favor a secular society, atheist or not) and the fundamentalists, I don’t think that is really true. I think that the real culture war is between those who believe that all ideas (including religious ones) should be open to honest criticism and those who do not.
It seems that even many of those liberal Christians who claim to know the “true” meaning of Jesus, become just as dogmatic and just as hostile as the fundamentalist Christians they try so desperately to separate themselves from. When we are talking about how religion gets infused with politics, most of these liberal Christians are right there at our side fighting to reinforce the Jeffersonian Wall of separation between church and state, but the moment their own dogmatic beliefs are questioned or honestly criticized, many seem to stop constructive dialog and begin to wage personal attacks.
When I criticize people’s political views, no one has a problem. Those people who hold the political views I criticize will attempt to defend their political views through discussing and debate. Sometimes it gets heated, but it usually stays civil. Everyone acknowledged that political views have every right to be criticized. But when religious views are criticized, all of a sudden everything changes. Most religious people regardless of whether they are fundamentalists or more liberal minded still seem to believe that to even question those religious beliefs is a form of intolerance. Why isn’t political criticism intolerant?
Personally, I think that political views are defensible. People can use logic and reason to argue for or against a political idea or ideology. But religious views are indefensible. No amount of logic or reason will prove a religious idea. It all rests squarely on “faith.” Sure some religious people might offer up arguments one way or the other, but when all is said and done, the argument always ends up on the doorstep of faith. Because religion cannot be defended through reason, logic, or evidence, it’s only real defense comes from an attack on culture. Only by controlling culture to the point in which it has become intolerant to criticize or question religious beliefs can religious believers rest assured that their religious opinions will never change.
Filed under: conversation, culture war, discussion, Religion
