Some people announce they’re Christians, then spend a remarkable amount of time explaining which people deserve their contempt.
Different religion? Suspicious.
Different sexuality? Disgusting.
Different background? Go somewhere else.
But please admire the cross around their neck.
I’m not expecting Christians to be perfect. Nobody is. And having a faith doesn’t mean you have to agree with every choice somebody makes.
But there’s a pretty fucking significant difference between disagreeing with someone and treating them as less human.
You can hold a belief without humiliating somebody. You can practice your religion without making another person’s life miserable. You can even encounter someone you don’t understand and resist the urge to deliver a sermon about everything wrong with them.
Imagine that.
What gets me is watching people turn cruelty into a religious obligation. The insults, the exclusion, the almost gleeful satisfaction when somebody they dislike suffers.
Then comes the explanation: “I’m just standing up for my faith.”
Really? Because from here, it looks like you’re standing up for your prejudice and asking God to sign the paperwork.
If your neighbor has to look like you, love like you, worship like you, and live exactly like you before you’ll show them basic decency, you’ve attached an awful lot of conditions to “love thy neighbor.”
I have more respect for someone who admits they’re struggling with that instruction than someone who acts as though their hatred fulfills it.
Wear the cross. Go to church. Quote the scripture.
But don’t expect those things to make your cruelty look holy.