If you want to know how and why I can detest modern Christianity as much as I do, all you have to do is spend a few seconds listening to Operation Rescue's Randall Terry. That someone could figuratively tap dance on Dr. George's Tiller casket while professing to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ is something that sickens me more than I can find the words to express. That most mainstream Christians stand idly and mutely by while Terry and his sick, demented compatriots engage in terrorist acts in support of their narrow religiosity is even worse. Our nation's churches are filled with people who lack the cojones to stand up to those who wrap their "Christianity" in hatred and violence and still manage to claim in all seriousness that God is on their side. And you wonder why I think Christianity today has little to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ?
Randall Terry is but one face representing a disturbing cabal of mentally unbalanced, hateful bigots so wrapped up in their own rectitude that they will kill in support of their beliefs. How cold-blooded murder can be packaged and presented as a Christian value is beyond me. Whether you look at groups like Operation Rescue, the Lambs of Christ, the Army of God, the Westboro Baptist Church, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum, the underlying theme is the same: people willing to engage in domestic terrorism because they've deluded themselves into believing that God is on their side. Timothy McVeigh embraced this same sort of theology, and he killed more than 160 people in Oklahoma City. "Good" Christians have rightly branded McVeigh as a domestic terrorist alienated from the True Faith. Kill a provider of reproductive services for women, though, and suddenly what you hear from mainstream Christians is...the dull roar of absolute silence.
Until and unless mainstream Christians stand up and denounce clowns like Randall Terry and others who advocate murder and terrorism in pursuit of their agenda, they will continue to demonstrate that their religion is merely the convenience of faith...or the faith of convenience. I cannot take seriously those who claim to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and yet continue to suffer those who would kill in the name of their God. That mainstream Christians continue to tolerate and silently condone what can only be described as radical Christofascism only puts the lie to the piety and devotion to Christ.
I may not be a religious scholar, but I think I can say with some certainty that Jesus Christ was a man of peace. That so many of his followers are willing to tolerate hyper-religious terrorists like Randall Terry sickens me almost as much as those who actually engage in murder and terrorism in the name of Jesus Christ.
If Randall Terry is a Christian in ANY shape, manner, or form, I will gladly go straight to Hell when my time on this planet is through. If Terry and his ilk have any claim at all on the Kingdom of Heaven, then I want no part of it.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
