THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD
(apologies to Keith Olbermann)
Matt Barber
I know from which I speak. I am no better than you. I, too, once lived a lifestyle of sexual sin. Not homosexual sin, but sexual sin nonetheless. As a young man I did not treat God’s daughters as He intended and, instead, engaged in a lifestyle of selfish womanizing and fornication. The wages of sin in my life was death - spiritual and emotional death. I was on your same path. But by His grace, I was offered and accepted “the free gift of God.” I, instead, was saved and given “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”…. Do I still struggle with sin? Of course. Every day. We all do. We are fallen. We are sinners. Still, Christ’s gift to me was forgiveness, redemption and life everlasting. My friend, that gift is available to you as well.
Today’s lesson in why I detest modern Christianity comes to us courtesy of Matt Barber. Through selective interpretation of Scripture and a virulent hatred of homosexuality, Barber is nothing if not a walking, talking parody of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course, Barber’s flavor of Christianity gives him license to believe that his is the One, True, and ONLY Faith ©. Ergo, those who don’t believe EXACTLY as he does are in the fast lane on the expressway to Hell. So much for Christian tolerance and charity.
(Oh, and that thing about the Bible being the immutable Word of God? Do you have any idea how many people had a hand in writing it? It’s a patchwork document put together by a raft load of writers with their own agendas. It’s been rewritten and edited more than a Jay Leno monologue.)
Barber pretends to preach his homophobic intolerance out of love, but it’s difficult to see how his self-absorbed and self-indulgent “Christianity” is anything but a way to discriminate against those whose lifestyle he finds “icky.” Loving people don’t post hateful cartoons directed at the Boy Scouts of America, who recently voted to allow gay Scouts into their ranks. Loving people don’t publicly define homosexuals as “less than” and therefore unworthy of the rights and benefits that accrue to “normal” (i.e.- heterosexual) people.
Then again, perhaps he doth protest a wee bit too much. Barber could easily live his life without giving a second thought to homosexuality. I suspect he’s made a concerted effort to wall himself off (or at least he thinks he has) from those whose sexuality disgusts him. The GLBT community is no threat to him; most of those folks just want to be left alone to live their lives as they see fit. That Barber publicly professes what can only be defined as a virulent hatred of homosexuality (though he claims not to hate homosexuals) set me to wondering. What is he afraid of? Why does he devote so much time and energy to a lifestyle that has no direct impact on the the quality of his own? Could it be that somewhere, perhaps buried so deeply that he won’t/can’t admit it to himself, Matt Barber is afraid of, or at least uncertain about, his own sexuality?
I’m not going to argue that Barber’s a deeply closeted homosexual who’s terrified of the truth. All I have to go on are my suspicions based on his words and actions. Still, we don’t know that he isn’t (thanks to Ted Cruz for the cute debate trick), right?
When someone is so virulently outspoken about something, very often it’s because he’s terrified of that which he rails against being present in his own life. I don’t know that Matt Barber’s gay, but given his loud and stridently opposition to homosexuality, it could well lead a reasonable person to wonder….
