July 28, 2016 6:27 AM

Don't blame the Bible; you're just a bigot

A coalition of some 22 rabbis and pastors wrote to a Palm Beach County, Florida elections official on Monday urging her to reinstate a Boca Raton mosque as a polling site or risk feeding “the fears and hatred in our world.”…. “At this moment in our challenging history, we have an opportunity to be a force for mutual understanding and peace. You can do this and receive the support of Rabbis, Ministers and Priests in our community,” clergy from St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, Temple Beth El of Boca Raton, First United Methodist Church, and several other local religious institutions wrote in a letter to Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher. Bucher initially invited the Islamic Center of Boca Raton to serve as a polling site for the 2016 elections in April. After receiving complaints from anonymous residents displeased that they would have to vote at a mosque, she rescinded the invitation in early July, to the disappointment of the center’s leadership.

I may not believe in God or Jesus Christ or even the teachings of the Gospels…but I understand that love, tolerance, acceptance, and inclusion (the underlying themes of the Gospel) are very good things. That so many Christians eschew those teachings in favor of hatred, intolerance, rejection, and exclusion only serves to expose their Christianity as a sham. Those who cherry-pick the teachings of their Christianity they can use to support their fears, prejudices, and bigotry are the sort of hypocrites who give religious faith a bad name.

I’d defy any of the fine folks at the Floriduh Family Association to explain how it is that using a mosque as a polling station is a bad, evil, or even remotely un-Christian thing. How is creating a situation that encourages more people to vote “promoting Islam?” No one had proposed using the mosque to proselytize voters, to turn them away from Christianity and convert them to a “false” religion.

Since when are bigotry and hatred considered to be intrinsically Christian values?

The Florida Family Association, a conservative Christian group, praised Bucher’s decision, while Bucher’s Republican opponent in her re-election race, Christine Spain, admonished the elections supervisor for inviting the mosque to serve as a polling place, to begin with. Both the Florida Family Association and Spain argued that it was inappropriate to hold elections at the site in the wake of recent terrorist attacks in Orlando and Nice, France.

Local clergy disagreed, telling Bucher that the center was a “model of positive relations in our community” and that its leaders had invited them to attend Ramadan dinners and visited them at their own houses of worship.

“It is committed to protecting, promoting and living out the principles upon which our nation was founded: tolerance, pluralism, religious freedom and diversity,” they wrote.

I find it interesting that so-called “Christians” consider it inappropriate to hold elections at a mosque in the wake of recent terrorist attacks in Nice and Orlando. For some reason, it’s appropriate to condemn all Muslims for terrorist attacks conducted by Muslims. Of course, the same standard would never be applied to Christians…who in this country are responsible for far more terrorist attacks.

This is how a faith community “committed to protecting, promoting and living out the principles upon which our nation was founded: tolerance, pluralism, religious freedom and diversity” is blamed for terrorism. Acts of mass violence committed by White Christians evidently don’t meet the definition of “terrorism” in the eyes of White Christians. That would mean having to come to grips with the reality that people who look like them can be every bit as randomly and senselessly violent- perhaps even more so- than radical Islamofascists.

Neither the Floriduh Family Association nor radical Islamofascist terrorists reflect (much less live) the teachings of their faith. For both, their beliefs are filters through which they pass judgment on the worthiness of those who may think, believe, live, and/or love differently. Both discriminate against those who don’t share their beliefs, despite the fact their faith condemns that sort of self-superior discrimination.

In fact, a convincing argument could be made that the Islamic Center of Boca Raton represents a more pure and accurate representation of their faith than the Floriduh Family Association could ever be of theirs. When the mosque “receive[s] the support of Rabbis, Ministers and Priests in our community,” it should be understood that Muslims are viewed as equals by the local faith community. The Floriduh Family Association, if they could understand what it means to live their faith, should be able to do the same.

Hypocrisy and religious intolerance aren’t Christian values…though they too often are values held by Christians. Then again, it’s really never been about honoring the teachings of the Gospel and leading Christ-like lives. It’s about hating and fearing Those Not Like Us ©.

EXACTLY what Jesus would do, eh?

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on July 28, 2016 6:27 AM.

Christianity: Well, that explains "The Walking Dead" was the previous entry in this blog.

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