Do You Know Why I Hate Bloggers?

It's MLK Day, and although I'm not a "tribute" kind of guy, it's interesting to think on what the man did and what it must have been like to live in a world where his lot in life was largely determined by race. Hopefully, by 2008, we can all agree that such a situation is/was egregious and indicative of a complete absence of critical thinking skills. In fighting racism, MLK surely provided advancement not only for people of his race, but for the thought processes and cultural advancement of all of America.

Have "we" really come so far, though? Since moving to Kentucky I've been shocked to realize how alive and well racism remains, but even among those who would appear to be ahead of the curve in recognizing people as individuals, ignorance and hatred and bigotry still seem to rear their ugly heads in only superficially different venues. "Enlightened", "tolerant" people who would never EVER be caught dead making any kind of a racist comment -- and would loudly and proudly condemn anybody who may -- are often scratching their itchy trigger finger in firing off against the cause/people group/following/whatever you want to call it to which I've dedicated my life -- Jesus Christ and his Church.

Christianity, the Church as a whole, and Christ-followers in general seem constantly bombarded for a veritable cornucopia of (always old, rehashed) reasons. It's always crap like these:

"Over the centuries Christianity has done so much harm -- look at the Crusades!"

"There's just obviously something wrong with all of the Catholic Priests and little boys and stuff."

"Christians and pastors are just such hypocrites, I would never want to even be associated with something like that."


I'm obviously not going to defend any of the atrocities that have been committed either in the name of Christianity or by Christians -- they're obviously many and often legitimately indefensible. What I would contend, however, is that writing off Jesus based on the actions of certain segments of those who claim to follow him is no more reasonable than racism.

For one thing, although those who profess to follow Christ certainly HAVE committed atrocities of the highest rank, what other religion, philosophy, or anti-everything hasn't had similar pitfalls? It goes without saying that the Muslim religion is no less blemished than Christianity between the eternal violence in the Middle East and the fact that it took two parties to create the Crusades. We don't hear much about it, but apparently the violence against both Christians and Muslims in India is substantial and perpetrated by (some) followers of the Hindu religion. Apparently Southern Thailand is a scene for Buddhist-on-Muslim atrocities. The oft-idealized Native Americans, with their earthy, naturalistic spiritualism, partook their fair share of murderous violence. And to those who conclude that the only avenue left is atheism, we'll just lump you in bed with Stalin and see how that tastes for you.

Obviously (I hope) I'm not trying to accuse or condemn every religion or belief system or whatever as brutal and evil, nor all of their followers. I'm just saying that, to be fair, there's no one system that stands innocent. Even Scientology, as young as it is, couldn't give Tom Cruise the tools to make a marriage to Nicole Kidman work. Seriously, who among us couldn't make it work with NICOLE KIDMAN!!!

Secondly, I'm saying that poisoning the well is easy. Look, this and that and the other thing is all bad because of a, b, c, yada yada yada. Again, it's the exact same thought process that has given us racism, ethnocentrism, and a host of other scourges of society. I expect better than that from you, no matter who you are.

Without beating to death what I hope is clear at this point, let me conclude with this -- it's your choice to either embrace or reject Jesus Christ, the Church, Christianity, whatever word or phrase you want to use. All I'm saying is this -- do it with thought and reason. Go to the real source and get your facts straight before you condemn. And please, at least try to be consistent in your train of thought. We ALL use bad arguments from time to time, but that's no reason to despise logic.