Are all the "Christian" Churches in your area Closed today?

[BOSSHOG]

News reports and talking heads tell me that "Christians" are being abused and persecuted, so I guess all the Churches are closed today.

When a "Christian" says he is not allowed to force his religion on the constitution via amendment is that abuse?

When a "Christian" says he is not allowed to kill judges and blow up abortion clinics is that abuse?

When a "Christian" says he is not given the right to tell you how to medically care for your loved ones is that abuse?

When "Christian" media outlets are called on their lies is that abuse?

The memo must not have gotten to South Mississippi today because all the churches are open and the hatefests are in full choke mode.

[Firenze777]

1. I'm on my way to church

in the deep south, no less. Don't confuse the Shepherd with the sheep. I have never voted Republican (proudly cast first vote for McGovern)and I spend my time looking after 'the least of these.' I agree with the gist of your points, and rail against it all to everyone I can....but any kind of sweeping generalization is usually flawed.

[BOSSHOG]

4. In my small universe in South Mississippi

it isn't a sweeping generalization. The Shepherds (in this part of the world) instruct the Sheep from pulpit on how to live and who to hate in the name of Jesus Christ and the sheep perform admirably the other six days of the week. I would truly love to see a flaw somewhere within the surrounding 30 square miles.

[leesa]

2. I know here we tie christians to the back of our pick-ups and drag them

for a few miles. Oh yeah, they are so very abused!

[qanda]

3. It's amazing that you posted this

I'm working on an article (for my own pleasure) about the wimpiness of American Christians. They fear having to stand up for their faith and would rather make the law stand up in their place. I think a lot of it has to do with them not knowing *what* they believe, and I say this as a Christian. My mother pastors an Evangelical church and so I have firsthand experience.

[BOSSHOG]

5. Irony

There is no effort to keep them from standing up for their faith, just a constant resistance to their efforts to force everyone else to stand up for their faith and believe in what they believe in. Thank God for the opposition. I agree with your notion that they don't know what they believe, ergo, they "believe" they have to rely on the guy in the pulpit. The guy in my pulpit pissed me off because he spent more time degrading those not in Church instead of tending to his flock with love and guidance. Therefore he's no longer my guy.

[PaDem]

8. could you post the article when you've completed it?

I'd love to read it and suspect that I share many experiences and feelings with you.

[coloradodem2005]

6. Yup.

Poor abused people.

[Jade Fox]

7. Playing the victim....

seems to be becoming a major part of a lot of Christian's outlook.

This week I overheard a Christian co-worker tell a story about how his
wife was fired because, when she was asked to move her Bible study
group out of the company lunch room and into a private space, she
got all huffy. This man offered no evidence that his wife was fired for this
reason and not because of poor job performance (she had been at the
job less than a year), but what was really creepy was the way he
prefaced this story: He started out by saying "anyone who knows
the Lord will be familiar with a story like this one."

When did being a Christian become synonymous with being victimized,
or more accuratedly, playing the victim?

I got curious about what is going on psychologically when a person plays
the victim, so I did an on-line search using that phrase. I came up with
an article containing this revealing paragraph:

As victims we can be blameless because of our "they are doing it to us"
mentality. We are the ones being treated unfairly. so we can see ourselves
as good, right, and okay while "they are bad, wrong, and deserving of
our scorn." Unfortunately, for those of us with low self-esteem, being the
victims of others taking advantage of us is the only way we can generate
a feeling of self-worth. "I'm okay because I am suffering these injustices".

[ticapnews]

9. Just replace the word "liberal"

with "Jew" in their screed and it all sounds pretty familiar.

Too bad people in this country have no sense of history...

[me b zola]

10. BINGO!!!

...The sneers, the stereotypes, fear mongering, intentional misrepresentations, & FLAT OUT LIES! Liberal has been SO equated with evil that even our so called leaders run away from being called Liberal---one could make the comparison to Jews who "converted" to Cahtholism to avoid persecution.:banghead:

[kweerwolf]

11. Too many "christians" and not enough lions.

And lest anyone upbraid me to painting with too broad of a brush, "christians" is put in quotation marks and lowercased to differentiate them from Christians.

[dsc]

12. Please note that there is an actually denomination that calls its churches

Christian (as opposed to Baptist, Unitarian, etc). I know what you mean here but if you are going to write for a larger audience I suggest leaving out the word Christian and just using churches.