For sure, Christianity is the last acceptable outlet for hatefulness and bigotry for those who would otherwise be opposed to such behavior. I watch people in here, who would fight to the death to defend pretty much any other demographic, engage in some pretty hateful garbage when it comes to discussing Christianity.
That said, when you don't show up for others, you can hardly expect others to show up for you. Sometimes we build our own prisons and guillotines. Another few hundred more years of this, and maybe we'll understand what it's like to be a marginalized minority.
I think that's awesome, bud. And I would be the last person in here to attempt to paint the Church in a negative light. However, as Christians, we understand that we can never be perfect, that we are going to mess up, and often. The Crusades and the Inquisition are famous examples of that, and ones often quoted by Christians because the time since makes it somewhat more comfortable to admit. But residential schools for Native kids operated until the 90's up here, and some denominations still advocate for sending their gay children to conversion therapy. And that doesn't even begin to address some of the problematic, weaponized version of our faith some denominations practice.
Under-celebrating works and over scrutinizing sin is pretty Biblical. The attitude we face today didn't take shape in a vacuum. We need to own our contributions to the current state, and do what we can to fix them. Given our practice of repentance, this shouldn't be all that controversial. Yes, the Church does great works, can have a great impact on the communities where they are located, and fund a lot of things that serve Christians and non-Christians alike. But only Christ is perfect, and even He couldn't pull that off while he was here...must be something in the water.
Sorry if my writing style is a little too flippant, I really appreciated your response, and I'm sorry about your Dad. I come from a church that does that sort of thing as well, and it's a great witness, often better than all the sermons in the world - works often speak louder than words, as it were.
Red:
- Fox's web page seems to have no trouble accessing myriad tweets railing against Dan Levin, the reporter being discussed.
- Per the article, some critics have lambasted Levin for what they "are calling [his] slanted report on Christian schools in America." Has Levin's article even been published? The Fox article doesn't link to it....
- If Levin's article hasn't been published, the critics' acrimony is premature.
- "The article Levin hasn't yet written and published is slanted." Really? How would you know?
- The Fox News article, in each instance where is supposed to appear Dan Levin's tweets, is found the following:
"Whoops! We couldn't access this Tweet."
Moreover, the Fox article doesn't so much as suggest Levin sought to ridicule Christianity. What it does say is Levin "took to Twitter in hopes to seek testimonials about people’s experiences while attending Christian schools." Indeed, Fox's sole first-person representation of Levin's intent includes a screenshot of one of Levin's tweets, and, echoing Fox's summary, that tweet doesn't so much as intimate that Levin is ridiculing Christianity:
If there were a movement to ridicule Christianity:
Simply, Christianity is every bit as subject to ridicule as anything else.
- The government being party to such a movement and targeting Christianity (or any other faith) for ridicule --> Problem/wrong/illegal.
- A journalist reporting on such a movement --> Neither problemenatic nor illegal nor wrong.
- A person or entity, journalist or otherwise, editorially ridiculing it --> Neither problemenatic nor illegal nor wrong.
Lastly, just how do you imagine a reporter can report on anything if s/he doesn't gather information on the topic about which s/he endeavors to report? I'm sure it's not hard to find youths who have positive experiences to relate about their experiences at a Christian school. Simply going to such a school and soliciting permission to interview the students there surely will turn up kids who have good things to say about their experiences there. (Maybe if one goes to a Catholic school, one'll find a kid or two whom a priest molested?) In contrast, it's considerably harder to find youths who've had particularly negative experiences at a Christian school; it's not as though such kids go about with a tattoo on their foreheads or something.