❝Ah, somebody finally said the C word. And that means I can say not all Christians.

I can say something else too. For all of the evidence of Christian bigotry, there's tolerance and pluralism right there beside it. America is the probably the only nation where it could happen. Religious diversity made it happen. And it goes right back to the Civil War. While there were plenty saying (with reason) that the Bible justified slavery, there were others making the case that a human was a human no matter what the color skin. The ones fighting hardest against slavery took their best arguments from their faith. That continued through the woman's rights movement, through the civil rights movement, and on through the gay rights movement. Without Christians speaking and fighting, those movements would have stalled.

As a newbie back in the 80s, I had a lot of baggage. I spoke and wrote against Christians with the best of them. Some of my stuff is probably still floating around there. But I discovered that I didn't like who I was. There were other things too, I was not a nice person. After some serious soul searching and couple of Divine thumps on the head, I came back to a very simple idea. In magickal terms, the energy you put out is the energy you get back. It's the Ethic of Reciprocity, Christians call it the Golden Rule. It's probably the cornerstone of Western civilization. Long story short, if you look for the negative in others, that is precisely what you will find. And that is precisely what you will allow to shape your own life.

But if you look for the positive, "catch them doing right," there will be enough good to overcome the bad.

Christians made marriage legal in the first place. But do you honestly think there would be legal gay marriage without a whole lot of Christians saying, wait, we have to fix this to be fair to everyone.

Because not every Christian, you see. Sometimes in the places you least expect and from the people you'd never consider, there is tolerance and acceptance and even encouragement. Not everyone wraps themselves in the fire and brimstone of the OT. Some really do believe that their god is love.

We need those people badly.

So, not every Christian.❞

NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

Tags: Christian & Christians & Christianity & bigotry & tolerance & pluralism & Ethic of Reciprocity & Golden Rule & Western Civilization & cross posted & Ro3 & rule of three