As of the time of this writing, I’m 42 years old. I’ve encountered a multitude of people in a wide array of scenarios. Having been raised in a conservative Christian household, it is true that many of the personal encounters I had during the first half of my life were, in fact, with other conservative Christians (I’ll use this term to really just describe what Christianity has turned INTO; not what it started as).

Having then had encounters with others in a wide spectrum of personal belief, it has been my very obvious experience that the worst treatment in my life has been from that conservative Christian group.

And I’m writing this after yet another slew of hurtful and frustrating encounters with Christians who feel like they own the corner on truth and just feel the need to confront others with it. So yes — this is a bit of a lament…

How in the world, can a “religion of grace and love”, be so full of judgment and criticism?

Because, my reader — it has morphed OUT of a “love and grace movement” into a religion. Religion stifles and kills.

What we know of as Western Christianity really started as something completely different… humans have formulated, curated, trimmed, added and created their own form of what they “thought” it was or what they “wanted” it to be. The commentary here can really be applied to pretty much all religions, to be honest.

Most religions:

Have an avatar (human/man object)
Have an almighty deity that lives elsewhere
Have a way to GET IN
Have penalties for being OUT
Gives me permission to segregate against the OUT crowd
Gives me license to be an asshole (hence, the subject of this blog)

Now I’m not ignorant enough to know that hateful and passive-aggressive behavior can and does exist in every walk of life. I know this and have seen it.

But if someone is PREACHING “grace” and “love” and “tolerance”, wouldn’t you expect them to embody this??? I’m sure if Steve Jobs were alive here today, he’d be making his phone calls on an Apple device and not Android, right?

Having grown up in a conservative Christian home, attending a Christian school, Christian church and eventually a Christian college, I’ve seen it all. The backbiting, betrayal, anger, intolerance, abuse, etc… the list goes on.

I experienced it the most during my teenage years, in high school and college. I’ve never experienced such bullying and harsh treatment from my so-called Christian friends. I distinctly recall that during this time, I had encounters with “unbelieving” friends of mine and was shown such kindness, grace and forgiveness… this was a time in my life that truly had me second guessing the whole system.

It has been said that you will live out life the way you see “your God” living out his/her/their life. I’ve seen this to be true in Christianity!

Legalistic Christians historically have made the WORST mascots and cheerleaders for their team. No wonder it is such a hard sell and so many others hate it.

Why does this happen?

Contrary to the foundation of the “Jesus movement”, they are following a pagan movement:

They are reading the Bible literally and not as literature
They take the folly of recorded humanity and use it to justify their anger against the “others” or whomever is opposing them
They take mythical stories (ie - hell) and use it as fodder for an agenda and to scare others into submission
When you make your God to simply be a deity form of YOU, you can rationalize ANY sort of sordid behavior
When you subscribe to a system of rules and regulations, people just become numbers and objectives and cease to be living, breathing and relational souls

They’re not all bad…

Before I get written off as a Christian-hater, they are not ALL bad. ;) I still maintain that the majority of this movement are pretty off-course, but I have had some amazing experiences with Christians (though typically never ultra-conservative) that embody the movement of Jesus and his message of love and acceptance.

After all — I think that if Jesus would have known that an entire religion would be spawned in his name and bastardized like it has been, he’d run the other way.

He never “came to start a religion” — he just empowered others to live better. He challenged the status quo, confronted the religious right of his time and gave others tools on how to live a more full life.

For those that have actually even read the Bible, it is crystal clear that it had nothing to do with what we all know and see today. And THAT is worth speaking up and saying something against it.

We need to return to the roots of this movement, which had some very powerful and truly life changing ways of thinking and — more importantly — acting.