Any Criticism of the Christian Religion is not only acceptable but NECESSARY because of the unholy alliance between White Evangelical Christians and Donald Trump. These people can’t get a free pass simply because they hide behind the veil of Religion. The Religious Right in America is more political than religion… pull back the White Evangelical Christian curtain and Donald Trump is standing there.
Some of the Most Visible Christians in America Are Failing …
In place of love, they’re offering stark self-righteous judgment.
Consider the popular pastor John Piper, who was asked what he would say to pastors who claim that the pandemic is God’s judgment on sinful cities and arrogant nations. “God sometimes uses disease to bring particular judgments upon those who reject him and give themselves over to sin,”
This kind of stark self-righteous insensitivity makes nonreligious people despise Christians. I should know. I became a Christian more than 25 years ago, grew up as the son of a prominent evangelical pastor, graduated from Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, and spent years as a Southern Baptist pastor in Georgia. I’ve witnessed every religious affectation imaginable, but I never thought I’d see the day when my alma mater, Liberty University, would endanger the lives of its students by partially reopening its doors in the middle of a pandemic, perhaps to make a political statement. Is this what it looks like to be “pro-life” now?
Additionally, many nonbelievers are too frustrated with the way Christians behave to give their churches a try. The Barna Group, one of America’s leading polling organizations focused on religion, conducted a sweeping survey of non-Christians aged 16 to 29 in 2007. It found that a new generation had grown skeptical of and frustrated with the Christian faith because of negative perso
With the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council formulated the “Magna Carta” for integral human development. The Church sees herself as a part of humanity, intimately connected to the “joys and the hopes, the sadness and the anguish of the human person today” (GS § 1). By no means can you separate “questions about the current trend of the world, about the place and role of man in the Universe, about the meaning of individual and collective strivings, and about the ultimate destiny of reality and humanity” (§ 3).
This is the theme for the dialogue among persons in the modern world. The Church offers herself to all humanity of good will to collaborate in finding resolutions to the most urgent questions of the day: the inviolable dignity of every human life, social justice, peace among the families of nations, and the fight against destructive forces and powers and the enemies of humankind.
The human person, created in the image and likeness of God, participates in and represents the essential truth and goodness of God. “God saw what he had made, and saw that it was good”
PRINCIPLES AND VALUES OF CHRISTIANITY
According to recent Pew Research reports, the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as religiously affiliated has shrunk while the percentage describing themselves as unaffiliated has grown from 2007 to 2014. The percentage who say they are “absolutely certain” God exists fell to 63% from 71% during the same time period.
There may be a real reason for this drop... questioning whether todays Christian is really Christian... and the support of Trump really doesn't help...
Yet we must also acknowledge that when some Americans citizens are fearful of expressing their religious views, something new has snaked its way into the village square: an insidious intolerance for religion that has no place in a country founded on religious freedom.
... in a country founded on religious freedom. Time
Let me remind everyone. “Religious Freedom” means also freedom from religion. Simply because you have a right to believe something doesn’t mean you have a right to force your belief onto me… because I have a fundamental right not to believe your bull$hit…and to call you out when it backs up to my rights.
So my observations of Christians leads me to ask one fundamental question: Are you good folk really Christian?
Here's A Thing... 