See, folks? THESE are the people that are giving your religion a bad name!

[xiphias]

Okay. It sucks, because I know so many people who are Christians who use their Christianity to be decent human beings. Yet I STILL have a visceral negative reaction to the word "Christian" -- even when, if I THINK of Christians I know, they are good people, and part of their goodness comes from and is shaped by their Christianity.

Then I see a story like this, and I say, "Yep, those are the sorts of things which caused my negative reaction in the first place."

I commented to the person who blogged this story, and I'm reposting what I commented to him:

***

Okay. I'm Jewish, and I don't buy all this Christianity stuff. But I've got Christian friends and they explained to me that one of the things about Christianity is the idea of "the Body of Christ."

See, what THEY told me is that the thing about Eucharist is that it is a way of making the whole Christian religion "the Body of Christ." That by accepting Jesus, and/or by participating in the Eucharist, you are basically making yourself one body with both God and with all other Christians.

That doesn't mean that you can't DISAGREE with other Christians, but it does mean that, fundamentally, you are the SAME as them.

So, by my flawed, incomplete, outsider understanding of Christian theology, it is not only wrong to exclude other Christians from your Church based on physical attributes, but, as I understood Christian theology, it should be impossible to do so.

So: if Joe Kirk is a Christian, and the community seems to believe so, then Joe Kirk is part of the Body of Christ. If the members of Fellowship Baptist are Christians, and the community seems to believe that they are, then THEY are part of the Body of Christ.

So, to say that one part of the Body of Christ can't be with the other part of the Body of Christ means that you want to chop the Body of Christ up, which is worse than crucifixion in the first place.

So -- is my theological understanding more or less correct, here? That the only options are that 1) either Joe isn't Christian, or 2) the community isn't Christian, or 3) the community is doing direct violence to God?

***

Comments

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I think your #2 is closest, in that they fail to grasp certain essential applications of such concepts as "love thy neighbor". WTF, man?

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

Or several places in the New Testament where racial, gender and ethnic boundaries are specifically negated in Christianity. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Gal. 3:28

[griffen.livejournal.com]

I am going to stay out of the journal that you linked to, because I don't think I can be polite to the owner of the journal, who says that excluding blacks from a white congregation is scripturally wrong, but that excluding women from being in positions of leadership, and excluding gays altogether, is scripturally supportable.

I wish he'd get outraged about the way his church treats people like me, but it's too much to hope for, and I wouldn't be able to have a rational discussion with him/her.

I think you're right, though.

[beaq.livejournal.com]

I don't think this is directly related to their religion. And I sincerely doubt that any of your friends who are tired of hearing ranting against Christians are unfamiliar with examples of repugnant behavior from groups of Southern Baptists.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

I'd vote #2 and an attempt at #3 (if you grant the Christian premises about the nature of God, then you can't do harm to God).

For my money these people are racist assholes and I despise them for that; their professed flavor of religiosity has nothing to do with my loathing.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

And I should've used this icon, anyway.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I'll go with both #2 and #3.

And yikes, is that a scary article.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Right there with you. There are so many Xtian groups out there who are happy to make their faith a byword for hatred and intolerance that it tarnishes the whole thing by association. Which is a shame for the decent people we know.

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

I'll vote against all three. I believe that this congregation is out of touch with the ministry of Jesus on this point (and I pray that the Holy Spirit find a way to enlighten them), but it would be as incorrect for me to judge them unChristian as it was for them to deny Joe from their fellowship.

And, golly, if you know a bunch of people who use their relationship with Christ to glorify God and the world and yet you allow your direct perception of reality to be shattered by the jackassery of 80% of a 30 person congregation in Saltillo, Mississippi -- a place I had never before heard of before and probably never will again -- then, wow. I know that there is more than one Saltillo in the world and there is also more than one Falwell, but are you really going to let that replace what you've seen with what you fear?

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

Yes. Thank you.

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

Why do you think xiphias hasn't seen that sort of hate in person?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I certainly haven't seen it as often in person as I've seen love and grace in person.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

What if the majority of Christians one's personally met have used their Christianity as bludgeons against others? I was raised in a fundamentalist church in a network of fundamentalist churches, and saw enough bigotry, sexism, attacks on science, and so forth to last me a lifetime. I've since met not a few lovely people who are Christians, but I still don't think I've met as many as I knew when my whole world was my church and related ones.

So, which group should I count as the "real" Christians?

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

There are no "real" Christians. I think that they're all Christians. And neither group is obligated to justify the other, and none of them are necessarily representitive of the next Christian you will meet.

Obviously, this is familiar ground for you as you have found positive experiences with Christians after a childhood of very traumatic and regrettable exposure to much of the worst of Christianity. It requires moral strength to resist the urge to pre-judge a class of people based on your experiences of the past, and I trust that both you and the world around you have been enriched by your fortitude and wisdom.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I must say, that's a good answer. *is impressed*

[erin-c-1978.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I have negative associations with the word "Christian" and I am a Christian.

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

It's not Christianity that's the problem. It's tribalism. This is tribal behavior using Christianity as an excuse.

Many others do the same under the guise of religion-- or anti-religion. Muslims who deny the right of Israel to exist, China, which imprisons members of Falun Gong, Hasidic Jews who separate themselves from all non-Jewish society.

It's another way of drawing the line of Us vs. Them. That's a human impulse that will use any excuse-- race, national origin, religion, senses, dress, belief in anything-- to draw boundaries to feel safer. Yes, Christianity is supposed to be better than this. I'd argue that humanity should be better than this.

[gingicat]

Not *all* Muslims, or Chinese, or Hasidic Jews. Heck, I know one Hasidic rabbi who goes to his local prison regularly to teach reading.

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

Exactly my point. Not all Christians, either. Some use their religion to draw these lines, some do not.

[ron_newman]

#2 and #3; also, by publicly stating a policy of racial discrimination, the church is opening itself up to a lawsuit that would strip it of tax-exempt status.

[ailbhe]

"We're Christians in favour of more hate!" has never struck me as a very convincing argument.

[kiya]

I'm pretty sure you're understanding the theology right -- I've even heard a Catholic theologian use the 'chopping up the body' image.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

The article appears to be broken, and Google News isn't helping me out (I searched on "Joe Kirk" and "Joseph Kirk"). Can anyone summarize the article for me?

[lazy-boring-man.livejournal.com]

I can do you one better; here's the entire text:

Pastor leaves after church turns away biracial boy

8/19/2006 8:03:01 AM
Daily Journal


BY CHARITY GORDON


Daily Journal


SALTILLO - Twelve-year-old Joe recently asked Jesus to live in his heart.


Yet the church where Joe accepted his Savior not even two weeks before will no longer allow the biracial boy to enter.


On Aug. 6, during its scheduled Sunday night business meeting, Fellowship Baptist Church in Saltillo voted not to accept blacks within the church. More specifically, the congregation also voted Joe out and said he could not return.


That evening Fellowship Baptist did not just say goodbye to Joe and an entire race of humans. With that decision the church's pastor, the Rev. John Stevens, resigned, and at least one other family decided not to return to the Baptist Missionary Alliance congregation that averages 30 people.


The church was "afraid Joe might come with his people and have blacks in the church," Stevens said. "I could not go along with that. There would always be a wall between us, so I resigned that night."


Cliff Hardy, an officer with the Tupelo Police Department, left the church, too. He and his family had been going to Fellowship Baptist for about a year and had been praying about becoming members there.


"I was asking the Lord to lead us," Hardy said.


The police officer says there are good people at Fellowship Baptist, and the Bible was preached there.


However, "You see, my best friend is a black man," he said. "I wouldn't be comfortable going to a place where I couldn't ask my best friend to go to church with me."


Hardy says he knows there are still a lot of folks who are not comfortable with people from other races, there is still a lot of holdover from the past, there is still a lot of fear.


"But that's not what Christ died for," he said. Jesus' death and resurrection "is supposed to be a uniting force, not a separating thing."





We're all God's children'


In July Joe moved in with his uncle and aunt, Saltillo residents Jason and Melinda Kirk. The Kirks, who had been attending Fellowship Baptist for almost five months, were Joe's temporary guardians until recently, when his stepmother moved here from Ohio.


During the week of July 23-26, Fellowship Baptist held revival services, and on July 26, Joe became a Christian.


The following Sunday, people at the church asked the Kirks if they would become members, and the family started praying about it.


The next Sunday morning, Aug. 6, the Kirks went to church. When company arrived at their house that afternoon, they decided not to go to the 143-year-old church that night.


Later that evening, the Kirks received a phone call from their pastor, Stevens, who said Joe had been voted out of the church and could not come back. The minister, 72, who has now retired, said he had resigned from the church over the decision.


Joe overheard the telephone conversation.


"We explained to him that everybody didn't feel like that," Melinda Kirk said. "But it really bothered him. He felt like our pastor had to quit his job because of him."


The Kirks reassured their nephew that Stevens was just standing up for what is right.


"People have got to realize we're all God's children," Jason Kirk said. "It's not God so loved the white people; it's God so loved the world."


Since Stevens' resignation, one church member who was not at the Aug. 6 meeting has called the former pastor and told him he was in favor of what he did. Stevens estimates 80 percent of the church is against having blacks in the congregation.


"It's between them and God," police officer Hardy said. "I love those folks, but I can't agree with them."


Fellowship Baptist Church members were contacted for this article but declined to comment.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

Thanks to lazy_boring_man for posting the article.

I agree with xiphias. It is exactly that sort of thing that evokes the visceral negative reaction to the word "Christians." I sometimes have it, too.

I am sometimes astonished at how little some things have changed since the days of segregation and lynchings. Three cheers to Stevens, the pastor, for refusing to be associated with such people.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That pastor strikes me a stand-up guy -- I'd give odds that, if I met him in person, we'd agree on nearly nothing, but that doesn't mean I can't respect him. I hope the rest of the community gets the message.

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

I'm here via juliansinger. I have to say that I particularly enjoyed reading the bit where the guy blogging about this story (which I couldn't read as it seems to be missing) used a quote from Paul that included the phrase "there is neither male nor female [among those baptized Christian]" in a post in part defending his support for barring women from the priesthood.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

To be fair: he was MENTIONING his support for that, not defending it in that post.

As I'm not a Christian, I really have no basis to judge his arguments on not ordaning women or not supporting gay marriage, even if I saw said arguments -- which I didn't. Well, I guess I saw a summary of his anti-gay-marriage argument, but I saw nothing on his anti-ordination-of-women argument.

Opposition to those concepts tends to rub me the wrong way -- I'm, in general, in favor for the ordination of women, and for gay marriage, but I have to admit that there are hard-to-counter arguments in my own religion which forbid them. In the communities I belong to, we mainly ignore those arguments, rather than countering them, which I'm not totally comfotable with. . . but I don't have a better idea.

Yet.

[the-editor.livejournal.com]

I sure wish they had left the article up....

[the-editor.livejournal.com]

okay, the article is back up...

and it isn't about the body of christ....

it's that rednecks think 'negroes is godless'... plain and simple... and quite frankly, they are protestants, and don't do eucharist/communion...
they're just protestants, they don't know anything at all.
;)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

They do "accepting Jesus into your heart", which is, effectively, the same thing. Whether you eat Jesus or shove him directly into your left ventricle, you're STILL doing the same sort of thing.

[the-editor.livejournal.com]

true enough.
Fundies are just scary.
No matter what stripe or color.( or Not-color )

[kelfstein.livejournal.com]

Racism and intolerance are not christian values, but then they are not really values in many religions. Racism and intolerance blissfully jump from religion to religion causing problems and clouding the lessons each tries to teach.