For almost five years, I didn’t go to church. It was only me and Reverend Bedpost most Sundays. I’d get inspired or guilty once in a while and church shop for a few weeks, but soon I’d be back to hitting the snooze button. I was attending seminary at the time, so I convinced myself that I was getting enough religion during the week. I thought my friends were enough of a “faith community” and I didn’t need to practice some banal weekend ritual. But I had another reason for playing hooky on Sundays that I didn’t tell anyone: I couldn’t stomach being around other Christians. Christians are completely full of crap.
I’m serious. We do a bunch of weird, ridiculous, and sometimes stupid things. That’s on a good day. On a bad day, we’re downright mean.
Let’s begin with the weird part. For starters, we have our own language. We use words like “fellowship,” “sanctify,” and “discern” in about a hundred different ways. When we pray, we’re over-fond of the word “just” and doubling up on God’s name (“Lord God, Lord Jesus, Jesus Lord,” etc.). And this is only what garden-variety evangelicals do. Some Christians get downright bizarre, especially when they worship. It’s a wonder that we haven’t scared away all sensible nonbelievers.
Then there’s the ridiculous. First, we have a preoccupation with hokey costumes. Whether it’s big hair on TBN, big hats at the Vatican, or the mandatory cropped facial hair of male youth pastors, Christians feel compelled to don uniforms that distinguish us from the rest of the world. It’s silly and pointless. It’s almost as ridiculous as how we behave while singing praise songs. Ever notice that people don’t stick their hands in the air because of the words? It happens at the chorus or the bridge of a song, when the music switches to big major chords. I bet you could put the words to the “ABC”song to a big crescendo in a worship song and see just as many palms in the air.
The stupid and mean things flow together on a continuum. On the stupid side, Christians get their tails in a knot about the most irrelevant things. Harry Potter? Please. The whole continent of Africa is getting flushed down the toilet, and the Pope and a bunch of high-profile preachers are worried about a bespectacled British kid on a broom. But stupidity just passes the time for idle Christians. If you cross us on a serious issue, we get mean in ways that would make Michael Corleone blush. If someone offends our moral sensibility or tries to change a law that’s close to our hearts, we set an entire cultural machine in motion. We have money, politicians, lobbyists, and corporate giants at our disposal. Christians on the ground picket with angry slogans, while Christians in the high-rises of power write checks for lobbyists and politicians. We have no problem thumping pagan skulls when the culture moves in a direction we don’t like. As a result, much of the world not only hates us; they’re afraid of us.
