Renee at Womanist Musings made a post about Anne Rice's abandonment of the Christian institution. She has this to say about it:
It bothers me to know that fundamentalism has made such a mess of Christianity that progressive people are leaving it in droves. Without the voice of the progressives, it leaves religion, an important cultural space, for those that would advocate intolerance towards others. I came across this story on a gay blog where the author was celebrating and I could not help but think of the cruelty of this action. A loss of faith is deeply a sad thing and is not something to be celebrated no matter how hateful various Christian churches have been. It is a sign of resignation, of giving up what is most dear because of the criminal actions of others and not because of the actions of God. Anne Rice losing her belief is not a victory, in fact it is a loss.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
It is no exaggeration to say that I was in tears by the end of reading this paragraph. How dare she. HOW DARE SHE.
I am an atheist. I used to be a Christian. I gave up my faith because the people who advocated it were operating on lies. I don't mean culty brainwashing lies like "I am the only one who can get you to Heaven" (although they had their own mode of this) or "only people who fast on the seventeenth day of September will be saved." I mean big lies, like "Jesus is the prophesied Messiah of the Tanach."
I won't deny that Christianity was a horrible experience for me. Brainwashing, sexism, and every kind of bullshit under the sun haunted me day and night. I was convinced because of my parents that I could drop dead at any time, really, and the only reason I didn't was because God had decided to give me one more hour/day/whatever. Okay, it sucked.
But that's not why this post pisses me off.
A loss of faith is deeply a sad thing and is not something to be celebrated no matter how hateful various Christian churches have been. It is a sign of resignation, of giving up what is most dear because of the criminal actions of others and not because of the actions of God.
Most dear?
This viewpoint reeks so badly of brainwashing that I could vomit. Most dear. Get that? The most dear thing to Renee is being a Christian. Not her family. Not civil rights. A guy who was last heard from in a two-thousand-year-old book is the most important thing in her life.
Maybe I'm overreacting, maybe there's something about this viewpoint that is NOT irredeemably fucked up. But I have to know, what about the flipside? What about those of us that DON'T believe in a god? Well, we must be the most sad, destitute people on the planet without that ultra-important sky man in our lives. Of course most Christians wouldn't call us "sad and destitute." They'd probably say something like "missing out on something important and they don't realize it. But the fact is that, with this statement, Renee is contributing to the incredibly misconceived and hurtful idea that atheists are missing out on something vital just because they don't believe in a cosmic power.
Way to go, lady.
The fun continues in the comments.
..it is PEOPLE who have corrupted the message of love and peace and charity that is in and throughout the Bible, turning it into a tool for propaganda devoid of the love that is so essential to Christ's mission and message.
Oh, my gosh! She is so right! It is people like Moses (who ordered the execution of men who had sex with other men and married rape victims, as well as the exile of men who accidentally saw their mothers-in-law naked and other fun stuff) and Paul (who commanded women to do whatever the fuck their husbands wanted and ALSO had a few choice words for teh gheyz) who corrupt the TRUE meaning of Christianity, which is peace and love and huuuuuggggz.
HOW DID I NOT SEE THIS.
There's also a common overtone, alluded to in this thread, of "atheists are all rich, white, intellectual snobs." Reminding me for the FIFTY BAJILLIONTH TIME that I DO NOT FUCKING EXIST. There are no working-class atheists. There are no atheists whose abandonment of Christianity happened not because they think it's "stupid," but because their abuse at the hands of Christians unlocked their minds to the truth, which is that the WHOLE FUCKING BIBLE is full of abuse and abuse advocacy. There is NO chance that the POOR, INNOCENT BIBLE is actually full of hideous, hateful things that are damn well deserving of rejection. No chance that the Good News is peppered with a helluva lot of bad news. You get the fucking picture.
People, Christians, if you want atheists to stop arguing against Christianity, THEN FUCKING FIX IT. I don't care how you do it. Even if you just come right out and say "the bad parts are total shit so we're going to ignore them," I don't care. Just stop hiding behind the pretense of being the only GOOD Christians. When your fellow Christians - stop calling them fundamentalists and start OWNING UP to the fact that they are members of your religion - when they start spouting hateful shit, START CALLING THEM OUT ON IT. I know a lot of people already do this - usually in the same blog post or article in which they decry those persons as "rightwing nutjobs" or whine about the "corrupt organization."
Guys. CHRISTIANITY IS FUCKING ORGANIZATION. It ain't this "personal walk with Jesus" shit that you're all blabbering about nowadays. You all keep whining about Christianity being "corrupted" into this religion of hate; you're no different than the fundamentalists complaining that humanity has been "corrupted" into a state of horrible sinfulness. In the words of Tim Wise: No, fool. That's how it's SUPPOSED to work.
You could make an argument that Christianity in the way that Yeshua originally delivered it was not meant to be used this way. And you'd actually have a point. But if you go that route, you have to take it all the way. Denounce every single inch of the fucking Bible that isn't about Yeshua. Nothing said by any of his followers (especially not that Paul asshole) can be part of the conversation. And remember, those first four books of the "New" Testament say surprisingly little about Yeshua being the promised Messiah through whom you must pray and be baptized, so you have to throw that out too. I realize he did that whole "he who accepts me accepts Him who sent me" thing, but you'd be surprised how easily that can be read to mean "everything I say is relevant to how this shit is supposed to work; I'm not keeping any secrets from you folks." Oh, and you'd better be checking to see how much of the stories were forged decades after the fact, because those aren't part of the original message either. Though if you're looking for a shortcut, I recommend the Jefferson Bible.
Christians, yo: they have a lot of good intentions and very little knowledge of what they're actually dealing with.
I will, however, throw this in from the comments:
What I find problematic is that when people discuss the hate of American Christianity, they're really talking about white Christians and their version of Christianity. As a black Christian, I experience God/dess quite differently, I guess. While on the whole, black Christians are just as conservative as white Christians, it appears we prize an ethic of social justice over and above forcing God in the public sphere. For example, I'm pretty sure I just read yesterday that while the majority of black Christians view abortion as immoral, given the opportunity, we would keep it legal.
That's cool. I'm for that. But I'm NOT behind anyone - white or black or whatever - pretending that the shit in the Bible is fake, or distorted, or whatever... because if you really think that you haven't really been studying the book you so diligently worship.
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