- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Why weren't *good* Christians picketing Jerry Falwell and shouting down Pat Robertson?
Well, for starters, the "good" Christians like to think of themselves as broad-minded and tolerant, and have taken a loooooong time to begin to realize how scary some of these people are. When one has been taught not to judge, to be inclusive and respectful of differences, and to refrain from rudeness and prejudice and name-calling and insults, it doesn't come all that easily to learn to stand up and say, "No. I do NOT respect your faith. In fact, I think it is a blasphemous heresy, a hideous parody of genuine Christianity. The Jesus you claim is not the Jesus I know." Or, "I think you have been duped, by a slick, fast-talking evangelist who is using your tithes to pay for his Cadillac and diamond cufflinks--and by a bunch of utterly cynical politicians who just want your votes so they can screw you economically and send your kids to be blown to bits in Iraq."
This is not how we were raised to act. We were taught to be polite and respectful, like Garrison Keillor's Lutherans.
Jim Wallis and Co. have begun to help us find a more prophetic voice--but still with laborious politeness and non-partisanship ("God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It"). You're right--we are waiting for a leader, and at the moment I don't see the right person anywhere that I know of. The "good" Christians are way too "nice," and too splintered and dispirited by our own institutional histories and issues, and we don't know how to play the game.
They're perfectly willing to distort, lie, and character-assassinate. I don't want to descend to anything like their level, and they keep running circles around us. Nice guys finish last.
