Another kid has been bullied into killing himself. His name is Jacob Rogers. He went to Cheatham County Central High School, in Ashland City, Tenn. Apparently he'd been being pretty severely bullied for four years. It got so bad that around Thanksgiving he quit going to school.
A friend of Jacob's told reporters, "He started coming home his senior year, saying 'I don't want to go back. Everyone is so mean. They call me a faggot, they call me gay, a queer.'"
Yesterday Jacob took his own life.
You can read more via MSNBC. (An important detail not mentioned in that MSNBC story comes from from KingstonSprings.org: "Dr. Tim Webb, Director of Cheatham County Schools [said] that his almost all-new staff at the high school only knew of one incident of bullying and confronted the accused over the bullying. However, Dr. Webb also noted that because staff were new to the school, they were perhaps not aware of the extent of bullying that Jacob had endured in years past.")
I've done a fair amount of writing on these sorts of tragedies (see this past Saturday's "Tell Me, Christian, That You Hear this Boy," "Christians and the Blood of Jamey Rodemeyer" and "My Gay Christian Cousin Committed Suicide," to name just three). And so I have no doubt that some will claim that the primary reason Jacob killed himself is not because he was bullied. They'll say that we don't know the whole story. They'll point to the fact that Jacob lived with his grandmother, that his family is poor (not, God knows, that poverty is any sin) -- that it's safe to assume this kid had problems beyond being bullied.
And I will respond with what I always say: that certainly there are always myriad causes behind the suicide of any person. But that that does not alter the fact that the root cause of tragedies like the Jacob Rogers story is that strain of Christianity that continues to insist that homosexuality is an evil affront to God.
If Christians would actually read the Bible, instead of daring to insist that three or four isolated phrases within it justifies a theology that has no more to do with Christ than Fred Phelps has to do with Welcome Wagon, we would arrive at a popular Christianity that is not, as so much of our Christianity is today, a pure affront to anyone with half a conscience.
And I will respond with what I always say: that certainly there are always myriad causes behind the suicide of any person. But that does not alter the fact that the root cause of gay teens being bullied because they are gay (whether or not they actually are) is that strain of Christianity which continues to insist that homosexuality is an evil affront to God.
And that Christianity would dissipate the motivation of those kids who bully in the name and spirit of condemning homosexuality. That particularly noxious train would simply come to a halt. Because there wouldn't be left any enduring reason for anyone to ever condemn gay people at all.
Then gay people would just be ... people. You know: that thing God made in his own image.
Fellow Christians: will you please stop treating the Bible like it's a permission slip from God to be just as ignorant and immoral as your scared little self wants to be-and to raise your children to be just like you?
If not, then be sure to buy a new Bible every year. It's a lot easier than having to keep washing the blood off your old one.
Follow John Shore on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johnshore
A time will come when people will not listen to accurate teachings. Instead, they will follow their own desires and surround themselves with teachers who tell them what they want to hear.
Describes the Religious Right to a tee.
But, what I remember most was my Dad and Mom bowing their head and praying. What surprised me was that they were praying both for those being physically attacked and those doing the attacking. At one point, I remember asking my Dad why they were praying for those hateful white people... My Dad replied, they are all God's children sweetie, some just don't know it yet.
Some Christians have God in their minds, but they haven't let Him in their hearts. They haven't let Him renew their spirit and allow His love to lead them. It will all work out as God has planned. Christians will learn to lead by love, and sinners will learn to seek the light of that love...God.
Learn to Lead by Love.
Learn to Lead by LOVE.
Learn to LEAD by LOVE.
By believing this, by believing what has wrongly been taught by those who need control over large groups of people, by those who need a BIG SIN at which to direct their righteous indignation so that people don't pay attention to their wealth accumulation (politicians, TV evangelists and mega-preachers), you and everyone like you contributes to the culture of hate that gives bullies their venom and gay kids their despair. The Bible DOES NOT say that homosexuality is morally wrong. You have to read those very few passages that appear to discuss homosexuality within their cultural and political contexts to know what they really mean.
That's why I believe with my whole heart that John's book - the one he mentions above - should be imperative reading for anyone who grew up believing as you do. You are wrong. I don't believe you are wrong out some sort of ugly nature of your own, but wrong, wrong, wrong because you and other Christians have been misled for a very long time. Read the book. Read the testimony. Mr. Shore IS a Christian, of the best kind.
As far as reading the Bible contextually, do you have any specific arguments? I have heard many arguments as to why we should not follow the clear meanings of passages that certainly appear to condemn homosexuality, but every one of them has failed to hold up once I have actually examined the argument. What arguments do you find persuasive? I think if you are going to tell a Christian they are wrong in their understanding of the Bible you should do so by way of exegesis.
Has your bible been edited?
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Of course it is. And it is equally the right of other citizens to criticize those values when those values are toxic or at odds with the truth we discover from science.
I criticize the Bible because it presents a picture of the godhead in Yahweh that is a picture of a pathological bully doing evil things. That picture has been the inspiration for evil things done in his name and for his supposed glory for the past two millenia.
I criticize the Bible as a deeply flawed religious text, one that includes sublime and lovely thoughts of a good father loving his children right alongside terrifying and violent thoughts that this "father" will destroy utterly any who don't choose to believe in him.
I say these are BAD values, IMMORAL values, EVIL values - bullying values that make our world worse, rather than better. I stand against such values just as I would stand against the bullying values of any terrorists - whether from the right wing or the Arab street.
We don't need nor want terrorism and bullying - from any source - in order for us to find our way in this world. And we certainly don't need people to demonize homosexuality when science shows there is absolutely nothing immoral about it.
Does anyone here have any evidence that any of the bullies involved attributed their behavior to religion in any way? Were they even Christians?
Given those facts, what conclusion would you reach?
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It sounds to me like this is exactly what you are doing.
"The Word" (your idea, not mine) tells us that your loving God destroyed the world by water, and will later do it again by fire.
"The Word" tells us that your loving God commanded Moses and the Israelites to commit total genocide against the seven tribes living in the so-called "promised land".
And "The Word" tells us that your loving God allowed some angelic being named Satan to destroy the life and family of a man named Job, just to win a bet.
So please don't blame people for quoting your own Biblical texts back at you, to challenge your idea that your God is simply a God of love.
That's not what "The Word" says.
Fundamentalist Christians have every right to believe that homosexuality is an evil affront to God. They have every right to deplore the existence of and personally avoid gay people. They have every right to pray fervently to God to punish evil. They have ZERO right to usurp God's role by self-appointing themselves to judge others unworthy or to invade the privacy of others or to disrupt the school in order to make themselves and their peculiar religious beliefs the center of everyone's attention.
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The problem here is that the embrace of religious fundamentalism tends to make people suffer from boundary issues. To quote Jake and Elwood Blues, they get the idea in their head that they're on a mission from God - and therefore have a divine duty to get all up inside your bidness and mine.
If only they were content to live and let live, they wouldn't get the strong push back that they are getting from those of us who don't care to drink the Kool-Aid.
You're one of those people with "boundary issues" who tolerates everything but an "intolerant" person. (And pats yourself on the back for doing it.)
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No, it's not about some aberrant "strain of Christianity". Let's review:
There are three branches of Christendom: The Roman Catholic church (by far the biggest), the Orthodox Church, and the various Protestant sects and denominations.
The RC and Orthodox Churches define homosexual behavior as sin, and hve done so since their inception.
Among the Protestants, there are some liberals - but the great bulk, once again, condemn homosexual sex as an intrinsic moral evil.
So this isn't about backwards churchgoers in the Bible Belt. It's the considered opinion of the learned doctors of the universal church - and has been so for the past 2000 years.
The chances of moving this stone are ZERO. It's part of a package deal - just as much a part as the Jesus you worship, or the Holy Spirit you say infuses believers with wisdom and discernment.
Of course, you are free to cherry pick off the Biblical tree. It's one way of resolving the terrible cognitive dissonance you feel reading so much of the Bible. Another way is to engage in this Don Quixote quest, trying to change the minds of two billion "believers".
But the vast majority of Christians simply aren't going to follow you to your "new Christianity", when it comes to the normalization of homosexual sex.
What I am saying is that Christianity is morally flawed - deeply flawed - irretrievably flawed - because of the intrinsic craziness in the core text. What John Shore and others like him are struggling with is the vast gulf between what Christianity is, versus what they wish it could be.
When the foundation of the house is crooked, the house will never be straight and true. When the biblical foundations of the Christian faith include the hatred of a vengeful and capricious god called Yahweh, you just can't end up with anything resembling true morality and ethics.
As the computer geeks like to say, it's GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Of course, I don't expect committed followers of the abrahamic religions to give up their religious obsessions en masse. But as people consider the issues deeply and personally, they may become convinced, one at a time, that they've picked a bad pony.
I would change that phrase a bit: Like it or not, this type of hate will prevail as long as people choose not to follow the greatest two commandments in the Bible: 1. Love God with all your heart, and 2. love others as yourself.
What you are really saying is that the Church cannot comprehend the fact that people are born gay.
Face it; your Church is homophobic.
If you really want to have something to whine about, declare yourself an atheist. Then your persectuion complex might be justified.