WARNING: The following post contains profanity, sarcasm, innuendo, and not-so-subtle digs; it may be unsuitable for those who eschew Absolutes (other than their own) but have, nevertheless, cultivated a refined sense of moral superiority and self-righteous indignation.
* * *
How better to demonstrate your evolved morality and uber compassion than by hating conservative Christians?
Don’t try to l
ogically grasp the dissonance of that objective. You see, even though they decry hatred, bigotry, judgmentalism, and mean-spiritedness, religious progressives feel they are justified in loathing evangelicals.
Take for instance John Shore who, in his HuffPo piece A Progressive Christian Asks, ‘How Do I Not Hate Most Christians?‘, blithely refers to conservative Christians as
- “stupid”
- “morons”
- “idiots”
- “dipshits”
- “assholes”
- who believe “horrendously toxic bullshit.”
Apparently, demeaning other believers and calling them “dipshits” and “assholes” isn’t one of the 10 Ways (We) Christians Fail to Be Christians.
At least this Unitarian Universalist minister tries to be more nuanced about her intolerance for evangelicals:
All religious traditions are not equal. Some beliefs foster freedom, growth and a deepening of compassion. Others are rigid and exclusive, warning of eternal punishment for those who don’t believe in the one true path to salvation, as they see it, or for those who love someone of the same sex.
…But for the damage that conservative Christianity does to people and for its perpetuation of prejudice and hate, I must reject this tradition.
Which is fascinating coming from someone who believes “There is truth in every religious tradition.” Apparently, conservative Christians have become the one exception to that inept mantra.
Contemplating the utter hypocrisy of these positions will, again, get you nowhere. In the progressive’s philosophical fog bank, it’s okay to be intolerant, snide, foul-mouthed, condemning and judgmental… provided your objective is to belittle evangelicals. Everyone else can share a kumbaya moment. It’s us evil conservative Christians who are shunned from the circle.
So it’s no wonder that this sensitive, deeply loving, community of activists and emobloggers would give rise to the Anti-Evangelical Hate Machine — an entire movement bent on cataloging, ridiculing, scoffing at, lampooning, and mocking evangelical culture.
Here’s a sampling of the Hate Machine at work:
Stuff Christian Culture Likes — The Webmaster explains, “This is a scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff Christian culture likes. They are pretty predictable… Christian culture is funny because it doesn’t have much (if anything) to do with Christ himself.” In that spirit, SCCL “scientifically” mocks worship conferences, mocks conservative politicians, and mocks evangelical terminology. Justifying hatred of evangelicals never seemed so… “scientific.”
Stuff Fundies Like — Which lists “Fundy Rules” like:
1. I am right and you are wrong. Always.
3. The less certain something is, the more certain you must appear to be about it.
6. The less fun it is the godlier it must be.
7. Women’s primary purpose is to serve as a temptation to men. They are also somewhat useful for housework.
9. If it is new it is bad. If it is old it is good.
10. There is no situation that a good dose of ministerial yelling can’t fix.
Of course, this unintentionally reveals Rule Number One of the Anti-Evangelical Hate Machine:
1.) Do what you must to make conservative Christians look as stupid as possible.
Jesus Needs New PR — Matthew Paul Turner aggregates wacky Jesus pictures, and run-of-the-mill evangelical items like Pet Baby Jesus Rocks, Jesus Popsicles, and A Jesus Mini-skirt. You can also sponsor a child in Sri Lanka or get magazine discounts while perusing these evangelical inanities. Wondering if Turner now considers himself Jesus’ “new” PR guy?
The Christian Taliban — Describes their evil evangelical adversary thus:
…the “Christian Taliban” is diligently working toward an America where we will be forced to worship their concept of God or face the consequences of their tactics of terror. We will live in a nation where Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu children will be forced to pray to a vengeful and hard-hearted God who will proclaim that they will burn in the fires of hell because a loveless and cruel concept of Jesus is not their personal savior. We will live in a nation where genuine Christians who are the true believers who know that both God and Jesus are the purest form of love will be forced to deny a loving Christ and worship a false ‘Jesus’ who represents oppression, punishment, revenge, hate, and bigotry.
Homosexuals, human rights activists, environmentalists, women’s rights advocates, and others will be persecuted, jailed, and perhaps eventually executed because they will refuse to believe that God is cold-hearted and filled with hate instead of love.
BEWARE THE COMING EMPOWERMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN TALIBAN!!!
And here I thought only evangelicals were fear-mongers.
Christian Nightmares — Aggregates the worst in evangelical lunacy, while wearing a silver mask.
The Christian Left on Facebook — Who recently pointed out, “Conservatives aren’t going to stop doing stupid things. We’ll be around for a long time to point it out when they do.” Praise God that someone is policing the Right! My only question: Does the Left ever do “stupid things”?
If you’re looking for evidence of the love, compassion, civility, and peace that religious progressives profess to espouse, you won’t find it on these sites. The Anti-Evangelical Hate Machine has one mission: To paint the worst of all 
possible pictures. Making conservative Christians look like “morons,” “idiots,” “dipshits,” and “assholes,” who believe “horrendously toxic bullshit” is the Machine’s aim. The final product on their assembly line is a plastic caricature compiled from nutters, extremists, trivialities, parities, and fanatics. Their motto: The only good evangelical is an ex-evangelical. They accomplish this by framing the term “good evangelical” as an oxymoron.
I won’t say this is the most effective mode of attack. Especially by those who love to tout their trips to Haiti, humanitarian efforts, sympathy for the down-trodden, and unusual compassion for anything LGBT.
Tactically speaking, the Anti-Evangelical Hate Machine is strangely similar to the New Atheists. The primary method of apologetic for both groups is… ridicule. Many atheist sites are more ANTI-Christian than PRO-Atheist; rather than articulating evidence for atheism, they spend most of their time deriding theists, IDers, and creationists. Religious progressives fall into the same trap. Rather than articulating an apologetic for Religious Leftism, they poke fun at, deride, and curate what they consider Evangelical extremes.
Which reveals a potential bankruptcy of ideas and does NOTHING to further their position.
(Maybe this is why it’s been suggested that atheists should make alliances with religious progressives. If they haven’t already.)
Nietzsche warned, “Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.” Sadly, in their attempt to identify the “Christian Taliban,” curate its atrocities, and prop themselves up as Jesus’ new PR guys, they are in danger of becoming the monsters they fight, mirror images of the Westboro Baptist loons. But instead of “Jesus Hates Fags” it’s “Jesus Hates Fundies.”
Both creeds amount to “horrendously toxic bullshit.”
Listen, I do my share of criticizing the American Church and laughing at stupid Christian stuff. Make no mistake about it, in any big family there will be fools and folly. Frederick Buechner marveled that God recruited so many “lamebrains and misfits and nitpickers and holier-than-thou’s and stuffed shirts and odd ducks and egomaniacs and milquetoasts and closet sensualists.” I’ve been around the Church long enough to know there’s nutters on both sides of the aisle. Religious progressives have their share of “morons,” “idiots,” “dipshits,” and “assholes.”
And to pretend otherwise is, indeed, worthy of mockery.
Actually most of us are more interested in showing and encouraging the study of Jesus’ words and follow his example. Which generally excludes hate. However, when we see children holding signs explaining how much God and Jesus hate gays and others that believe differently than their parents, it brings out the anger in us. If there were less hate thrown at us our responses would be less extreme.
You are using the actions of ONE single church as evidence that ALL evangelical Christians are like this? Oh my goodness.
This article is an excellent showcase of the hypocrisy of evangelicals, not of anti-evangelicals. Calling out the intolerance and hating bigotry doesn’t make you a bigot, but many evangelicals are so precious about their beliefs that anyone criticizing them using strong language is part of some “hate machine.”
Let’s be clear about this. Strongly opposing intolerance doesn’t make you intolerant. Warning that people who believe that all other beliefs aside from theirs are fighting for a world with little tolerance of those beliefs doesn’t make you a fear monger. I think calling people “morons” is lazy and inarticulate, but anti-evangelicals are not fighting for a world that doesn’t allow evangelicals to preach and believe whatever they want to. The converse, however, is true.
“even though they decry hatred, bigotry, judgmentalism, and mean-spiritedness, religious progressives feel they are justified in loathing evangelicals.”
Oh look, a victimiser playing the victim card.
How (yawn) interesting.
I grew up in the independent fundamentalist movement. My father was a preacher as was my oldest brother. I attended christian school and then an IFB Christian college for two years. I have heard more hatred come from the pulpits of conservative christian churches than I have heard from all other sources combined in my entire life. The fact that these preachers don’t use curse words (in public at least), doesn’t detract from the angry, nasty attacks they make against anyone that they disagree with. Yes that is a broad generalization, but I spent 30 years in the IFB and then Southern Baptist Churches and it is pervasive. I’m sorry but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the poor evangelicals who are being attacked by progressive Christians. When Conservative Christians clean up their own house, then maybe I can take this article seriously!
Jon Weaver, in criticizing the Baptists and “poor evangelicals” says “I’m sorry but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the poor evangelicals who are being ATTACKED by progressive Christians.” (emphasis added). First of all, I don’t see the attacks coming from Progressives as a whole, the ones who THINK they are progressives make up a small minority.
Secondly, you have “no sympathy” for the evangelicals, Baptists, conservative Christians (all 3 totally different groups although your ire seems to be directed at mainly IFB because “conservative Christians” would also include Progressives) and apparently welcome the attacks on them, but condemn those (what you call) attacks from the conservatives. Then that brings up 2 issues: 1) The “progressives” or let’s just correct this now, ANYONE that is justifying their attacks is doing so because they disagree with the 3 groups you listed, so what’s the difference in one group “attacking” based on disagreements, from the other attacking for the same reasons? 2) If it is OK anyone to attack the conservatives, evangalicals, IFB, then how can you be mad at them if that’s what they are doing?
There is no doubt, room for “house cleaning” in the IFB, and many are taking the appropriate steps, but the way you constructed that comment was probably not the best way you could have put it.
You say “because “conservative Christians” would also include Progressives”. I bet a lot of progressive Christians would be surprised to hear that. I won’t waste my time on the rest of your diatribe. You are proof positive of how IFB Christians attack anything they disagree with. Anyone who wants to see what I mean, just do an internet search for his name. By the way shouldn’t you be out witnessing or something. There are billions of lost souls that need to be saved. Better get busy!
Quote from Wikipedia under Progressive Christianity
“Differences between Progressive Christianity and Conservative Christianity
Holding to the ideals of progressive Christianity sets the movement apart from other forms of traditional Christianity. Many, if not most, progressive Christians believe that the Bible is not the literal word of God. While all progressive Christians recognize Jesus Christ, some view him not as the only way to God, but one of many ways, continuing the Christian modernist paradigm. Inclusiveness and acceptance is the basic posture of progressive Christianity.Progressive Christians tend to focus on issues of social justice, rather than proselytizing efforts to convert others, as conservatives and mainstream Evangelicals tend to emphasize.
Another key difference is that evangelical churches tend to have focussed on church growth, while progressive churches have not.”
Progressives may not be AS conservative, but you lumped in 3 other separate groups with no distinctions, and there are many progressives who are conservative. Since you made no distinction between Evangelicals, Conservative Christianity, and the IFB, it was only proper to point at that there are progressives who are conservative since you appear to have spoken for them all.
And of course, since I would be labeled as a dissenter no matter what (as if we don’t have the right to disagree about ANYTHING) I will say that progressiveism is a glorified version of communism, universalism, socialism and Christian syncretism.
And you apparently are blind to your hypocrisy. You use the very same language that you condemn in conservatives: “I believe in tolerance as long as you agree with me”. What you and most progressives don’t get is that 2 opposing views can not be equally right at the same time, it’s called the law of non-contradiction: somebody is wrong. Yet in your accusation that I think I am always right, you use the same logic to attempt to invalidate my argument. It’s a self-defeating concept. The major difference in a fundamentalist, at least for me, is that I establish that truth is absolute, and not only is it absolute, it is knowable, and if things that are different can not be the same, then it would behoove me to find out what the truth is. A progressive does not attempt to define truth, and denounces that there is absolute truth, but in the process, poses an absolute truth: that there is no absolute truth. Again, a self-defeating concept. Fundamentalists believe that the Bible reveals the truth about God, and that within the Bible is the foundation of understanding and knowing absolute truth, so it is not us disagreeing with everything you say, it is your word against God’s.
I minister to counter culture people and I catch it from Fundamentalists and Progressives. Every time God moves me with these people I catch it.
last summer we had a Goth tea party and bible study at the local Cemetery. We shared food and the gospel and had a great time.
The Fundamentalist said ” you should have been protesting this! why didn’t you stop this abomination? YOU PERVERT. YOU RAPPED THE DEAD! ONLY PERVERTS WORSHIP AND SHARE GOD’S WORD IN CEMETERY!
The Progressive ” you insulted them. you are a fake Goth and should be kicked out of church.
Me “Really Fundamentalist Brother read the history of the early church Cemeteries. People used them for such things for years. Progressive Brother they came to check out what our Sunday celebration is like. So where is the problem.
Last November I was at a Game convention I ran some D&D, Played some D&D and we handed out a booklet called Jesus for the Win. This is the Gospel of John with commentary by gamers for gamers.
My small group meets at a coffee shop instead of the Church house.
Guess which group is known for introducing people to Jesus.
I had the same reheated arguments from both sides to these things as well.
I am asked why I am evangelical. the answer is simple in 1979 some people took the time to share Christ with me.
This summer my church family will host a one day game convention, on a sun day no less. I wonder what both sides will say to that?
If I didnt get the living shit beaten out of me and constantly get my life threatened by evangelical ‘Christians’ in junior high for being gay, I’d probably like evangelicals. When assaulting people who are different is a trained political tool for evangelical youth, then the rest of society will grow up to hate them. As a Christian minister, I can rightfully say that evangelicalism is a southern disgrace to both Christianity and America. Hate should never be tolerated towards evamgelicals , but I’m sure there are several eastern Europeans who hate communism because they were trained to hate it. In a similar, albeit lesser way, evangelicals train the rest of society to hate them.
If I didnt get the living shit beaten out of me and constantly get my life threatened by evangelical ‘Christians’ in junior high for being gay, I’d probably like evangelicals. When assaulting people who are different is a trained political tool for evangelical youth, then the rest of society will grow up to hate them. As a Christian minister, I can rightfully say that evangelicalism is a southern disgrace to both Christianity and America. Hate should never be tolerated toward evangelicals , but I’m sure there are several eastern Europeans who hate communism because they were trained to hate it. In a similar, albeit lesser way, evangelicals train the rest of society to hate them.
Mike,
Here is a unique view from an ex fundy:
I am a former fundamentalist Christian pastor who left Christianity . . .
In spite of this fact, my son also became a fundamentalist Christian pastor.
Now, he and all his family think I am headed for Hell. This is my response to him.
*My Son Thinks I’m Going To Hell
Dear Son,
Your faith is important to you.
My beliefs are important to me.
We pray to the same God every day.
For me, He is the Caring Creator
Who cares about my well-being.
To you, He is the fearful God
Who demands obedience.
I believe Jesus was a spiritual man but not God.
I believe Jesus said some great words of wisdom
And I am sorry he had to die on the cross.
You believe Jesus died for the sins of man
And his salvation is a gift from God.
I do not believe this,
But let’s suppose I did.
Didn’t you say salvation was a gift?
If it is a gift, why do I need to do anything?
You say I am going to hell unless . . .
You even give me the words I should say —
“Jesus, forgive my sins.”
Do people go to hell for not saying these words?
What if I wait until just before dying and then ask?
What if I meant to ask Him for years but didn’t?
You say, “Too late — you missed your chance!”
This is God we are talking about isn’t it?
Is God limited by time or death?
On the other hand, if salvation is a “gift,”
Do I really need to ask Him for forgiveness?
The Bible says God freely gives this gift.
Where did all these attached strings come from?
Why conditions on God’s unconditional love?
New converts are told their Christian duties.
Tithing is one — not too bad — it is do-able —
Unless you are unemployed or on minimum wage.
But the heaviest of all these burdens is . . .
People go to hell unless we show them Jesus.
So their salvation is in our hands . . .
I thought salvation was a gift.
Why is this huge ugly rope attached to this gift?
Am I responsible for my neighbor’s salvation?
Why am I involved with another man’s salvation?
Why does God need me?
Suppose I want to play golf on a nice day,
But my neighbor dies and goes to hell . . .
And it is my fault . . .
Because I did not tell him about Jesus.
Please don’t tell me
God is so awful and demanding.
Why am I involved in someone’s eternal choice?
I thought God loved me and my neighbor.
Because of His heavy guilt trip,
I can’t even play golf without God on my back.
I cannot believe God dearly loves me . . .
But loads me down with guilt trips
About darn near everything I do.
If I truly am a child of God,
Why do I have to be afraid of Him?
Why can’t I enjoy God
And let Him fix the world?
I thought that was His job.
Scripture says God is with us always . . .
If so, “Come on God, let’s go play some golf.”
*****
What is a “free” gift?
Aren’t all gifts free?
*****
This is a fun post to come back to in light of the current election.
What a stupid article by a stupid person. So we cannot hate the KKK because then that makes us like the KKK? Is morality now subjective? These lunatic evangelicals promote hate and exclusion. That is FACT. Jesus would be ashamed of them and show them the path to Hell. Where they all belong.