I ran across this weird article while researching a recent post. Located on a site called Bible Reasons and called “25 Reasons Why The World Hates Christians And Christianity,” his screed didn’t exactly inspire me to trust its level of accuracy. Christians don’t tend to have a very firm grasp about how non-Christians see them and their religion (though one does run into some who get it).
But it did provide some insight about how right-wing Christians in particular are deceiving themselves. So I thought it’d be fun to go through the author’s list of totally for sure true and valid reasons why people dislike Christians, according to a TRUE CHRISTIAN™ (like himself).
Shall We Play a Game?
The author is Fritz Chery, who shows up at Fundies Say the Darndest Things (for good reason). It also looks like he turned up at GoodReads to list his own favorite quotes from himself. He seriously sounds like a Jesus-bot that just parrots the same phrases repeatedly whenever a string is pulled in his back. But in fairness, that exact trait makes him completely representative of the hardcore fundagelicals I’ve known.
It looks like this fellow could do with a game of Real or Not Real. Ever heard of it? We were introduced to it in The Hunger Games. When Peeta, the heroine’s friend and eventual love interest, gets kidnapped and brainwashed, he has a difficult time after his rescue distinguishing between real memories and the false ones that have been implanted in his mind by the enemy.
This Christian could sure do with a round of Real or Not Real.
Meta-Not Reals.
Right out of the gate, we can see some big problems with his list.
The writer is assuming that the term “Christian” means his own type of Christian, and that the only people with a problem with his type of Christian are atheists. He asks, “Why do atheists hate Christians? Why are we hated by the world?” And these questions themselves are a problem.
See, non-Christians (which is what fundagelicals usually mean by “the world”) aren’t always atheists, and generally speaking we don’t have a problem with Christians. What we don’t like are loudmouthed, rude, controlling bigots who cloak their grabbiness in religion and want to force the rest of us to play along with their Pretendy Fun Time Game. We have a problem with zealots who want to use our money to pay for their grandstanding and who try to interfere with our rights, activities, and private relationships. We’re completely in the right to push back against that behavior and to speak against it.
After a quick gloss acknowledging that yes, some of his tribemates are, in fact, extra-horrible people, he plunges into the clobber verses those extra-horrible people use to rationalize being horrible, then appears to declare that being a TRUE CHRISTIAN™ (like himself) means being an extra-horrible person.
And of course he thinks that persecution of Christians is a major issue in America and that every single TRUE CHRISTIAN™ (like himself) will at some point face this persecution one day, if they haven’t already.
I’m not thinking his listicle will be very accurate–and also that he’s one of the extra-horrible Christians he briefly criticizes here. By the way, in case I don’t make this fact abundantly clear, we’re not talking about all Christians. He’s as upset with non-fundagelicals as he is with non-Christians. His post might be pretending to discuss why atheists hate his tribe, but he quickly veers into accusing people belonging to his own religion of the stuff on his list.
Allez Cuisine!
1-3 and 20: Everybody Hates TRUE CHRISTIANS™ (Like Himself) Because They Are Just So Freakin’ Awesome.
I’ll just lump these together and paraphrase them because they’re the same exact statement reworded repeatedly. The author is convinced that “the world” hates TRUE CHRISTIANS™ (like himself) because they are sooooooo amazingly Christian that they “remind [non-believers] of the God they hate so much.”
No. Not real.
We don’t believe in his god. We don’t hate his god because we have no reason to suspect he exists. Christians like this fellow often have this idea that everybody believes in their god but is just lying about it, which is something I think of as the Law of Conservation of Worship. It’s a really deep-seated belief among fundagelicals that everybody does what they do, just with different labels, and totally believes in their god the way they do. This guy’s invocation of this Law will make his audience nod and cluck to themselves about how very, very sad non-Christians are, but it isn’t going to inspire anybody else to take him seriously.
Interestingly, he lists Romans 1:29-30 on that third one, and doesn’t appear to notice that his tribe is the one that is increasingly getting known for that list of “sins.”
They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy.
Obligatory Garfunkel and Oates video. (Seriously NSFW.)
He might be making a subtle stab here at non-fundagelicals, too, which is a theme we’ll see him return to again and again.
4. The darkness always hates the light, 9. Because everybody else hates us and people of the world are followers, and 10. The world thinks Christians are stupid.
Not real. If evangelical Christians ever actually start being lightness, then maybe we can talk. But they aren’t. He’s just making the common fundagelical claim that Christians are more moral than non-Christians are. It’s a false claim, but for obvious reasons one of their favorites.
At the moment, non-Christians don’t tend to have a high opinion of right-wing Christians. And this opinion is based on experience, not on blind knee-jerk dislike, as one popular researcher discovered to his dismay:
“It started to become more clear to us [Barna Group researchers] that what they’re experiencing related to Christianity is some of the very things that Jesus warned religious people about,” he said. “Which is, avoiding removing the log from your own eye before trying to take the speck out of someone else’s.”
Christians who assume that their religious affiliation is the sole reason for people’s dislike of them generally seem to be the very Christians who fully deserve that dislike.
As for his assertion that only groupthink could ever account for antipathy against fundagelicals, I think he’s confusing us with his own tribe. I’ve written many, many times about how Christians tend to unthinkingly, blindly accept whatever their leaders say and to trust those leaders even when there is no reason whatsoever to do so. And most of us could attest to the serious groupthink environment at fundagelical churches. It’s one of the defining characteristics of the group, really: toxic Christianity attracts authoritarian follower types, and then shines them on. He’s a sterling example of the trope.
As for thinking that Christians are stupid, most of us know that there are a lot of very smart people in Christianity, even in the extremist flavors of it. The mental blocks that hinder less-educated people can trip up very well-educated and sophisticated people too. It’s not stupidity that leads one to become a fundagelical. It definitely helps to be uneducated and ignorant, sure, but smart people fall for its promises and threats too.
5. People hate the truth, and 6. The world hates us because of our mission.
Not real. If he could provide us some truth, we could talk about it. But right-wing Christianity is chockablock full of pseudoscience, junk history, and downright appalling gaps in logic. He’s not operating in the same sphere of reality that we are. I strongly suspect that fundagelicals like this author do in fact hate the truth–because it contradicts their claims every single time. Maybe he assumes everyone else is that way too.
He also says that his “mission” involves “having to” trample, annoy, bother, and berate non-consenting audiences. Reading that was unbelievably creepy, but he says it with pride.
On that note, I have never in my life heard a non-Christian get mad at a Christian evangelizing them with “How dare you call me evil. I’ve done way more good things than you. God knows my heart.” That’s just something that happens in fundagelical-land. (Hint: We don’t believe in his god, so we certainly would not say that his god knows our hearts. Maybe the other Christians he’s abusing say that, but atheists certainly wouldn’t.)
7. Because they believe in lies, 12. They don’t like the true Christ, 16. They hate the Bible, 17. They don’t want to be held accountable for their sin, and 21. They hate the gospel of Christ.
Not real. He’s falling into the trap of the Law of Conservation of Worship (again). The reason I lumped all these together is that they’re all pretty much the same sentiment.
He’s upset that people “who don’t know the Bible” still “want to debate the Bible.” In other words, people who don’t hold it in reverence (like he does) and who don’t buy into its claims without evidence (as he has) are daring to contradict the Bible he carries around in his head, and he doesn’t like it. Unfortunately, there’s not much to be done here; he’s got a very childish view of the Bible that doesn’t allow for the reality of how difficult it is to pin it down on anything it contains.
But we can’t like or dislike “the true Christ,” the Bible, or the “gospel of Christ” any more than we can care about whatever he thinks our “sins” are. We don’t believe in any of that blather. And he sure as hell won’t be providing any reason to believe in it–because he isn’t talking to us. He’s talking to his fellow tribemates, who take the Law of Conservation of Worship totally for granted.
8. They mistake love for hate.
NOT REAL AT ALL. He’s very upset here that people get upset with his tribemates for Christiansplaining at gay people that if they convert then Jesus will fix them somehow. He’s angry that he doesn’t get to trample people and berate them and dictate their lives to them, and he calls that kind of behavior love because in his warped little world, that is the redefined version of it. He really thinks that love means abusing people.
We’re getting closer to understanding why people don’t like him!
I’ll also note here that a great many ex-Christians, including myself, discover that we only learn what real love is after deconverting.
11. We are hated because of false teachers.
Not real. But this item isn’t quite what you might think. He’s not talking about the vast sea of hypocritical Christian leaders who molest kids and greedily beg for money to buy private planes.
No, he’s talking here about Christian leaders who focus on what he calls “love, love, love.” The “false teachers” in his opinion are the ones watering down the TRUE CHRISTIAN™ message that he himself believes. They’re not condemning non-believers and sinful Christians enough. They’re too nice. And that’s why he thinks non-Christians hate Christians: because those Christians are just so loving and nice. Because who wouldn’t hate people like that?
There really is no end to the cognitive dissonance contained in the mind of a fundagelical.
13. They want to keep their sins and they don’t like their sins being exposed.
Not real. The translation of this would be “They’re always getting mad at me for lecturing them and trying to control them.” He seems to have a tough time understanding that people have a right not to listen to him or even to care what he thinks, disapproves of, or dislikes, so he’s spun this fantasy of us objecting to it purely because his Jesus Aura makes us feel all guilty inside.
But non-Christians don’t tend to subscribe to the idea of “sins” anyway, so we certainly don’t care if he “exposes” them or not. (It’s funny to see a Christian get really pissed at a non-Christian and accuse them of being judgmental–which is a sin to Christians, but not to the rest of us; we’re under no obligation to be non-judgmental or to follow any of the other arbitrary rules in their religion, especially when Christians are only demanding that we do so because it’d really help them out if we’d shut up.)
I wonder what he’d do if his own sins were “exposed”? I bet he’s got a few doozies in there, what with his laser-like focus on other people’s imagined sins and all.
14. Satan has blinded the world, and 19. The ones who hate Christianity are the ones who admire the devil.
Not real. I was going to lump these two in with the other Conservation of Worship delusions he suffers from, but I wanted to call it out for a reason.
We don’t believe in Satan, and certainly this writer has no evidence that this being exists. But a lot of fundagelicals sure have a very firm idea at all times of what exactly Satan thinks and wants.
Does anybody else besides me ever think that’s kinda interesting?
15. They hate us because we are not doing evil with them.
Not real. His entire post reeks of entitlement, superiority, and condescension. That he’s rationalizing his overreach by borrowing authority from his supernatural claims only moves the problem over one step rather than absolving him.
I wish I could make people like him realize that nobody cares if Christians “do evil with” us. We just want them to leave us alone and go play with their own toys in their own sandbox and keep us out of it. But that’s kinda the problem here for him, isn’t it? He really wants us to care about his opinions and to take them into account–or at least to be forced to navigate around his beliefs. Increasingly, fundagelicals’ beliefs are becoming irrelevant to others. I don’t think he likes that idea much.
18. They are ignorant and they refuse to learn.
Not real. Is he once again confusing us with his tribemates? Because I have literally schooled a fundagelical on some pseudoscience claim he was making, had him concede the point, and then seen that very same Christian rush out the very next day to make exactly the same claim to someone else. That’s not an isolated occurrence, either. Modern apologists are absolutely famous for getting set straight by atheists in debates and then returning with the same exact erroneous arguments over and over again. If this writer had a contest to see which group is most likely to refuse to learn a new fact, I guarantee fundagelicals would win.
The real problem here, I’m betting, is that our TRUE CHRISTIAN™ keeps presenting non-believers with his pseudoscience and fallacy-loaded arguments-in-lieu-of-evidence and we keep laughing at him in response and rejecting it all. Poor guy’s probably very frustrated by that.
22. God said we would be persecuted, and 23. We are foreigners and foreigners are always mistreated.
Not real. Fallacious reasoning and self-fulfilled prophecies for the win!
Christians aren’t foreigners in this country, and they’re totally not being persecuted. Fundagelicals are declining in number, but they’re still members of the dominant religion in the United States. They are also considerably more powerful in our government than they should be–and exercise near-total control in many small towns across America. They enjoy, in this country, a level of freedom and privilege that is near-unknown in most of the rest of the world. Their constant mischaracterization of pushback and criticism is both a symptom of their problem and a big part of why their religion is failing.
Thankfully, they’ll never taste real persecution here–because our secular laws would prevent it from ever happening on a systemic level. The laws that protect the rest of us from their grabby overreach also protect them, not that they are willing to learn the difference between justified criticism and persecution. But we know, and even if they can’t be arsed to learn that difference, we’ll still hold them to it.
24. Because of the actions of fake Christians or immature believers.
Real, sort of. The hypocrites in Christianity sure don’t do the religion’s claims any favors. But he doesn’t realize he’s one of them. There isn’t a sight much more childish than a fundagelical trying to sound like a wise prophet. Their over-simplified, sex-obsessed, and jingoistic view of the Bible is so laughably inadequate that it’s hard to listen to them holding forth without giggling.
It’s so weird how quickly and easily TRUE CHRISTIANS™ (like himself) judge their fellow Christians.
25. Christians are bad for business to the wicked [sic]. Clubs, abortion clinics, pornography sites, casinos, prosperity preachers, psychics, etc.
Not real. The whole reason that Bootleggers and Baptists is a thing is because his tribe cannot understand self-sovereignty or respect other people’s rights.
It’s worth mentioning, too, that when fundagelicals try to boycott businesses nowadays, it doesn’t normally turn out that well for them (a fact that even Christians are coming to understand). I don’t think he should be so quick to assume that his tribe is really that powerful.
Even more disturbing to me is that very often fundagelicals’ version of “fighting” is really more like domestic terrorism and harassment than it is crusading for good.
Finishing up: Blah blah blah non-Christians luurrrrve Satan, and mocking Jesus in a music video is TOTES persecution.
Not real. He wraps up by gloating about how much non-Christians hate him because he is serene in the knowledge that they don’t really hate him; they hate the Jesus Aura emanating from him like the stink lines coming off a dead cow in the road. But he also thinks that his Jesus Aura will intrigue and attract non-believers.
This post of his is like reading the spluttering of a really shitty artist who is convinced that the reason everybody criticizes his or her work is because they’re all just totally jealous. If he were actually trying to reach non-Christians, I’d consider his post 25 attempts to neg non-Christians, all tied up with a little bow. He’s decidedly not talking to us, though.
No, he’s talking to his fellow Christians. He wants to give them 25 reasons why they must keep doing exactly what they’re doing, except more of it and harder, because people trapped in a broken system cannot change, cannot learn, and cannot ever admit fault.
So out of all of it, he gets one thing in total sort of correct.
And Here’s the Real Reason.
It’s not one you’ll find on his list, I’m afraid.
Fundagelicals are obnoxious, make a lot of false claims that they can’t back up, and demand that everyone else follow rules they can’t even handle themselves. They don’t respect consent. They’re abusive and controlling, sanctimonious and belligerent, hypocritical and judgmental, willfully ignorant and selfish, overwhelmingly bigoted, racist, and misogynistic, and in no way whatsoever do they act like a group of people who have a loving, merciful Savior living inside them. They rejoice in others’ suffering and redefine “love” to allow themselves to abuse others. When confronted with this serious discrepancy between their self-image and reality, their response–every time–is to gaslight the person confronting them into accepting their version of reality (or at least shutting up, which is just as good).
Most of all, they would rather spend their time writing self-congratulatory screeds about why nobody likes them than doing the boring-ass stuff that Jesus repeatedly and vehemently told his followers to do.
That about cover it, Hoss?
Cuz I about think it does.
I’m in a mood to watch Christian Mingle next time, and I thought that this post would be useful to introduce that review since the movie appears to fall into much the same thinking. We’ll see you next time!