Those who hunt Christians like a pack of dogs after the fox
I have recently been making occasional comments on a blog that declares its hate for Jesus and for Christians.I wonder if we Christians are sometimes partly responsible for their hate. I wonder if sometimes we might be like a resounding gong and clashing cymbal. I'm afraid I have to hold my hand up to this big time!
Some of these 'Jesus haters' have been hunting me down and sending the most crudest of messages about Jesus not to mention messages announcing my death. The latter doesn't bother me - I feel well protected by God. The former, doesn't shock me - I have worked with and served people who try to shock and seen them come into God's Kingdom as they repented and gave their lives to Jesus.
Saul of course was a great hater (even murderer) of those that followed Jesus, he used to hunt Christians like a pack of hounds after the fox! Until of course, his Damascus Road experience.
Christians need to pray for the Sauls of this world, that they will meet and come into a relationship with the Jesus that loved them so much that he was prepared to die for each of their individual lives. The Jesus who took the punishment for their sin and in doing so, offering the best quality of life and an everlasting relationship with God as Father to those who will trust and believe in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
Comments
I feel that your explanation of the blog "Why I hate Jesus" is, for lack of a better word, a lie. There are people who visit the blog that have obvious deep seeded resentments towards Christianity, but the blog is not about hating Jesus. That fact has been made clear to you a number of times on the blog, and I think that you owe your own moral beliefs that truth.
Have you ever considered where the deep seeded resentment comes from? Would you like to know? Would you even be open to it?
The people who have been leaving messages on my web site have hated Christians enough to leave messages about my death. That is really sad. They have either hated Jesus enough to to talk extremely crudely in a sexual way about Jesus or simply wanted to offend.
You ask if I have ever considered where the deep seeded resentment comes from and I have on my post tried to acknowledge that Christians (including me!) may sometimes be at fault. Somewhere on the line they have it seems had a very bad experience of church. Others obviously feel that life has handed them 'a bad deal'.
My call on this post is for Christians to try and show some understanding and to try and love those who (apparently) hate Jesus. This doesn't mean making excuses for the stuff that they do which is not of God - but it involves acknowledging that we all fall short of God's glory and as you are trying to point out - we need to try to show some understanding and you are right to bring this to our notice.
"Oh, I don't reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ."
-Have you ever the saying what comes around, goes around? A very Christian friend of mine has passed judgment on me many times, and of course, the "big one", I am going to hell, so one day, I reversed it and passed judgment on him & his life here on earth..........the result, his feelings were very, very hurt.
Consider this, when you say on god's time, you leave an open time line...........not to long ago Christians were murdering people for not accepting Christianity, murdering by the thousands, your death threats and crude remarks, while I do not agree with them, are a walk in the park when considering the thousands that have been murdered by the sword of god/Christians. There is no time line on such horrible deeds done to humanity. Just like slavery & the slaughtering of American Indians, and Hitlers hand on the Jews.
A few years ago we in Britain had a massive problem with violence attached to football matches. I would say that those who created this violence were certainly not football fans! They could well have destroyed the game as a spectator sport.
I don't believe that Christians ever murdered anyone because they were not Christian, though obviously murder has happened in the name of Christianity - there is a difference!
As for Hitler he was more akin to Satan than to God!!!
Thankfully there have been true Christians who have lead the way and been responsible for:
(1) The provision of schooling to the poor
(2) The reformation of laws for the work place
(3) The abolition of the slave trade
(4) The provision of homes for the orphan and homeless
(5) Campaigning for third world debt to be scrapped
etc etc etc
Anyone who declares a blanket hatred towards Christians are declaring hatred of the likes of Dr Bernado, Mother Terresa and William Wilberforce.
I was much saddened by your treatment at the hands of anti-Christians - though I have had similar sentiments expressed to me by anti-gay Christians in my blog - irony or what?
I came across your blog while doing some background research for the dissertation to a master’s (Religion in Contemporary Society) I am doing at present at King’s College, London. The question the dissertation is trying to answer is: “What role do faith motivated social work agencies fulfil in a society that already has a comprehensive and inclusive social welfare system?” I was looking up any articles written on St George’s Crypt’s gaff in the late 90s of refusing to employ active homosexuals and yet its willingness to accept gay money (i.e. David Hockney’s donation of picture for auction); as this could supply a good illustration of the divided loyalties of many faith based organisations – religious integrity verses need for income. My conclusions so far are that faith based organisations exist as much, if not more so, for the needs of their benefactors, senior management and supporters than for any intrinsic social welfare role they provide.
Anyway on finding your blog I found myself reading through chunks of it and I was surprised to learn we are of a similar age. I had presumed (given the change of heart of many of my more Evangelical friends) that the desire for ‘Evangelism’ lessened with age – however you appear to be an exception to this rule. I presumed completing the masters would help me increase my faith, but it has only confirmed me in what I think will be the road to agnosticism. Given I was once a member of staff at St George’s Crypt, a contemplative monk and an active member of several churches in turns, this could be seen a rather sad, but perhaps this is the road for me. However it has been interesting to see this is not the case for everyone.
See my blog http://jp-uk.livejournal.com/35197.html for my thinking which has brought me to my present conclusions and http://jp-uk.livejournal.com/profile for my background.
Thanks for your thoughts!!
J-P
Having spent a little time on your blog I will not send you a tract but intrigued by your apparent loss of faith I would like to ask you a couple of questions:
1. What if anything might convince you that Jesus (a)is the only thing necessary for salvation? (b)died and rose again? (c) is God incarnate?
2. What relationship with Jesus would you say you had when you considered yourself an evangelical Christian? (ie what depth of intimacy?)
Praying for you (hope you don't find this condescending!)
Neil
The above should have been addressed to you also.
Regarding St George's Crypt, homosexuals and David Hockney. This is a difficult one and perhaps on balance it might have been wise not to receive money (in kind) from Hockney. After saying this it would mean that they in theory shouldn't receive money from any non Christian.
The heart of St George's (as you surely know) is to serve and build up people of lesser standing in society and although not a perfect organisation is one that has over the years brought glory to God.
It's non employment of homosexuals and those who are in a sexual relationship outside marriage in no way takes away the language of love shown to all comers to the crypt.
I would be interested in your comments on my post dated January 14th on the question: Can evangelicals befriend homosexuals.
Neil
The above should have been addressed to you also.
Regarding St George's Crypt, homosexuals and David Hockney. This is a difficult one and perhaps on balance it might have been wise not to receive money (in kind) from Hockney. After saying this it would mean that they in theory shouldn't receive money from any non Christian.
The heart of St George's (as you surely know) is to serve and build up people of lesser standing in society and although not a perfect organisation is one that has over the years brought glory to God.
It's non employment of homosexuals and those who are in a sexual relationship outside marriage in no way takes away the language of love shown to all comers to the crypt.
I would be interested in your comments on my post dated January 14th on the question: Can evangelicals befriend homosexuals.”
My response to this...
A series of events changed my perception of St George’s whilst I was a member of the church in the late 80s/early 90s (I had left the Crypt by this time, but was working in residential social work in Leeds). The church’s lay assistant proved to be more adept at the ‘lay’ aspect of his job title and had got his fiancé up the duff; this surprised me as he came across as a bit of a whimp and I was more impressed than scandalised by his lapse. Though of course this was a case of him breaking the 11th Commandment ‘Thou Shalt Not Get Found Out...’. At the same time a committed member of the church, a well-off middle-class professional (typical of the congregation’s permanent members) who was a pillar of the Music Group, member of the PCC and (I think) leader of one of the church’s house-groups approached David Hawkins, the then Vicar (now Bishop of Barking) and asked for guidance in his plan to settle down with his male partner in a non-sexual, but committed relationship. The result of this ‘confession’ was he was asked to step down from all his church duties and basically ousted from the church. Whereas the oats-spreading lay-assistant enjoyed a good deal of notoriety, endless prayer and counselling sessions and slap on the wrist before going off to be ordained (he’s now a vicar somewhere in the West Country, but thankfully puts his name to many of the more tolerant and liberal causes of the CofE – he learnt from his mistakes...). As for the guy who was trying to do something positive about his sexuality, goodness knows what happened to him, I know he left St G’s with, I suspect, little love lost between himself and the church itself.
This little story (and I can tell many more similar tales of Christian hypocrisy) illustrates something very odd at the heart of much Evangelical thought – it is the obsession with sex! There is a belief the moment two homosexuals are alone in the same room together it is just a matter of time before they will unzip their trousers and get on with the act of buggery: this, alas, says more about the minds of Evangelicals than of the homosexual. A response to the 14th January posting on your blog illustrates this – the legal requirement for services not to discriminate against homosexuals, especially when it comes to the allocation of hotel rooms. Obviously there is again the sordid mind at work (two homosexuals in a hotel room – oh they’ll be at it like rabbits, oh dirty dirty dirty...) – such a mind needs to be pitied, if it wasn’t for the ramifications of such ignorance and prejudice. The discourse is that heterosexuals are inherently morally superior to homosexuals and therefore, if you’re married you are sinless (or at least better than those dirty ring-pirates). If you are providing services for the general public, then, that is what you have to do – you are as old as I am and perhaps you too can remember signs in sea-side boarding-housing in the late 60s and early 70s reading ‘No Blacks or Irish’? Following some of the blog’s respondents’ thinking, we could see signs with ‘No Willy-Woofters’ and (theologically) ‘No Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, Liberals... etc.’ where do we draw the line? As I’ve said elsewhere, homosexuals here provide a nice opportunity to try on a pre-packed, ready to wear morality – let us hope these hoteliers (and their supporters) inner discrimination is as proficient as their external...
I digress... Obviously St George’s Crypt change considerably after the death of Don Paterson in May 1988. The Crypt had by then a long reputation of providing help and support for the homeless and the needy – the ‘less privileged’ (to use your term). Yet myself and many of my fellow workers had by then begun to wonder about the worth of the work undertaken. Was it really helping people or was it keeping them in a cycle of dependence? And for whom was the work really carried out for? There was no need of the place really – the State provided adequate services for the homeless and adequate funds if you wanted to live on the streets – not an ideal situation, but no one in Britain can be truly destitute in the same way as was evident in pre-1948 Britain. It could be argued the Crypt had served its purpose and it was time to move aside and let the professionals get on with the job.
Obviously the Crypt can provide something else: hope. But this ‘hope’ is conditional and is reliant on the beliefs of others, others who because they often are not ‘less privileged’ are able to exert a good deal of power and influence over the lives of those who are. A favourite quote of mine is from Emily Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’: “We must be for ourselves in the long-run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering...”. All philanthropy is selfish in one sense in that it often meets an inner psychological or emotional need on the part of the giver. Anyone who has worked in some form of social welfare has, if they are honest with themselves, heard the bat-squeak cry at the back of their head when working with a client of ‘please like me – please think well of me’; or when telling others of the work they do, the other person can seem very small from the dizzying heights of the moral high ground: being self-less can be very egotistical!! Occasionally we are allowed to see ourselves how God sees us, but in the main we are content to busy ourselves with a Christianity that is little more than a tool for chipping out an idol: the self made in its own image, even though we proclaim our identity should be found in Christ. But I would argue that this is seldom something we can do for our own gratification or to fulfil the obsession many of us have for making ‘me’ feel better about ‘myself’. A Christian friend of mine once told me how he had started picking up small change on the street when he saw it, as it was a humble act to do. I thought about this and realised that in telling me this, he was in fact taking pride in his humility (cf. Matt 6:2-4). Of course this is not possible and is indeed a kind of oxymoron. Humility cannot be experienced by the self as something gratifying, in fact being humble negates the sensual side of our nature. Humility is a sweet gift of grace, but it is not something we can be aware of ourselves.
Here lies a problem at the heart of professional, faith-based, philanthropy: who is it really for and what service does it really fulfil? It is apparent the workers, volunteers and benefactors of such work gain a great deal in moral kudos. There is, within religious social welfare (and professional social work as a whole) a symbiotic relationship: the worker is often in as much need as client, though their needs are different. Hence care has to be taken that in meeting the workers’ and the needs of the organisation’s supporters, that the client or user of the services isn’t held back, in a cycle of dependence, just to maintain the work of the service. When I was at the Crypt we used to think the most successful work we did was with people whom we never saw again. If the motive of the service is to ‘Further the Kingdom of God’, then care needs to be taken that its workers aren’t seeking to be establishing little kingdoms of their own.
To my mind, St George’s Crypt did (I’m not so sure now where it receives some of its funding) do the right thing in that it refused Government/taxpayers’ money so that it could employ its own staffing policy. You are right of course, logically, St G’s should not accept money from anyone except Christians (and then only of a certain flavour) if it wishes to continue to do this, as the David Hockney debacle illustrates. Similarly its staffing policy can’t (logically) employ practicing homosexuals or those living together – but then should it employ those who have been divorced and remarried or those who have married divorced people? Jesus doesn’t say much about sexual relationships, but one thing he is clear on, those who divorce and remarry or those who marry someone who is divorced commit adultery. Unfortunately English rather dulls this precept as in the Greek the commandment is spoken in the present-continuous tense (something we lack in English) and therefore doesn’t just mean those who were divorced – divorce is a ‘current’ state. Likewise anyone who lies, or receives interest (usury) on their bank-account or (if you want to be really O.T.) the disabled, or wear clothes made from linen and wool – where do you draw the line? Again, the instant immorality of the homosexual and sex, sex, sex, provides an ideological benchmark for those able to work within the organisation and those who can’t. The more pertinent issue of the actual worth of the individual to do the job is bypassed; the implication being that if you only use your willy in one way then you are a ‘suitable’ person; if you use it in another (or at least are presumed to do so) you can’t. How I believed all this drivel is a source of deep regret to me and thankfully I have moved on – but I hope in sharing this you are able to see the madness of such ideas. What would really further the Kingdom of God is if people started minding their own business!
Unfortunately although I did approach St George’s Crypt as a possible place to do my MA research, its lack of qualified workers prevents me – as my research methodology requires, on this occasion, to interview qualified social workers. This is a pity as it means I can’t assess, with a 21 year gap, what differences there are since my time working at St G’s. I am hoping my research will ensure faith-based organisations should only have government money if they are willing to enact government policies around anti-discrimination. I believe the further God’s Kingdom is a noble pursuit, but should be done by and at the expense of those who want it furthering. It should be remembered Britain is now a secular state – not because people turned their backs on God, but because people saw the inconsistencies, hypocrisy and excesses of religion and realised they can get alone very well without them. Long may it be so!
Wow you are sure passionate about what you say. Thank you for your comments, which I respect but on major points disagree.
The first point regarding the homosexual and the guy who got his girl friend preganant, I can't rally comment on, apart from the fact that my guess is that you, like I do not know the full story of either individuals concerned. I do know David Hawkins to be an honourable man.
Your point regarding homosexuals in hotels falls down a little because Christian B&Bs may not knowingly allow unmarried heterosexuals to sleep together either. In their own homes I think this reasonable in the same way that it is reasonable not to allow my daughter to sleep with a man in my house.
Regarding your point regarding 'good works' being in some way selfish, I hear to some extent what you are saying, but I feel no remorse in feeling happy when I have helped a homeless person have a meal, or kept a drug addict alive, who was contemplating suicide. I believe many Christian organisations are more professional and caring in approach then many secular organisations
and so my strongest disagreement would be against your comment: "What would really further the Kingdom of God is if people started minding their own business!"
If Christians with a social conscience had minded their own business, we may still only have schools for the wealthy, slave trade may have continued to be legal, working conditions for children in Britain might still be the same as those with non (or lesser)Christian influenced countries such as India or China, provision for orphans might be non existant and developing countries debt would be ignored etc etc.
No matter how you knock Christianity, if you are honest to yourself you have to admit that it has tried with much success(although not always perfect) to tackle many social ills. No, I feel Christians should not mind their own business, but carry on building God's kingdom.
Take care
Neil
Thanks for this, it is difficult in the written word to fully express oneself and of course there are bound to be cross wires.
First I would caution the belief that just because someone is an ‘honourable man’ (as David Hawkins is – no one is saying he isn’t) it doesn’t mean they can’t get things wrong and I do know a good deal more about the situation described than can be mentioned to a stranger in a blog. David Hawkins had only been a vicar for two years at the time of the incident I am talking of – are you suggesting people don’t make mistakes or that their abilities don’t increase with experience. In addition to this there is no suggestion in what I had written that David Hawkins caused all this events – I only say it was at the time he was vicar: the lay-assistant was his area of responsibility; it was other voices in the church who were particularly anxious to see the celibate gay guy ousted – not always for reasons of piety...
As for Christian B&Bs I don’t think I made any mention of them – just about the allocation of hotel rooms. I am fully in favour of Christian B&Bs being able to do what the hell they like; it is the Christian owners of hotels and B&Bs catering for the wider public I was thinking about – as long as someone is being charged for the pleasure of staying in B&B it is a business, not someone’s home. Whenever I book a hotel or B&B room I always book a double for Paul and I, yet I don’t say the room is for two men. I have never had any problems when we have turned up – but I know other couples have had. You can’t offer a service to the general public and then start picking and choosing on the grounds of your own prejudices concerning morality. Just because two men wish to share a bed doesn’t mean they are going to have sex – the fact this is a widely held belief in some circles says, as I’ve already said, more about the minds of Christians than the morality of gay couples.
Last year I delivered a paper to some fellow social workers illustrating the debt social work owes to faith-based organisations (FBOs) and also highlighting the need for a person’s spirituality to be seen as an essential part of working with a person. I am not averse to faith-based social work and on a small scale many of the services it provides are qualitative better – obviously FBOs are smaller and don’t have the concerns of a whole borough to worry about. Yet the services they provide are often ideological Christian as opposed to being actually Christian (or Jewish or Muslim for that matter). e.g. In the mid-90s I was manager of a large residential home for disabled adults – part of a London based Christian charity. The charity’s P.R. department asked me to speak on Premier Radio about the Christian witness of the organisation (out of the 22 managers of the organisation’s homes, I was only one of two who could claim to be a regular church going Christian – hence the reason why I was asked). I was told what to say – that the staff shared the good news of the Gospel with the users of the service. Now only some 10% of staff were practicing Christians and about the same percentage of clients. When I said it would be bearing false witness to state the organisation was a haven of Christian witness I was shouted down and told to just say what was on the script because ‘we’ve paid good money for this radio slot and by saying this the charity will get donations from Christians listening to the program...’ I told the PR department to get stuffed and they hired a tame minister to recount the wonders of the organisation’s Christian witness – What is truth? As Pilate rightly asked... Or as Jesus said ‘You cannot service both God and Money’ and this is the cancer at the heart of many FBOs. This PR obsession is common practice in many FBOs. In one sense that is why St George’s Crypt has to be admired in that it only employs Christians, most FBOs only have a majority of practicing Christians as volunteers, on the management board and as benefactors (I can assure you I have amassed a great deal of evidence to support this statement as part of my MA research!!) and therefore the question has to be asked again – for whom do these organisations exist? And why should such organisations get chunks of tax-payers’ money to further the ideology of those who are not willing to get their hands dirty themselves? I would suggest much of their work is seen as Christian charity by proxy - Joe Public – or in this case Joe Christian – can give money and feel his or her obligations are being fulfilled; in this reading the care of the ‘less privileged’, disabled, homeless or whatever assumes the role of a product Christians can buy. Christian charity, the act of furthering the Kingdom by personal example is reduced to a financial transaction and the Gospel takes another step away from its purpose...
I am afraid I don’t share your assertion in the wonder of Christian workers! Here you must remember I speak not ‘off the cuff’ but from 27 years experience of working in social welfare – as a care assistant, residential home manager and qualified social worker and have worked with and latterly managed hundreds of staff. I have worked in numerous organisations, both statutory and voluntary and I remain firm in my conviction that non-Christian staff are more likely (and I stress more likely – I have met and worked with some brilliant Christian staff) to make better employees in social welfare organisations. They tend not to be as opinionated, are less likely to force their views and beliefs on vulnerable people; are less likely to manipulate employers or quote (often misquoted) scripture to justify what is often their own desires. Christian social workers belief that faith in Jesus was a more important topic of discussion during supervision sessions was one of the contributory factors in the tragic death of Victoria Climbie. Such social workers are quite common in London ‘Jesus this and Jesus that’ and yet crap when it comes to the actually task of social work. Professional social work has its drawbacks, but in the main its emphasis on empowering people and encouraging them to use their own strengths to overcome their problems is much better than the recourse to offering Jesus as the solution. Jesus may be the means by which they can overcome their problems – but it is not the role of a social worker to offer this solution.
In addition, as I noted, those engaged in philanthropy are often in its as much to meet their own needs of acceptance and purpose as the needs of the organisation and those of the client (this goes for secular as well as faith-based social welfare – many a non-Christian social worker is far more needy than their clients – that I can’t deny!!!). The greatest mistakes I have made as a social worker/carer have been when I have been more a ‘Christian’ than a social worker in my role and have befriended and supported people well beyond what many social workers would do; in doing so I have created too greater expectation and dependence upon the part of the client which is doomed to disappointment when I have left the organisation, closed their case or they move out of the area and have to work with other workers. This problem of co-dependency (between the worker and the client) is not restricted to FBOs, but there is more a chance of such relationships keeping people in a cycle of dependence (because there aren’t the same government goal-setting/case worker limits on resources in most FBOs). Also our own motives have to be thought through: as Jesus is reported to have said, your left hand shouldn’t know what your right hand is doing when you’re giving, nor should we concern ourselves with what others think of us – otherwise we have our reward. David Hawkins once used the example of Little Jack Horner as an illustration of the enduring flaw of many Christians faith and practice – ‘he stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plumb and said ‘What a good boy am I!’’ We’re all Little Jack Horner’s to some degree! The whole edifice of organised Christian social work is built on the premise of wanting people to think well of the organisation and (QED) have PR departments to ensure this happens. Many are business with a product you can buy into which provide a service of some (though debatable) social good - it would be naive and idealistic to see them as much more.
As for furthering the Kingdom and minding one’s own business, I meant this in the sense of some Christians being more interested in the personal morals of individuals than is healthy. A walk around a Christian bookshop will demonstrate this – there is usually a section on homosexuality in most Evangelical bookshops - which suggests it is either a problem within Evangelical churches or there is a greater interest in the subject than its impact on Evangelical Christian life really warrants – I’ll leave you to decide which and to ponder the reasons why. Christianity has been a force for social good. Though it could be argued every example you have given is post-Enlightenment and could just as equally be seen as Christianity (as religions do) absorbing philosophical and political ideology – Christianity has also been used to justify slavery, social inequality etc. – as Mrs Alexandra says in All Things Bright and Beautiful ‘The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate, [God] made them, high or lowly, And ordered their estate’ (this verse has been removed from modern hymn books). Religion is forever in a dialogue with its immediate situation and not ideologically isolated from the society of which it is a part (the current women priest/bishop debate is a good example of this – no one pre-1960 would have even thought about becoming a priest or bishop).
I can see we are singing from different hymn-books – however I stress my thoughts come not ad hoc, but are built on observation, experience and the considerable evidence around concerning the work of FBOs (see Malcolm Torry for a useful introduction to the literature available). Obviously this is your blog and it is not going to be without its bias and your need (for reasons of belief, psychological wholeness, social expectation and prejudices – which we all hold) to propagate a certain worldview. I have worked in several Christian organisations and I have been a member of a religious community; experiences which have brought me to the grim conclusion that all organisations, of whatever flavour, have feet of clay. Whether it is the blatant lies of the Christian charity for disabled people noted above – claiming its work is that of Christian witness when in truth it is just a company that provides a very good standard of residential care – but (and I stress) above the market rate – with a staff team and client base that includes only a minority of practicing Christians; or whether it is the foolish hypocrisy of making explicit statements on the expressions of sexuality acceptable for employees of an organisation and yet demonstrating an overt willingness to accept queer money – esp. when that money comes in the shape of an international celebrity. Each erodes the integrity of Christian charity. I don’t for one minute think such organisations should be disbanded, but I do believe they should be approached with a healthy pragmatism. It would be much better if individuals themselves practiced charity in their daily lives rather than the ‘by-proxy’ arrangement FBOs afford us. Perhaps now it is I who am being naive because, as Ms Brontë has said, “We must be for ourselves in the long-run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering...”. Such seems to be the lot of humanity.