Unconvincing
What then Love?
My continuing deconstruction story: I’m an Aussie who grew up Catholic, became a Protestant, spent six decades as an Evangelical Christian, then de-converted.
I was in churches for sixty years, so I heard the word ‘love’ thrown around often as the defining feature of Christianity. The claim is God loves us all. For God showed his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). The entire basis of Christianity is someone else died so we wouldn’t have to die, so that God could love us, and Christians should love others as God did.
That might be the problem. The Bible God of War is a narcissistic, abusive lover invented by narcissistic, abusive men. A severely psychopathic god who demands blood and worship. A temperamental god needing constant appeasement. A god who can’t tolerate human imperfection and kills us for it. Is that sacrificial love or a desire for dominance? I believed it was love as a kid, but now I think it’s an unconvincing way to love from a ‘god’ lacking emotional regulation and maturity.
Christians who should be known for their love are often better known for their unrelenting hatred and stunning lack of self-awareness. It’s a massive disconnect.
There were disconnects aplenty as the 2017 marriage equality debate raged. One was the standard Jesus allegedly set for his followers. I wasn’t seeing sacrificial love in the public policy stance of Christians urging a ‘No’ vote in the SSM debate. I often saw unrelenting hatred, and I still do today. It’s a religion rotten to the core.
A Convincing Way to Love
As a Christian, I naively expected other Christians to model Christ’s love for all. That means finding a way to love, despite disagreements, where no easy way presented. Like when we meet people with a different lived reality. We shouldn’t lose sight of anyone’s humanity, including the LGBTIQA+ community.
This post of mine summed up my dilemma:
One view of the SSM debate is that it’s a battle about how best to love the LGBTI community. Most on the ‘No’ side sincerely believe that by voting ‘No,’ they’re doing the best possible thing for the LGBTI community. Admittedly, I’ve yet to see a convincing argument. Yet none on the ‘No’ side would say they are acting from malice or hatred. I mostly agree, but I also disagree with their framing of the problem and their preferred love solution.
Of course, the biggest problem with the ‘No’ case, is that the overwhelming majority of the LGBTI community want a ‘Yes’ vote. So, the naysayers are up against it from the start: They need a very compelling case to vote ‘No.’
If there is a compelling ‘No’ case, I’ve yet to see it. The ‘No’ case are mostly religiously motivated, believing they hold a higher truth, God’s will for all humanity, including the LGBTI community. Unfortunately, that higher truth is that same-sex attracted people should not have equal rights under the Marriage Act. So, the first problem is the LGBTI community doesn’t agree with the naysayer’s love prescription at best or regards them as raging homophobes at worst. What then love?
The second problem, one none can refute, is that the Bible provides no clear support. That leaves the ‘No’ case scrambling for convincing arguments and looking silly by resorting to conflation and fearmongering. They look like idiots and cheats, caught out in their deceit. What then love?
The third problem is imposing religious views. Christians sound horribly patronising at times. Are there other ways to love other than a prescriptive imposition? Well, yes, it’s called consent, respecting people’s choice. Exhibit A is Jesus himself. Whatever he said about marriage, Jesus died to give people a choice: Legalism or Grace. It’s time we respected that. It is possible to disagree with people yet respect their choice and sexual orientation. Judgement and condemnation, no matter how it’s presented, never looks like love. What then love?
The fourth problem is how does one make a case for legal discrimination of an entire group of citizens in a secular democracy, and call it fair? We have an Anti-Discrimination Act for a reason: it’s hurtful and harmful, not loving. What then love?
I don’t know how the ‘No’ case resolves this dilemma, but it isn’t my problem nor one I’d like to have. Perhaps it’s unresolvable. If the objects of your love think you hate them, then at the least you have a severe perceptual problem, but it may run even deeper. Call for a mirror.
Meanwhile, it’s delightful to see some faith communities coming out in full support for the LGBTI community, organising, marching, flying flags, and posting statements. To me, that’s what love looks like! You know, like what Paul wrote about in Corinthians, “I will show you the most excellent way.”
My friends on the ‘No’ side of the debate may well be genuine in their desire, but they have yet to find a convincing way to love.
The ‘No’ Was Right
The above was my unfiltered view in the heat of the online battle. By the end of 2017, with the marriage equality vote days away, I’d had enough. There would be no winning in this debate, but the ‘No’ case were right about one thing.
Here’s my Facebook post summing up what I’d learned on August 31st, 2017.
The No case is right: This debate isn’t just about SSM, there are other things we can learn from it. Here’s what I’ve learnt about the ‘No’ case:
It lacks logic. Issues are constantly conflated and muddied to maximise fear in the faith community. The Yes case becomes an existential threat to the faith, the thin edge of the wedge, the slippery slope, blah, blah. Opponents seem unable to separate out the issue under debate from everything else. E.g.: civil and church marriage are constantly conflated.
It lacks knowledge. I’m amazed how few grasp history. E.g.: the history of marriage itself. This leads to crazy statements like ‘Marriage has always been between a man & a woman.’ Well, no, it hasn’t. ‘Being gay is a choice.’ Well, no, it’s not.
It lacks empathy. The focus is all on the supposed loss of religious freedoms and ‘Christian privilege.’ Yet opponents shamelessly pillory the LGBTI community, pick on their kids, ignore their legal disadvantage, their persecution by churches in past centuries. These people just don’t seem to care until it affects them.
It lacks integrity. The Bible is meant to be the foundation of Christian faith, but the ‘clobber verses’ are unclear and contestable. They just don’t support a ‘No’ case. The naysayers never admit this because it destroys their entire argument. Are they stupid or lying?
Remember, these are the same people who want to save you! They want to convince you they hold a higher universal truth, a promise of eternal life. They want you to believe they love you and have your welfare at heart. They want you to believe they speak for God and have unique answers. Then they want you to pay with your time money and allegiance. No thanks!
Of course, not all Christians are like this, it just seems that way to me, in the Bible belt, where almost all my friends are from conservative faith communities. Sadly, they can’t see what their negative advocacy is doing to their credibility. Worse, they will lose this fight, eventually. Then what? Circle the wagons and call a prayer meeting? I doubt God’s listening.
My prediction proved prescient. Voting results were released on November 15th, 2017. The Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017, which legalised same-sex marriage, came into effect on 9 December 2017.
I wonder how many churches called on the faithful to pray and overturn the result? I know some will never rest until that law is reversed. They never stop hating, and they especially hate losing. That’s ego, not holiness.
Thankfully, the fight wasn’t all one-sided. I made new friends too, a tiny alliance who regularly pushed back against the majority and supported one another online. The allies in the trenches were the best people.
Empathy or Sin?
Christian apologists love to take questionable credit for the good their religion does. While ignoring the harm it has caused historically and continues to cause today.
For example, Christians claim credit for universities, literacy, language, morality, and hospitals. While ignoring child abuse, burning witches, assisting colonisation, transatlantic slavery, the crusades, the holocaust, the suppression of science, the dark ages, and the continual oppression of women and minorities. Yes, all of these, whether they’re for or against religion, are contestable arguments. That’s my point.
I think there’s a human quality, at times stronger than religion, which delivers positive outcomes while minimising the harm from religion. It’s called empathy.
The SSM debate was not Christians versus non-Christians; it was those with empathy versus those without. Those with logic versus those without. Those with knowledge and integrity versus those without. Unfortunately, all those without supported the ‘No’ case. Fortunately, the ‘Yes’ case won, but it had a lot of help from Christians who had empathy, logic, knowledge, and integrity. They proved their empathy with behaviour, not belief, and their behaviour challenged beliefs.
Digging deeper, centuries of church history showed me there are always some people with empathy in faith communities. People who chose to understand and share the feelings of others. People who stood up for others, often challenging their own religion. Behaviour not belief. I once saw this as proof that faith worked for good even if the church didn’t. Now I saw a different explanation, a new hypothesis.
It wasn’t faith that worked for good or inspired challenges to beliefs, it was empathy. Some people choose to show empathy, some don’t, regardless of beliefs.
Here’s the kicker. Most empathetic Christians would still be empathetic if they weren’t Christian. Most hateful and dogmatic Christians would remain so if they weren’t Christian. I’ve learnt that professing faith is often a bad indicator of good character, but a good indicator of bad. What does that say about Christianity?
Cue the hot debate on the ‘sin of empathy,’ or ‘toxic empathy,’ which has gained traction recently in conservative Christian circles. It claims empathy is distinct from, and inferior to, compassion or sympathy, and is indeed a ‘worldly’ concept incompatible with Christianity. There are blogs, sermons, and books on the topic.[i] These often prove my point: Faith is a good indicator of bad character. If you attack human empathy as toxic or a sin, you have a serious problem with humanity.
I won’t address the ‘toxic empathy’ debate here. Suffice to say it’s yet another unconvincing strategy used to attack the LGBTIQA+ community and fight endless culture wars. Some Christians see empathy as an enemy and use a DARVO strategy to fight it. Personally, I wish they’d put the energy into ending the harm from their religion, but they’d need empathy for that, so it isn’t going to happen.
For a deeper understanding, read my early post ‘No True Christian.’ Christianity can’t claim credit for, or indeed be blamed for anything, if ‘conversion’ isn’t real.
To this day, some of my Christian friends feel deeply aggrieved because they saw themselves as genuine in their desire to love. Yet they never found a compelling way to show it. I strongly suspect that desire was never real, and they just can’t see it. As my atheist friends often sigh and say: There’s no hate like Christian love.
Here’s the thing: There’s no genuine desire to love if all you want to do is attack, kill or discriminate against others. That truth is confronting for many Christians who lack metacognition, or self-awareness, the ability to think about their thinking. They can’t see the impact of their choices, so they blindly continue making them.
If you claim your religion is about love, yet can’t convince people it’s loving: Is it?
What if you can’t see your religion is an existential threat?
That’s next time on UNSAVED.
Next: Existential Threat. #HaveAGoodWeekend.
[i] See for example Allie Beth Stuckey’s ‘Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion.’