In Reply to: Clarification on "hate speech" law posted by Alan on September 23, 2003 at 15:40:07:
I have some evangelical friends, and sometimes they go on rants about how evil North American culture is, so anti-Christian. Well, there is a lot of truth in this, but I think what they fail to see is that some of the persecution that Christians suffer is brought upon by themselves.
So when I want to start an argument, I broach the subject of the Iraq war. Where were the evangelicals in the lead up to the war? Were they questioning the validity or legality of the war? Not to my knowledge. There was the usual stuff about Augustine's just war theory, but not much else. Most of them, as i see it, signed off on the war, sending Bush a clear 'see ye to it' signal. Bush framed the world in religious terms, depicting it as a war against evil. God blesses America, we're good and Iraq is bad.
So many people, especially in the Muslim world, see Bush's invasion as an attack of the Christian west on the Muslim east. No wonder they hate Christians, because Americans insist on bringing God along on their imperialistic forays.
Most of my evangelical friends do not have an inkling about what is going on in the mideast, nor do they care. Saddam was a dictator, let's take him out, and screw laws or whatever. Their ignorance of the issues, and their lack of concern speaks volumes to people outside of North America. They're too busy working on their personal sins and perfecting their holiness to give a shit about the thousands of innocent Iraqi's that are dying because of their nation's greed.
I think God is a lot more concerned about the innocent in Iraq and other places than all the fat, rich, self-centred evangelicals in North America who have zero concept of social justice. But it all goes to show that we worship God as we know him. And we each know him just a little bit differently than the next guy.
It would be amusing if it wasn't so pathetic. The number of blank looks I have got -- from otherwise intelligent people, including pastors, convinces me that many if not most evangelicals are seriously out to lunch on these issues. And so if much of the world dislikes Christians, well perhaps they must shoulder some of the blame. Perhaps they should stop and try and see themselves as the rest of the world sees them.
I for one am glad that Canada opted out of the latest war. I dislike all the political parties here, but at least Prime Minister Poutine was smart enough to stay out of it, even though some knee-jerk rightwing pols wanted to lead the charge with Bush.
But the evangelicals in both countries are largely the same, from what I can see. Makes me want to go get a healthy dose of Liberation Theology.