Salon.com > Christianity

America’s Christian hypocrisy

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Here’s a newspaper headline that might induce a disbelieving double take: “Christians ‘More Likely to Be Leftwing’ and Have Liberal Views on Immigration and Equality.” Sounds too hard to believe, right? Well, it’s true -- only not here in America, but in the United Kingdom.

That headline, from London’s Daily Mail, summed up the two-tiered conclusion of a new report from the British think tank Demos, which found that in England 1) “religious people are more active citizens (who) volunteer more, donate more to charity and are more likely to campaign on political issues,” and 2) “religious people are more likely to be politically progressive (people who) put a greater value on equality than the non-religious, are more likely to be welcoming of immigrants as neighbors (and) more likely to put themselves on the left of the political spectrum.”

These findings are important to America for two reasons.

First, they tell us that, contrary to evidence in the United States, the intersection of religion and politics doesn’t have to be fraught with hypocrisy. Britain is a Christian-dominated country, and the Christian Bible is filled with liberal economic sentiment. It makes perfect sense, then, that the more devoutly loyal to that Bible one is, the more progressive one would be on economics.

Reformation of an evangelical

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Not long ago, presidential candidate Rick Santorum complained that he was discriminated against at the University of Pennsylvania because he was more conservative than his professors. I don't know what his situation was. But I found that standing up for my faith was a positive experience -- once I learned how to do it without being a jerk.

When I entered college, I was a bright-eyed evangelical, ready to take on the world for Jesus. Just getting to college was something of a triumph for me. To say I was a mediocre high school student would insult all the other mediocre students out there. I was on my way to dropping out when I had a religious conversion experience. The most important part of that epiphany was a new focus to my life. Once, I was just drifting. Now, I searched for meaning.

The most meaningful thing I could think to do was to tell the rest of the world how good Jesus was for me, and get them to believe as I did. So I went to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, got involved in the campus Christian fellowship group, joined a small group Bible study, and took my first religion class -- Old Testament history.

“October Baby”: The abortion war hits theaters

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 21:15:00 +0000

In most respects, Andrew and Jon Erwin's "October Baby" looks and feels like a typical female coming-of-age story, the kind of low-budget family melodrama made by indie filmmakers who are auditioning for a Hollywood career or cable-TV assignments. It's built around a lovely young actress named Rachel Hendrix, who's got lustrous brown hair and big brown eyes and manages to look impeccably groomed in every scene, including the ones where she's wandering the streets of Mobile, Ala., on her own, or waking up on a hotel-lobby sofa.

If Hendrix is a little plasticky-looking and perfect, in that late-'90s network TV way, I still found her an affecting performer, and got caught up in the life crisis faced by Hannah, the character she plays. This movie wouldn't be very different in execution if Hannah were learning she had terminal cancer, or recovering from sexual abuse, or battling an eating disorder. Or dealing with the fact that she felt "that way" about other girls, for that matter. But "October Baby" is a film made and marketed for the "faith-based" audience of evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics, and it isn't about any of those things.

I fell in love with a megachurch

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:00:00 +0000

The weekend my boyfriend began seeing another woman, I walked into a megachurch for the first time.

My girlfriends and I didn’t go to praise Jesus. We went for fun. (I didn’t know about the boyfriend yet.) My two friends, both 20-something journalists like me, were visiting me in Houston, and we considered Lakewood Church -- the largest house of worship in the country and home to controversial superstar pastor Joel Osteen -- a tourist attraction.

We parked in a crowded underground garage and followed a trail of people into a stadium built for the city’s basketball team. I’d rarely set foot in a church since growing up catholic in upstate New York, and yet I knew this religious gathering would be nothing like the one I’d attended at home. Everybody in Houston knew about Lakewood. You either went there every weekend -- or rolled your eyes at people who did.

An usher guided us to seats up in the stadium’s second tier, practically the nosebleed section. Loud, upbeat music throbbed through the stadium. A woman not far from us clapped to the beat, tears streaming down her face. I stared at her like a child who’d seen the Amish for the first time. Was she really that moved by this song? I wondered whether her sister was sick with cancer or her husband had lost his job. Or maybe she simply felt alone.

The joy of judgmental Christian sex

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 01:30:00 +0000

Pastor Ed Young and his wife, Lisa, climbed to the rooftop of their Texas church last week and staged a 24-hour bed-in. Their aim was to encourage other married couples to undertake seven straight days of sex, all in the name of the Lord -- and to promote their new book.

There was no nudity, and certainly no nookie, during the webcast stunt, but it nonetheless got the pair on CNN and earned invaluable advertising for "Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy With Your Spouse." It's the second Christian "sex advice" book to be lavished with attention this month for allegedly being edgy and oh so sexy. "Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together," written by pastor Mark Driscoll of Seattle's Mars Hill Church and wife Grace Driscoll, similarly sings the praises of sex as a form of communion with God.

But having actually read these books, I can tell you they are not the wild sex manuals the media frenzy suggests -- in fact, they are treatises against homosexuality, pornography and premarital sex. None of this is exactly surprising, but amid the sexy buzz surrounding these books, it's important to underscore just how sexually stunted they are.

Christmas fading in the Holy Land

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0000

JERUSALEM -- In the land that put Christ in Christmas, Christianity is shrinking.

Less than a century ago, Christians comprised nearly 10 percent of the population of Palestine (now Israel and the Palestinian territories). In 1946, the figure was around 8 percent. Today, Christians make up about 4 percent of the West Bank’s population, although there are still a few Christian-majority villages, such as Taybeh, whose skyline is dominated by church spires and whose businessmen produce the only Palestinian beer. In Israel, though Christians make up 10 percent of its Palestinian population, they only constitute 2.5 percent of the total population. In Gaza, the Christian minority is even smaller, representing just 1 percent of the population.

One major factor in the decline of Christianity here: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Arab-Israeli war of 1948 caused hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee or be driven out of their homes, most never to return – and each subsequent war has led to more Palestinians leaving. Today, though Palestinians are often materially better off than other Arabs, restrictions on movement, lack of economic opportunity, unemployment and the constant indignity of living under occupation prompt many to seek out new homes. Palestinian Christians, relatively better educated that Palestinian Muslims and sharing a common religion with the West, have generally been better placed to leave the region.

Limbaugh rejects teachings of Jesus

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 14:00:00 +0000

America’s most popular talk show host has spoken the word "Jesus" approximately 2,420 times during his last 20 years on the air. He has mentioned "Christ" 2,130 times and the "Messiah" 4,038 times, according to one blogger with a whole lot of time on his hands. The purpose of his exhaustive research was to dispel doubts about Limbaugh’s Christian credentials, which have been under fire lately by certain evangelicals who cite the fact that Rush -- according to his own brother, David -- was never “born again.”

This is a hot topic for fundamentalists. “Is Rush a real Christian?” is the most frequently Googled question about the controversial radio personality.

So I decided to do a little research of my own, which I hoped might shed some light on the impending holiday season. Do Rush Limbaugh and the Prince of Peace really see eye to eye? Often the answer is no.