Ten Things I Hate About You: My Problems With Christianity

An Introduction

I know I'm different. I knew it from an early age. Even in Toronto, a city where being different was something you took for granted, I knew my level of difference was something very much unlike that of others. Perhaps it was my stuttering problem. Maybe it was my looks, my attitudes, or the my outlook on life.

My faith experience has been no different - from a very early age I realized that the way I approached Christianity wasn't like other people my age at all, and it was both a blessing and a curse I've had to take with me for all of my life.

Nevertheless, I've found myself passionately ardent about my spiritual beliefs, regardless of how far they fall out of the mainstream. Which has led me to this point - a series of ten blog posts where I will try to identify the systematic points in which I will state that the Christian Church has not only failed those who it was supposed to serve, but has also failed its original mandate - to truly serve God. In doing so, I want to argue for a more humane Christianity, one which takes emphasis away from serving one's self, and places emphasis on unconditional service to others...one which, ostensibly, removes hate and arrogance out of Christianity, and fills in its place an atmosphere of acceptance, respect, and above all, humility. I talk of failure in the sense that it is we, as the people of the Church who have failed.

My inspiration comes from Charles Kimball's excellent book, When Religion Becomes Evil: Five Warning Signs, a book I read when I was in 2nd year. It was an impulse buy at the U of T Bookstore (albeit a very expensive one, since at the time it had just come out in hardcover), and while much of what it said was stuff I'd already understood and realized, Kimball excellently and clearly codified a set of five key points that he identified as highly problematic not just with Christianity, but with religion as a whole, including Islam:

1. Absolute truth claims
2. Blind obedience
3. Establishing the "ideal" time
4. The end justifies any means
5. Declaring holy war

My ten points will clearly overlap with these, but I want to be a little more precise about what I want to discuss; specifically I want to identify behaviors, attitudes and mindsets that I have come across in my spiritual journey.

I've wanted to do this for a long time, and I've decided to do it because as a Christian living in this world, I see so many things that we're doing wrong that we could easily correct if we only has the wherewithal to do so. And I don't think these changes are highly fundamental - if anything they are changes that lie within the hearts and minds of believers themselves; no mass conversion to leftist socialism, or even "liberal" socio-political beliefs (i.e. pro-LGTBQ/women's rights) need occur.

The cost of our mistakes? The goodwill that we should be fostering with other cultures and nationalities; the support and presence of people like myself, who constantly see in other Christians a reason to not participate in Christianity, or even believe in it altogether, and, above all, the health and safety of innocent lives.

We can't afford to keep on making the same mistakes we've been making for so long. We need to make a change - the only questions are when, and how.