Ten Things I Hate About You: #1 - Hatred Among Churches

One of the interesting little quirks about human nature is our unerring tendency to form communities. These communities are highly important to us as human beings, on a whole variety of levels. Communities are arguably a defining characteristic of who we are as human beings, and are symbols of how people can transcend their own selfish desires to serve a common, greater good, which only serves to improve the lives of its constituents.

Sadly however, it's fairly self-evident that such communities can have a darker side as well.

Blunt Force Trauma
There are many voices in a community and when they speak with one unified accord, it can be a powerful force, but I've found in my experience that such forces are extremely blunt. Subtle yet important details can be drowned out among the deafening cries of the crowd, and such details are more often than not details of vital importance. When the subtleties of a highly nuanced collection of ideas such as religion meet the unstoppable juggernaut of a community united, wonderful things can indeed happen; but sadly, more often than not, horrible things are done.

Tomato, Tomahto
Which leads me to the ultimate subject of this post: hatred among churches. As a Catholic, I've seen this first hand, on both sides of the equation. Along with my friends, I joked and piled on insults at the expense of Mormons, and at the same time, I still bear the scars inflicted on me years and years ago of a vengeful list-serv which saw fit to treat me as being little better than spiritual gutter trash simply by virtue of the fact that I was Catholic in background.

It's been a while since I've really been exposed first hand to this, until a few months ago when, on two separate occasions, I witnessed two of my friends non-chalantly getting their kicks from spitting on the Christian Exclusionary Targets du Jour: the United Church of Canada. One of whom uttered a light-hearted joke which bore some exceedingly darker undertones; the other was more overt, getting on his bully pulpit and thundering at them.

It'd serve to only show my hypocrisy even more if I thundered at them for their remarks. After all, they're only human and I can't expect them to be any more tolerant and accepting than me if I'm just as guilty as they are. But it's not they as people that I want to point out as flawed - it's a mindset that is especially rampant among us as Christians. It is one that I feel, is acutely problematic among us Christians: Othering.

Othering is a way of defining and securing one’s own positive identity through the stigmatization of an "other." Whatever the markers of social differentiation that shape the meaning of "us" and "them," whether they are racial, geographic, ethnic, economic or ideological, there is always the danger that they will become the basis for a self-affirmation that depends upon the denigration of the other group.

And so, Protestants "Other" Catholics (and vice-versa, naturally). Protestants "Other" Protestants - just look at how Christians constantly battle with each other over things like the environment, the position and role of science, politics, secular society, LGTBQ rights, all with invectives that are incredibly powerful. Only the "true believers" that will surely get into Heaven are limited to a direct and narrow view of scripture and divinity - all others are doomed to eternal damnation. This is a mindset which of course, is a plague on Christians who fall on both the ideological Left and Right.

It's one thing to encounter hate and bigotry from non-Christians; that I understand. But it's another thing entirely when you encounter hate and bigotry from other Christians - people who should be your spiritual brothers and sisters, that are instead all too eager to hurl their epithets at you like so many spears and arrows.

This is stupid. In fact, it's not only bloody stupid, it's damned immature. It smacks of little five year olds at the playground arguing over a ball, or who called who a "poo-poo head" first. The only difference is that these five year olds argue over scripture in churches; sometimes the five year olds wear fancy robes. In fact, the true five year olds are even better in some circumstances: at least you know they genuinely hate you and want to beat you up after school. Adults on the other hand, love to lie and be two-faced, and while they're smiling at you with one face, they're quickly spreading gossip and slander among your friends with the other.

And the funniest thing about it is that all the while, while the people within the group are busy Othering people, they talk about making a positive change in the world. Mission trips are promoted, ministering initiatives are talked about and advertised. The obvious objective is to bring Christ to others, the implicit message being that the outside world is dirty, and that it is up to us to clean it. Of course, we forget that we have much work to do ourselves to heal our divisions and conflicts.

If Christians are to make a truly meaningful difference in this world, we need to first recognize that we have a problem: we are locked into our own readings of scripture and holy writ, and it is up to us to reconcile and understand our differences. One Church's view of Christ does not make it any less Christian than another's, and who gets to decide whose view of scripture and divinity is the sole One True View anyway? The immediate answer of course is "that the Bible tells us!" but the issue with the Bible is that it is so nuanced in its subtleties that a whole variety of interpretations of a whole variety of verses and passages can be argued and defended. Does this mean that Christianity is reduced to what some feel is a post-modernist nightmare of subjective relativism? No, in fact, it doesn't even have to be that you have to accept the opinions of others. In fact, the only demand is that we recognize the diversity of ideas and viewpoints that exist among us, and that all of them have something meaningful to bring to the table.

And it's realizing that which is often the hardest part. Then again, no one ever said the road to spiritual maturity was ever easy. We can stay in our comfortable form of insular spiritual stasis, ready to brandish the knives at anyone who doesn't think or act or believe like we do. Or, we can open the door to hurtful, painful change which has the real potential to further move us forward as Christians. As long as we choose our stasis, we will be locked into a state of pitiful jealousy spending more time inflating our own egos and bashing other people, than actually doing something meaningful for those around us.