I feel like I don't belong anywhere.
I was raised as a conservative Christian. I'm still a conservative Christian. In my religion, we believe that the Bible is literally the word of God. We don't understand every word, and it may seem to contradict itself. but that's part of faith. The problem is with us, not the Bible.
On the other hand, I'm a social liberal. My liberal friends can't understand how I can follow a religion that has so many crazy hate-filled nut jobs. People who have no sympathy for the plight of others, and not enough imagination to realize that, but for the grace of God, they could be the ones without a job or a home.
I'm as mad as hell that the right has co-opted my religion, and that so many Christian leaders have allowed them to do this. They have twisted it into something that follows their fairly narrow version of what's right. And added things that the Bible doesn't actually address.
The neo-cons have convinced many conservative Christians that some parts of the Bible are super-important, and some of their values are more important than following the explicit commands of Jesus.
For instance, in their eyes, divorce is apparently no big deal. Even though the Bible specifically says that remarriage after divorce is adultery, in our society, most people don't worry about it. They don't worry about adultery, period. The great Saint Ronald Reagan was a divorcee who remarried. That neo-con darling, Newt Gingrich, has had three wives, and it is openly acknowledged that he had affairs with his second and third wives while he was married. I'm not judging either of them. I'm just pointing out the irony here.
However, other "sexual sins," as defined by the right-wing, are horrific and intolerable. Last time I checked, there was no commandment against homosexuality, nor did Jesus mention it. The Apostle Paul did, but Paul also said that women weren't supposed to go into the synagogue without a headcovering.
Granted, some parts of the Bible are hard to understand. However, some are plain and obvious. Jesus said some very specific things in the Bible. He wasn't speaking metaphorically when he said we need to feed and clothe the poor, look after the sick, and visit those in prison. He didn't warn against helping people who don't deserve it. He said, if you do these things for the LEAST OF THESE, you are doing them for Me.
It's not our job to judge. It's our job to help our brothers and sisters. Even, or especially, if they're not nice to us. It's our job to love each other. We are inherently unlovable. But because we are loved, we need to love others. Christianity is supposed to be a religion of love. When you listen to Rush Limbaugh, do you ever hear love? Nope. He doesn't have anything to sell but hate and fear. But so many of my fellow Christians just eat that up. I truly don't understand it.
In today's society, to call someone "unChristian" implies that you think they're bad. But being Christian doesn't make you "good." By definition, a Christian is someone who believes that Jesus saved us from hell by His crucifixion. What's important is that we follow the teachings of Jesus.
It's infuriating to see my religion co-opted by the extreme right. I feel like an outsider in my own church. We're being used by these people, for their own ends. My fellow Christians seem to swallow much of their false teachings, and thereby act in ways contrary to our religion. And that makes me mad as hell.