It greatly saddens me to see the degree of religious malevolence in the world today. I am particularly saddened by the Christian variety; Jesus taught us otherwise. I need to go no further than my Facebook page to see a proliferation of it!. The Christian Bible, like most other religious documents teach us to love one another; to take care of each other. So to see those who call themselves Christians spouting off mean spirited and sometimes even hateful words at those who they disagree with either politically or philosophically is very painful for me. It is just as painful as seeing what Al Qaeda has done with the words of the Muslim Koran. Since I am a follower of Jesus Christ I expect Christians to rise above malevolence.

While Facebook is a valuable resource for us to stay connected with each other it also unfortunately provides a forum for words that do nothing but harm human relationships and institutions. I am not talking about those few wackos out there that spend their lives focused on hating others; instead I am talking about my friends, my neighbors, my fellow Christians. I am focusing on the supposedly Christian ones in this post. I daily read the words of Jesus and they tell me to love everyone, even my enemies. It tells me to act in a way that makes others wonder why I have so much joy in my life. When I see other Christians trashing people in the public forum of Facebook and similar sites it puts a bad face on the person of Jesus. When I see other Christians using malicious words towards others I wonder what those in the secular world think of that.  I imagine it is something like  “Oh those Christian hypocrites are going off the deep end again!!” So instead of projecting God’s love on others they are espousing the opposite with their public words.

Maybe they need to spend more time reading their bibles and less time spouting off in public forums. That is especially true for the clergymen I see there. Yes, there are others of different religious beliefs that are doing more than criticizing those outside their faiths but that does not mean that Christians should do likewise.  An eye for an eye is old covenant talk that was replaced with “love your neighbor as yourself”. Let’s never forget that. Trashing others not only puts a bad face on you it also puts a bad face on the Body of Christ.