Boomer-Town

Remember that christ taught us that God is Love. Find a community that also believes this and avoid communities that seek to use the scripture to divide and spread hate. From my understanding from someone who doesn't live in America...avoid the evangelical movement

Being from New Zealand im a bit late to this convo but I'll throw out my question anyway!

I've been in a situation for the last 18 months where my workplace consists of Christians from a denomination who have very strong political and social views.

In particular, they seem to be heavily scripture based yet freely and openly despise the LGBTQ community, they're racist to a point where they think that certain minority groups are lesser than them, they're misogynistic, very anti-abortion and generally despise any sort of left wing political thinking.

Its been hard for me to be around them as I grew up understanding that Christ is the way, the truth and the light. From my understanding they prioritize the old testament laws of the Bible where God is a judging and vengeful God, rather than focusing on the gospels where Jesus encourages us to have a relationship with a loving God.

It seems to me that the main difference is an understanding that through Jesus, God's character has changed somewhat.

The 'sin' based theology seems to directly contradict Jesus's teaching of a 'love' based theology.

Given this, it sounds hypocritical to claim to be Christian yet ignore or oppose Christ's teaching.

From an outside perspective, how is it that masses of Americans are so convicted in a sin based theology and ignore that God is Love?

I see evangelical movements who push an 'us and them' agenda to further divide humanity. Can these people really be called Christians?

Thank you for your response. Its great to be able to discuss these things in a world that so often refuses to engage in discussion, and also to be able to get insight into the Christian culture/s of America all the way from little NZ.

I appreciate you live in a religiously multicultural society which would have its challenges. Especially recently! However, Jesus also lived in a difficult multicultural society which he directly challenged. Consider Jesus in the temple and his attitude to the Pharasees as well as the telling of the story of the prodigal son...in front of the Pharasees. He couldn't have made it more challenging or insulting to the Pharasees. But its important to note that Jesus was challenging the values in his own culture!

Given this example and seeing the Evangelical movement in America which does NOT look like Christ, shouldn't we as Christians be challenging our brothers and sisters within our own culture?

I think its one thing to understand their point of view, but I believe that Christ would significantly and radically challenge it.

Food for thought