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This message is not for the Sunday morning networker. Neither is it meant to reach those who attend church out of tradition or because of how it looks. It’s not even meant for the ambitious Bishop Longs of Christianity that seem to have taken over God’s pulpits. If you’re not in this faith race merely for its earthly benefits then we have a mutual friend. Or rather, we had a mutual friend. God has him now.
Last Sunday, while most Christians were ‘loving’ a God that they can’t see, little fourteen-year-old, Jamey Rodemeyer (1) - who we can see - took his own life because he could no longer take being bullied for being gay. Personally, I blame Christian pulpits, shepherds who continue sowing corrupted seeds of injustice and unfairness and also those who in silence allow the madness to persist.
Bullying has been around ever since Adam, like Humpty Dumpty, who had his great fall. He fell from grace down to carnality after being bullied by Satan, the chief of all dark influence. Kane, Adam’s first born, bullied Abel, his brother to death. He murdered his brother after becoming jealous after God favored his younger brother’s gift over his. Joseph’s brothers bullied the gifted seer down a deep well where they left him for dead. Egypt’s Pharaoh bullied Israel until making 400-year-old slaves of them. The first king over Israel, King Saul, bullied his young successor, David. From a jealous rage, Saul chased the gifted psalmist all over the ancient Jerusalem countryside. In recent history, Whites bullied Blacks for over 400 years. And all my life zealous Christian pulpits have bullied same-gender attracted people because of how we were born. Humanity: the same yesterday, today and forever, unfortunately.
When the prostitute in the Gospels was caught in the act of adultery, Christ intervened and commanded, “He who is without sin among you, let him first cast a first stone at her.(2)” Pulpits way back then had the good sense to realize that they were not sinless and then dropped their rocks. Something’s detrimentally unsettling about today’s shepherds, who wield swords of judgment like seasoned ninjas, while they, themselves, are equally sinful. Everyone sins. If you have the audacity to preach that you don’t sin then you’re only deceiving yourself, according to the first chapter of 1st John (3).
God has long ago abandoned even the highly influential religious institution that aligns believers with questionable politicians to try and amend national constitutions in order to prevent gay people from ever marrying; while not also galvanizing just as valiant an effort aimed at legally preventing divorced couples from ever remarrying anyone else. This level of institutionalized, hypocritical bullying represents the lowest, most devastating, and most heinous form imaginable. It deprives its victims of our inalienable right to justice, fairness and human equality.
The following hints will help shepherds realize that they are indeed bullies if they still don’t get it:
- You’re a bullying shepherd if you don’t practice what you preach as vehemently as you preach it.
- You’re a bullying shepherd if you picket the funerals of fallen soldiers.
- You’re a bullying shepherd if your congregation doesn’t believe that being divorced is equally as sinful as being gay, and that both deserve God’s undeserved grace.
- You’re a bullying, hypocritical shepherd if you invite gifted, but divorced preachers into your pulpit but not the gifted but gay preacher.
- You’re a bullying shepherd if you take social and/or sexual advantage of any male or female sheep, and especially any innocent little lambs of God, like young Jamey.
- You’re a bullying shepherd if you don’t extend the same level of grace, forgiveness, love and acceptance to all others that God extends toward you.
This fourteen-year-old kid has joined the growing ranks of fallen kids like him, who never began to truly live because of the many inequities that permeate God’s pulpits. It’s time for the church to wake up from its delusional stupor of religious grandeur. Following Christ isn’t about trying to get pews not to sin. It’s about both pulpits and pews learning to love one another and others like they, themselves, have been loved by God. Love is how the world will know you as Christian, not being sinless.
Thank you for momentarily lending me your eyes. Now is the appointed time to lend us your hearts.
Article Footnotes:
(1) - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/jamey-rodemeyer-bullied-teen-who-made-it-gets-better-video-commits-suicide/2011/09/21/gIQAVVzxkK_blog.html
(2) - John 8:7
(3) - 1 John 1:8
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