Good afternoon, this is my first article of a new series that I will be writing. In a lot of my past articles I've mainly focused on politics, the food system, and a mixture of foreign and domestic affairs. I will still be writing those as I continue my new series - Stepping Into Christianity.
In this new series I will be discussing an assortment of different topics, but my main focus, obviously, is Christianity. Before I get started on this particular article, I'd like to tell you a little about my faith with my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and a little about my upbringing as well - just to let you know where I'm coming from.
I was saved at a young age not really knowing or understanding what I had just done. I remember sitting at my kitchen table with my mom, she was explaining to me about Jesus and how He died for me. At the time, I didn't fully understand what she was talking about - perhaps I was too young to comprehend it, but I listened intently nonetheless. But it wasn't until high school where I officially accepted Him as my Lord and Savior.
Throughout elementary, I kind of just followed the crowd, thinking I was a Christian. When I reached junior high, there were a lot more temptations that I had to deal with. During this period of my life is when I realized what Christianity truly was and I accepted Jesus as my Savior. After doing so, I felt like a great burden was lifted and I was a much happier person. I know that sounds cliche, but it's true.
High School was a difficult time in my life, I was bullied for a part of it and it was definitely a tough period of my life, but I was so thankful to have Christ watching over me all the way through it. Knowing He was there protecting me and looking out for me, made my life a lot easier. Obviously, I still had rough patches here and there like every other teenager, but I knew I'd get through it because I remembered Philippians 4:13 ~ "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."
I grew up in a Christian home and attended a Non-denominational church my entire life. I also attended a Baptist school my entire life as well. It was a private school, so it was relatively smaller than most other schools. Actually, my graduating class only had eight students, so that should give you a pretty clear picture of just how small my school was.
My school was considered to be an Independent Fundamental Baptist school which like most IFB schools, it had some pretty strict rules much like the many other IFB schools and colleges. I'm not going to go much into this topic today, but I will dig deeper into it in later articles.
In this article, I'd like to focus on how the media portrays us Christians. In an earlier article that I wrote, I mentioned a little bit about this subject. If you'd like to read that article, it is titled: America IS A Christian Nation.
Have you ever noticed on a TV show or a movie that the religious characters are ALWAYS portrayed as the crazy, hypocrite ones? I can honestly think of almost every single show that I have ever watched and recall an episode describing this exactly. Let me give you a few examples.
The Glades: In an episode of this show, the main character, Jim, inspects the death of a man in a church. The body is found in the pulpit - which happens to be a glass chest full of venomous snakes. The pastor of the church believes that if you are bitten by the snakes and you live - you are protected by the Holy Spirit. If you are bitten and you die, well then I guess you weren't. The catch here, however, is that all the snakes have had the venom extracted from them - making their bite harmless. And making the pastor a complete scam.
Now obviously that plot is ridiculous. And practically every Christian knows that theory is ludicrous. Although I'm sure there is someone out there who probably believes in that sort of thing... clearly that person is lost. But things like the plot of this episode make non-believers believe that Christians are crazy like this and obviously we are not.
Another example, Supernatural: There's an episode where Sam and Dean attend a church service in order for Dean to get healed by a "miracle pastor". After the pastor heals Dean, they discover that in order for them to heal, a reaper must take the life of another person. This other person the reaper kills is someone who has committed a great sin, according to the pastor's wife. She chooses the person for the reaper to target and when the reaper takes the life of that person, the pastor is able to heal the sick person with the life they had just taken. The pastor believes he has the power to heal and doesn't know the truth. The pastor's wife, however, believes she is doing God's will by punishing or in this case killing the wicked in order to heal the good. They list the reasons for the deaths of the chosen victims - one was a homosexual, one person was a drug user, and the list goes on.
So in this episode along with dozens of other shows, news channels, and movies tells non-believers that Christians hate homosexuals and think they should be killed. Except this is not how we feel at all. God specifically tells us to love your neighbor as yourself. We may not support or condone homosexuality, but we would never wish death on them or anyone who commits any sin.
The last TV example I'd like to share is from The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon's mother is a Southern Baptist - very strong in her faith. I respected the show because they made her a strong Christian mother. Her husband died a long time ago, but she remained strong in her faith. I was very pleased with how they displayed her character until in a later season when Sheldon witnesses his mother fornicating with a strange man. When Sheldon approaches her and calls her a hypocrite, I can't help but to agree with him... but why did they have to do this to her character? They made her into a hypocrite. Again causing all non-believers into believing that all Christians are just hypocrites.
I know that no one is perfect and that we all make mistakes. And everyone - even Christians fall to temptation, but why was it necessary to make the one and only Christian character on the show be the one to fall into temptation and give yet another reason for non-believers to not want to become a Christian.
I can give tons of more examples where Christians are mistreated in television, but I think you understand my point.
Another way the media mocks Christians, besides through TV shows and movies, is through Westboro Baptist Church. Westboro practically feeds the media lies about Christianity. What they do and say does NOT describe how Christians act and live nor do we believe in what they believe.
Westboro is the radical end of the Christianity spectrum. I honestly cannot even place them on the spectrum, their actions and methods are completely insane. They are not so much a church, but a radical protest group. Because of their actions, everyone including the media doesn't hesitate to mock and bash them and all Christians for that matter. Which in turn everyone sees this on the news and just figures if Westboro is like this then all Christians must be the same then.
A few examples of how Westboro has portrayed Christianity on the world: Protesting at military funerals - where the fallen soldier was a homosexual. And to make things even worse, the people of the church hold up signs that read: "God Hates Gays".
Okay, first off, causing a disruption at any funeral is very disrespectful - especially at a military one. Yeah, maybe we don't condone homosexuality, but that doesn't give anyone the right to protest at a military funeral where the person fought and died for this country. If you're in the military, no matter who you are, you've earned my respect. And if you die while fighting for this country, you deserve a so much more.
Second, God does NOT hate gays. He doesn't hate anyone. Homosexuality is a sin and He hates the sin, but He doesn't hate the sinner.
Westboro also protests at different concerts. They protested at a Lorde concert and at a Panic At The Disco one most recently. Both bands mocked them because of their protests, but Panic At The Disco really hit them hard. The band said that for every member of Westboro Baptist Church that shows up, we will donate $20 to the Human Right's Campaign. Although only 11 protesters showed up, the band still donated over $1000 anyway.
If you don't like someone's music, that's fine. Everyone has their own tastes. And yes, perhaps some music is vulgar. Obviously, I don't like music that is, but you can't protest at a concert and think that people will listen to you. It doesn't work that way. And with what Panic At The Disco did, they completely mocked them by donating money to a charity that Westboro probably hates... so what good did the protest do? None.
Westboro is making a mockery of Christianity and because of their stupidity, the media has taken advantage of the opportunity that so easily given to them and has used it to bash Christians all over the world.
If Westboro's mission is to witness to the world, they are going about it in the wrong way and that is an understatement. Not only are they going about it the wrong way, but they are making things a lot more difficult for the rest of the Christians in the world.
Unfortunately, there is not an easy way to stop the media from bashing us. Since that is what they do, that is what they have always done, and will continue to do. But we as Christians have to do our part in telling the world the truth about Christ and not the lies that the media conjurers up.
Thank you for reading my article! Please share, like, and comment below!
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