Why I’ve Stopped Being Mad at Christians

           I spent my formidable early teenage years (the 2000s) clung to the end of a pew (or painfully butt numbing fold out metal chair.) My voice rang in with the choir of the praises of the Christian God and his side-kick and my main squeeze: Jesus.  Only listening to the tunes of my people (Christian Rock) and making sure every private inch of my changing body was covered, I appeased the people so much they began to make a pedestal in my honor.  No smoking, drugs, sex, or Satan’s rock and roll (even Myspace for a brief period before the Youth group itself made one the week after they preached on it’s inherit evil). However, residing in the tide of “Jesus is my homeboy” truth was a lot of hypocritical oaths. 

                At the end of my teens I began to delve into the idea of what religion meant to me outside of what was said under a steeple. I read countless books and articles on the subject while listening to the pop punk music strings that became anthems to my angst riddled teenage emo soul (this was 2007, after all).  In the short version of this almost two year long story, my expedition into knowledge and music caused for some very foul treatment on the end of well-meaning and ignorantly concerned brothers and sisters of Christ. I didn’t feel like Jesus would be home-boys with the masses who lied and gossiped about me, so I waved goodbye and said hello to Rock and Roll mixed Atheism.

                To brace myself from the pain of rejection associated with the Christian church, I placed a chip on my shoulder so rigid no kind soul could penetrate. Anything political immediately morphed into a Christian vs. Humanist revolt and I acclimated myself to be a stone in the arc, speaking only on the hatred side of the religious. Christians were mean, foaming at the mouth, condemning six eyed monsters who only used the Bible to hide from their own failures.

                At the mountain top of my twenties, the anger in me subsided and I began to re-examine Christians from a purely cultural and unbiased standpoint. I watched the fumes fester at the Gay Rights Activism, and though there were heretical zealots, there were also Christians on both ends who had kind hearts and open minds. I saw most people who made Jesus their homeboy actually stand in love.being less than charitable.         Though we find penny pinching Churches, there are an equal amount of churches giving to the hungry on the streets. Mega-Churches might have the problem of a society bent on the idea of persuasion by glitz and glamour, yet I see those beyond the steeples. Those with crosses on their necklace aren’t the only ones who need to be fighting homelessness.

                We’ve made a poster child out of Judas and marked all of religious society out as mutineers for humanity. That’s not the case. People give within their own heart, and some may or may not have a Bible attached.

                   Bigots exist within all facets of secular and religious scopes. Yes, Christianity has stole the monopoly on usurping other religions and morphing from cultural denial to cultural acceptance in it's own survival instinct. Yet, the prevalence of it's very existence in a rapidly liberal and constantly revolutionizing society such as America proves it's ability to change, and eventually become synced with the present age.
                    
                   I'm not changing a person's mind on belief, nor are they changing mine. I know I can walk in and out of a church congregation without being set ablaze, and engage with people who may hold an antiquated set of doctrine, but live and see in current times.  I've seen the church of my youth evolve from a place that shunned me, into one that may see a different side of grass, but still gleams with the green of good from the roots to sunshine. I hope they continue to grow. I hope I do, too.

  

                The world is crazy. People are crazy. Every side of humanity has it’s own egotistical viewpoint. However, that’s how we preserve ourselves in this spinning tide of the good, bad, and ugly. I’ve seen the worst in humanity, but there’s a beauty in people who love; no matter from what religious standpoint. I can’t be mad at humans, and I can’t be mad at those humans who are Christians either.