Christian Gives Other Christian Due Criticism, Misses Point

As should be no surprise to anyone, after the Sandy Hook shooting, numerous religious leaders said offensive things in response. Among them were James Dobson and Mike Huckabee, who were then criticized by another Christian, Rev. Susan Russell.

Well, I don't have a radio show. But I have a blog. And I have news for Dr. Dobson: that God isn't irrelevant to me -- He is anathema to me. That God has nothing whatsoever to do with the God of love, justice and compassion who "came down at Christmas" incarnate in the Prince of Peace who became one of us in order to show us how to love one another.<

And if we let Dobson -- or Huckabee or Buchanan or any of the other followers of that hateful, hurtful, homophobic, judgmental God with an anger management problem -- speak for Christianity, then we fail to counter the toxic theology masquerading as the Good News of God in Christ and we fail to stand up, stand up for Jesus.

And we can do better than that. So let's do it. Seriously.

I'm torn here. One one hand, this is a case of a Christian actually advocating for good and criticizing the hateful Christians like Dobson & Huckabee. But on the other, it's Russell who has their religion wrong. Dobson and Huckabee are closer to the god of the Bible than she is.

Even while criticizing their hate, she still enables it by professing to believe in the god of the same book.  I'm all for calling out bigots for their bigotry. But to claim they're the ones misinterpreting the Bible is to be ignorant of what the book says.

This is why I prefer to criticize belief in that book overall, instead of pretending that it has any redeeming value.  Don't just make their god anathema.  Make their book anathema, as that's what they use to justify the hate.  The little good that is in that book can be achieved without the book.  Then, you get to take the good and not stone your children to death for being unruly.

Credit: @HuffPostRelig