The Baby in the bathwater?




A Christian minister asked a Christian president, who was elected by Christians for Christian reasons, to behave in accordance with Christian principles. And yet, the majority of the country's Christians are mad about it.


And despite that, the rest of the nation's Christians continue to insist that there's a "real" Christianity that somehow the majority of Christians are failing to practice despite the fact that those Christians make their whole personality about how Christian they are. The decent humans that still adhere to Christianity - who are very much the minority of Christians - continue to believe that Christianity has an actual moral core and a message that can make its adherents behave in a more moral way. They continue to tell me that there's a baby I've thrown out with the bathwater by rejecting Christianity in its entirety. 

And I get it. I used to think the same, for decades. I would "no true Scotsman" every Christian who behaved immorally and supported immoral people and policies, in the desperate hope that if I searched the bathwater long enough I could find the Baby, and separate him from the filth of his worst followers. 

And don't get me wrong, what Bishop Mariann Budde said and did was exactly the right thing to say and do. She did what I'd always imagined Jesus to do: Speaking truth to power, even if it meant the risk of getting crucified by the self-styled guardians of law and order and religious orthodoxy.

But the painful truth is this: 

"Real" Christianity isn't the best intentions of its best adherents. "Real" Christianity is the impact that Christianity has on the world.

Christianity isn't what the minority of Christians say. 

Christianity is what the majority of Christians DO.

And what the majority of Christians DO is terrible, immoral, and inhumane.

It's all bathwater, and I just wish I'd thrown it away much sooner instead of wasting half a lifetime sitting in it.

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