It’s hard to believe it’s been less than two weeks since the election. Already all the nasty campaign ads are fading to distant memory and State Secession Petitions have become a national joke.
President Obama’s victory speech, delivered at 2:00 am EST on Wednesday is sure to go down as one of the best speeches in recent memory. And while we can debate to what degree his promises reflect his politics (because please, that hasn’t already been talked to death), I was captivated by the
Before 9/11, Islam was just another weird world religion that the vast majority of American Evangelical Christians didn’t really think about – in the same category as Hinduism and Buddhism. But in the wake of 9/11, we realized that over a billion people in the world are Muslim. And many of the countries most hostile to America are mostly Muslim.
For the last decade, we’ve demonized Muslims. But using Dr. Scott Poole’s methodology, we know that our monsters say more about us than about those we monsterize.
The picture of Monstrous Muslims we have in our collective Evangelical imagination looks roughly like this:
Muslims are hell-bent on conquering the world. They’ve established a beachead in Detroit and are going to kill or convert every person in America to Sharia law. They hate women and freedom. They embody a particularly insidious brand of religious fundamentalism. And this isn’t just fringe Muslims. This violent fundamentalism is woven into the very fabric of the Islamic faith.
As faithful readers know, Matt Mikalatos is one of my favorite authors. And since I’m ripping off his Night of the Living Dead Christian for my current sermon series, I asked him to contribute his take on a particularly scary Christian monster. Check out Matt’s blog, follow him on Twitter and read all his awesome books.
Oh, and be sure to come to Beavercreek Nazarene this Sunday, because Matt is speaking! Now, without further ado, Matt’s Christian monster:
JR has been running a series on his blog about monsters we create in the Christian community, and what that says about us. I volunteered to share about that most feared and repulsive of creatures, THE ATHEIST!
On a dark and stormy night in Christian America, families were happy, marriages were strong, and the economy was a powerhouse as God intended. But, unbeknownst to God’s people, a woman named Madeline Murray O’Hair lurked in the darkness. She hated God and hated Christians because she was…. AN ATHEIST! And she wanted nothing more than to undermine the very fabric of Christian society by outlawing prayer in schools and getting the FCC to removed “Touched By An Angel” from television. As we all know, to outlaw prayer would be the death of Christian America. What would happen next? No ten commandments on courthouse walls? No nativities on government property at Christmas? Christians being executed on the White House lawn?
For some time (even after her tragic death), chain letters and forwarded emails used to warn Christians about the dangers of Ms. O’Hair, the atheist. Today, we have to work ourselves up about the “new atheists”… the new vocal minority who are writing books about how there is not God and that if there is, he is not good. And yes, we occasionally (often?) paint them as monsters.Continue reading