Group of evangelicals on the corner earlier and I notice something kind of odd. Why do they always weaponize Jesus? Any Christians want to weigh in?
They never talk about love or brotherhood or forgiveness. They only scream about Hell and damnation and their signs only list what Jesus hates, not what Jesus loves.
Why is that? It comes across as a "I beat you because I love you" vibe from an abusive boyfriend.
@Emanon Hi, the groups you see on the street usually belong to the more zealous churches or sects. I posted about some of them in an earlier thread. For many of them, the idea is to scare people into saying the sinner's prayer. Sometimes though, they do what they tend to call "loving on someone" to lead them to Christ.
@Emanon The weird part to me is that the only time Jesus shows any anger in the Bible is when he chases money-changers out of the temple, but I never hear them preaching about that when they spew hate 🤷
@karashta Yeah ... and even then, he doesn't hate the people. He just hates what happened to the building. He still loved the people.
@Emanon Yeah. It seemed to be more because they were defiling the temple with usury rather than hating the people themselves. I just can't really understand how following a being of such obvious love and compassion somehow leads people to such hate
@karashta It is strange to me. I see Jesus as pure love. Even if Jesus never existed, the fact that humans have to capacity to create him gives me hope for humanity.
To weaponize him ... I just want to cry.
@Emanon Agreed. I have anger in my heart at times like any imperfect person, but to be full of such hate? I really can't understand it. It's so foreign to me
@karashta I see it so much in the difference between Qur'an and the Bible when it comes to God. Qur'an has a loving, merciful, forgiving God while the Bible seems to have a lot of anger with God, balanced by Jesus's love. Good cop/bad cop kind of thing.
Strange narrative.
@Emanon I visited a church of that type once, and the preacher was saying that Jesus wasn't some loving hippie. He was more like Rambo. So strange. I couldn't make a quick exit either because a stranger shoved her baby in my arms and wandered off.
@Kate_Brannum Ok that's REALLY strange. 😅
@Kate_Brannum It's such an odd practice. Feels very foreign and weird to me.