Shallow Story

I'm back! Damn...I suck at meeting my goal on writing every day.

I read an article earlier today that told the story of a "lesbian, leftist" woman that converted to Christianity. The article had its interesting moments and was certainly catered to a securely Christian audience. There was nothing all that unusual about it. It was just very typical as far as conversion pieces go of leftist people to Christianity.

I suppose what I find disappointing about the characters (real or not) in these pieces is the complete lack of actually challenging Christianity. Take, for example, the woman in the piece that I read. She cites that she's a lesbian, leftist, etc. These things are viewed as being counter to Christianity. She even points out at one time that she attended one of the the Universal Unitarian churches. She throws out names like Hegel, Marx, and Darwin as those these are the names of men to be avoided. It's this that sends a warning flag in my mind and makes me shake my head.

When Darwin or Marx is brought up in any conversation or article regarding Christianity, I feel it ought to be thrown out right away. These are names that are meant to give a nod to the modern Christian views on science and the great enemy to American capitalism. They are straw-man names, it seems, in this community. Meant to inspire fear, loathing, and an unhealthy need to avoid the point of their ideas.

When I was a kid, and deeply religious, I was thankfully never exposed to the seething hatred for evolution. I was, however, exposed to the near fanatical hatred of all things belonging to "socialism," including the word itself.

The woman's story itself is a straw man story. She starts off on the opposite of modern, right-leaning Christians and then tells the story of her journey to their side of things. I find it a bit of an eye-roll that she is lesbian and liberal. It seems that this creature is the new acceptable sinner in today's Christian realm. She seems to imply that she was an atheist too throughout the article. Thankfully, she find Jesus.

The issue that I have with the whole article comes down to this: for a supposedly intelligent and soul-searching person, you didn't seem to wrestle with any of the deeper questions that religion struggles to answer. The woman claims to have read the Bible and seems satisfied with the quite horrific acts of a vengeful, menacing God. She never seeks to find answers to the questions on her homosexuality and never even covers what clearly ends up being a ruined relationship between her and her partner.

This shallow acceptance of the tenets of evangelical Christianity is ultimately what bothers me about the article. Again, I realize it's nothing more than a fluff peace meant to comfort the insulated in the tenets of their faith. Fine. Whatever. I find the character in the story unable and unfortunately incapable of expressing the kind of questions that person of the supposed intellect she possesses would ask. That's what I take issue with.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I shall write again!