I was at Youth Group on Friday night, and before the activities started there was a sermon that went for about an hour, not a big deal right? Well, the moment Ben, the youth leader stepped up to the microphone and started talking about shame. That’s when it started becoming an issue.
Basically the whole point of that sermon was to tell us that we shouldn’t be afraid to say we’re Christian’s, that we should spread the gospel to our friends and family no matter the cost. If you don’t see an issue with this, then you may just be inept.
Christians have the freedom to say they’re Christian, this shouldn’t be new information. I understand the meaning of Ben’s message, how we “shouldn’t be afraid to spread the gospel.” But it was just about the way it was said, it implied that Christians were oppressed, that some of them hide their religion just so they aren’t harassed.
Which might just be the most untrue thing I’ve ever heard, sure, you might be a bit nervous to bring up religion in a conversation, because as everyone is aware. Religion can be a touchy subject. But, Christians don’t have to fear being discriminated against because of their religion.
The whole "shame" narrative was actually so ridiculous I almost laughed. Christianity is one of the most practiced religions in the world, yet they were acting like they were oppressed? If anything it's the complete opposite.
Christian's are usually the ones doing the oppressing, we've seen it happen all throughout history, for example, the Christian's destruction of the Pagan religion, their art, their literature, and just a lot of their general history, how they destroyed their temples. For example, they destroyed The Temple Of Apollon located in Delphi in 390 CE and the Sarapan of Alexandria in 391 CE. They also maintained some of the temples, only to turn them into Christian Churches which I feel is worse than destroying them. They took a temple of the Goddess Athena in the 6th century and converted it into a Christian Church dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Also, there are the Crusades on Muslim communities that led to mass genocides. We’ve all been taught that the reason these Crusades started was because the Muslims took over the Christians land. Which may very well be true, but that does not at all justify the unnecessary acts of violence these Crusaders committed against the Muslim people.
This is very much still an issue now, as I'm sure you all know. But it actually made my blood boil, the way they were talking about it, if no context was provided you would think they were talking about coming out as homosexual or something, the way they were phrasing it was so weird, like being Christian is such a big secret you might hide from your friends or family.
Christian's have been oppressed at some point, I definitely won't deny that fact.
But once Christianity was legalised, and they went around the world "spreading the gospel," also known as,
‘forcing your religion on people who already have their own beliefs and traditions,’
That's when Christians became the oppressors. The amount of lives, and history that was lost because of them still makes me very upset, due to the fact that history is one of my favourite past-times.
And of course I don't hate the Christian's of the present because of stuff that happened 100s of years ago, that'd just be illogical.
But the people I do dislike are the people who don't do their research and refuse to acknowledge what happened in the past, all to push the narrative that Christian's are always right in their actions, as long as they're "spreading the gospel."