I saw this bumper sticker on a car parked in the parking lot of the YMCA.
Christian-Bashing is the Last Accepted Form of Hatred in America.
America is diverse enough to accept a good many more forms of hatred than just Christian-bashing. We also bash gays. Muslims. People who still sport mullets. The list goes on.
If you really wanted to use your space to perpetuate Christian principle, why not a simple Love Thy Neighbor or the more succinct, shorthanded WWJD? Some people profess a Christian faith because it allows them to relish one of life’s joys: crying that you’re being picked on, even when they really aren’t. It’s like being at one of those Halloween haunted houses where you pay a few bucks and people jump out at you. You’re scared, but not really.
That bumper sticker was about those who accept faith because it can double as a bullseye on their back. Some people embrace persecution as a way to define themselves. I was a graduate student at Wright State University, a suburban Dayton commuter school. One night, as I walked to my car from the library, a disgruntled, pierced and mohawked teenaged boy in head-to-toe leather swaggered by. The students, largely white bread commuters saw the kid but didn’t blink, let alone give him a second look.
Finally, the punk found someone who met eyes with him. He seized the moment and screeched, “That‘s right -- I‘m wearing BLACK! Got a problem with that?!!” He seethed. He snorted. He couldn’t have been happier. Or emptier.
I knew a guy who said at a job interview, “I’m a Christian. Will that hurt my chances at getting this job?” The answer was no, of course. He even got the job. He said he was thrilled. But I wonder how much more titillating it would have been if the interviewer said “yes, it does hurt your chances.” That could have been the applicant's very own, (much less painful) nails in his hands.
So faith is two things:
A true guidepost to lead us through a way of life in which we behave in a benevolent fashion to our brothers and sisters.
Or, it can fill our dull and listless moments with a sense of mystical melodrama. It can serve the purpose of feeding modern man’s need for pop culture plot twists, provide membership to a divine speakeasy where only those who know the secret password (“are you saved?”) can enter.
Finding a way to become a victim is a great way to change the subject to something else. I hear it from my six-year-old kid every time I tell her to finish what’s on her plate. She gives me that Adrian Brody in "The Pianist" look and says, “You’re picking on me and now I’m getting a migraine!” she cries, forcing me to sigh and dig in deep at the Maginot Line near the constant no man’s land between a steadfast parent and a headstrong child, a tiresome nerve-wracking battle when all I want her to do is eat that last chicken nugget.
I hear it from my ten-year-old when I tell her “no” to buying Tiger Beat magazine at the grocery store. “I’ll be the only one of my friends who doesn’t know who Hilary Duff is dating!” she cries in a tone that, if overheard by someone who knows no English, could be interpreted as if I just bartered her off to marry a smelly old widower in exchange for some rare Dizzy Gillespie albums.
That “Christian bashing” bumper sticker finally made me laugh. What probably happened is that the stick-in-the-mud who put it on the car bumper probably misinterprets the world, who if it could collectively speak would respond, “We’re not bashing you because you’re a Christian, it just feels that way because you’re a self-absorbed dork!" And probably a real Christian is driving the car behind you, but no one can really tell, because the bumper sticker on her car says Meals On Wheels.”
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