Tag: mass shooting

Conservative Christian, Stop Sending Your Thoughts And Prayers

You want to know why so much of modern conservative Christianity makes people want to vomit?

You want to know why so many people believe that conservative Christianity is largely a religion of the self-righteous and privileged?

You want to know why God surely cringes with a divine face palm nearly every time conservative Christians flap their gums?

Why? Because, at times, we stay stupid ignorant stuff—especially when what is needed most is either our complete silence or the taking of swift meaningful action.

We are so biased, pretentious, greedy, and dripping with double standards that we have become nose-blind to our own religious stench. It’s as if Jesus is so far removed from our faith that we can’t even summon a smidgen of His likeness when it counts.

Tragically, just days ago, 26 beautiful humans were brutally murdered while gathering for worship and prayer in their church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Once again, a semiautomatic rifle was used to accomplish mass murder as they had been before in Orlando, Aurora, Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, and San Bernardino—starting to see a pattern?

In fact, it was an Evangelically elected President Trump who in February signed a bill into law in order to roll back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase a gun—all to the praise and high-fives of many conservative gun-loving Christians. All of this, while a blatant bloody stockpile of evidence is ever-growing in its clear declaration that we have a monumental gun problem in America, largely at the feet of conservative Christians who worship their firearms far more than the Jesus of their faith.

In fact, in response to this most recent hellacious mass murder of a gathering of good people praying, seeking, and desiring the favor and blessings of God, the callous reaction of many conservative Christians to this tragedy was to send their “thoughts and prayers,” quickly deflect the issues of gun violence, and tell the American people that we should be more prepared and vigilant as potential victims of shootings—which I am sure would have made all the difference for 5-year-old Brooke Ward who was murdered within a matter of seconds upon the entrance of Devin Kelley into her sanctuary with trigger pulled.

Are you kidding me? Thoughts and Prayers? What the hell do you think these people were doing in that church?

Tell me this isn’t the sum of your faith. Tell me these aren’t your best ideas as to how to manifest the heart and will of a nonviolent Jesus in the midst of a growing list of countless murderous tragedies empowered by a lust for guns, privilege, and the insisting upon of your rights, even to the present and future deaths of countless lives.

Truly and obviously, with hollow sentiments like that, it appears your prayers have become a spiritual veil to an empty faith devoid of a love that leads to action.

No wonder why so many clear-thinking Jesus-loving people are crying, “Bullshit!”

If you can’t meaningfully restrict your gun rights for the sake of the lives of your fellow human beings, one thing is most certainly clear—you apparently don’t know Jesus, nor worship Him as Lord. Your guns, your rights, and your privilege have become your master, and the needless blood of countless mass shooting victims is dripping down your evil cowardly hands—that’s the truth.

So, stop sending your thoughts and prayers, the world knows that when push comes to shove, you don’t truly give a crap. In fact, it appears that nothing is more important than the furthering of your white male heterosexual conservative Evangelical Machine. You could leverage the turning of the tides in a violent gun-worshipping America, but you don’t, and sadly, it seems that you won’t. We can read between the lines, and we have become wise to your spiritual sleight of hand—your privilege is more important than people, period.

Until we see you leading the way towards real meaningful gun control. Until we see you encouraging your fellow conservative Christians to support and call for significant gun restrictions. Until we see you stand up and walk away from kneeling at the throne of the NRA. Don’t be surprised when all your spiritual bloviating, grandstanding, and parading of Jesus is met with the middle finger of many in America—myself included.

The world doesn’t need your thoughts and prayers, we need your repentance and authentic desire to actually follow the ways of Jesus when it matters most, and perhaps when it costs you the greatest.

Until then, the corrupted fruit dangling off your tree will be met with our fierce dismissal and denouncement. For we have tasted and seen that your twisted diabolical conservative Evangelical faith understanding is not good, not good at all—in fact, it’s evil.

Conservative Christian, stop sending your thoughts and prayers—start repenting and surrendering your worship of guns before more blood is tragically spilled.

Grace is brave. Be brave.

No, Conservative Christian, God Doesn’t Send Mass Shootings

Just weeks ago, it was a hurricane.

Now, an horrific mass shooting by a white terrorist.

Here we go again, another tragedy being projected onto the heart and will of God.

Sadly, there’s nothing that seems to be more convenient and appealing to some Christians than claiming that the onset of human tragedy is a result of the actions of God in defense of the very things they support and in punishment of the very people and realities they are against.

It’s always amazing to see the spiritual gymnastics some Christians will perform in order to twist God into a divine puppet working on behalf of all that they hold to be true and troublesome. But then, when tragedy strikes inside their camp, all of the sudden, God’s ways are deemed to be mysterious and beyond human comprehension.

You know that your creeds and system of faith are bogus and desperately weak when you resort to portraying God as the author of human tragedy in an effort to legitimize and advance the validity of your faith understandings. This is why deflecting truth and blame has become nothing less than a prized spiritual gift among many conservative Evangelical Christians. While some point their fingers at God in the wake of human tragedy and misfortune, the ever growing necessity emerges for the rest of us to start pointing our fingers at right wing conservative Evangelical Christianity, lest we all be deceived.

In fact, as hard as it is to say and as difficult as it may be to hear, the truth is, until America wakes up to the true connections between conservative Evangelical Christianity and many of the deepest ills of our society, lasting change will elude us. When conservative Evangelicals proudly elect and continue to enthusiastically support a President whose campaign received a record $21 million dollars from the NRA who spent $36.6 million dollars on the election in total, the true diabolical wizard behind the curtain begins to appear. From slavery to the bloodshed of war, conservative Evangelical Christianity has long found ways to spiritual justify nearly every evil on planet earth when it favors their agenda, and escape into the shadows of ambivalence and proclaimed innocence the morning after.

Truth be told, there is no greater deception being wielded upon all the earth than the attributing of human tragedy and harm to the authorship of God—often, by the very same people that history reveals as being the ones who are in fact capable of the required levels of hate, religiously justified violence, and spiritual illness to enable such atrocities. In fact, when you believe in a god who loves people so much that he is holy and just in brutally punishing them eternally if they don’t love Him back in return, especially through your prescribed steps and rules, your capacity to justify your own violence and the harming of others is not far away.

For if anyone should be shouting from the mountain tops demanding real gun control, it should be Christians. If anyone should be first in line to limit or even surrender their rights for the greater good of their fellow humans, it should be Christians. It is the same nonviolent cross carrying Jesus who calls us to a life of service and sacrifice that we worship, is it not?

Sadly, while many conservative Christians hope we are baited and hooked by their declarations of being “pro-life,” the truth is, much of right-wing conservative Evangelical Christianity is proving itself to be about as pro-life as a wolf in a chicken coop.

No, most Christians would never pull the trigger, send the hurricane, or wield such suffering directly, but apparently some certainly don’t mind believing God does—that, my friend, is the new face of spiritual and mental illness. When you proclaim God as the author of human tragedy in retribution for people acting against what you believe to be God’s will, you are not only the problem, you are spiritually and mentally dancing with the devil. For the one who enables the alcoholic is just as ill and complicit as the alcoholic themselves.

No, conservative Christian, God doesn’t send mass shootings—perhaps, this is on you.

This is on you to lead the way in turning swords into plowshares in a culture dripping with violence and hate.

This is on you to loudly repent of your history of spiritually justifying harm upon those you to deem to be the enemy.

This is on you to boldly proclaim the nonviolent sacrificial example of the Jesus you claim to follow.

This is on you to silence meaningless political rhetoric and harness your influence to demand meaningful gun control.

This is on you to look inward to an evil spiritual system and creed that personifies God as a vengeful deity who is holy and just in hurting, harming, and causing people to suffer.

This is on you to be first in line to limit or even surrender your rights for the good of humanity.

No, conservative Christian, God doesn’t send mass shootings.

Yes, He did send His Son to show us the way of nonviolence, peace, sacrifice, and service.

Perhaps, now more than ever, you could consider denying yourself for a change and following Him.

Grace is brave. Be brave.

© 2024 Chris Kratzer

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑

%d bloggers like this: