A Message To Moderate Christians

One thing that has been getting on my nerves as of late is the ‘moderate’ Christians. The hypocrisy that seeps from these people can be sickening. The progress of civil rights has been hampered time and time again by the religious right. They validated their bigotry and hatred by quoting sections of the bible and asserting it was God’s word and divinely ordained. The same pattern has been repeated during the course of every civil rights movement. Firstly the progressives are derided by the religious right, then more and more moderates support the movement, and eventually the movement achieves some level of success usually accumulating in a change of law. This is where the most disgusting aspect of the pattern comes into play; as the new civil rights become the norm the religious claim these rights to be self evident and declare a victory for their religion. I realise this is a rather simplistic version but this is generally how it played out. Somehow they forget the regressive influence their religion had on the movement and when reminded they usually exclaim that those people were ‘not true Christians’. This happened during the abolition of slavery, the women’s rights movement, African-American civil rights, and now it is happening again for homosexual rights. No logical arguments are being presented against the expansion of rights except religious ones.


Now I know there are many moderate Christians who will feel aggrieved at being blamed for this. They will say that they support civil rights so they should not shoulder any of the blame, but simple fact is that they do. Moderate Christians turn to the same book as the fundamentalists do and claim it is the word of God. The same book which has numerous quotes condoning slavery, the same book which treats women as second class citizens, the same book which says homosexuals should be killed. If you believe in racial and sexual equality then why do support a religion that doesn’t? You clearly believe in equality not because of your religion, but in spite of it. I am not saying you should stop believing in God or heaven or Jesus etc. But why support organised religion, why support a church that is currently investing money to prevent the expansion of marriage rights to homosexual couples. Moderate Christians are the crutch on which fundamentalist stand. You may personally support equal rights but history has shown us that this simply is not enough. If you truly believe in equal rights you would not support a church that doesn’t because by doing so you are helping their regressive cause. Over 70% of Irish people support same-sex marriage but it isn’t a reality yet. The reason is because most of this 70% still profess a Catholic a religion. By doing so they are helping the Catholic Church in its efforts to deny homosexual equal rights. If this 70% left the Church when their beliefs not longer coincided with what the Church teaches then same-sex marriage would be a reality already, by not doing so they have helped delay the expansion of rights. Equal rights will soon arrive but it has been hugely delayed thanks to the religious right, and whether you believe in equal rights or not, if you ascribe to this religion then all you did was hinder the equal rights’ cause, not help it.

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