In Exile, Draken isn't on very good terms with The Seven Eyes, the gods in his world.
We’re supposed to write about religion in the genre of SFF, meaning the use of religion as a device in books, but I’m going to take my post in another direction.
There is an accepted prejudice in the SFF community and it’s against religion.
Now I might be a wee sensitive, being that I am Christian. No disclaimers today, except to mention that I might not be your run-of-the-mill Christian. One of my favorite “church ladies” used to say she loved to imagine me sitting in a low-rent bar drinking whiskey and discussing Christ…Imagine?? Ha! I can’t tell you how often that’s actually happened to me with like-minded folks. He’s an odd bird and an endlessly fascinating character, to this writer’s mind.
As a Christian and a social liberal, I never really feel the need to get all preachy. But for my purposes here, I’ll mention Christ sets a high standard for behavior which a lot of folks, believers or not, could learn from.
I’m not wanting to call out anyone in particular. But I’ve heard statements about Christianity and Christians online, at conventions, and gatherings of writers and readers that would be offensive if it referred to any other group of people (including, oddly enough, people of other faiths). These range from calling the faithful idiots, yes–I’ve heard someone say that in person at a professional event–to blaming all war on religion. Just as many faithful are intelligent, thinking people, religion can also be a convenient vehicle for hatred. But clearly, if there were no religion, people would find some other damn reason to kill each other. Take The Game of Thrones as a literary example. Religion doesn’t much come into play as a motivator in GRRM’s sprawling stories and yet the hatred and killing certainly feels true to life.
Now. It’s not like anti-Christians don’t have a leg to stand on with their criticisms. Trust me. I know. I have studied the Crusades at length and also many of the horrors Christians—true believers—have caused in His name, so I don’t need a lecture about the damage religion can cause. Don’t even get me started on the recent crimes of the Church. (Or the recent crimes of Wall Street, the government, or big business. I don’t have that kind of time.)
My point? Prejudice goes both ways. I put forth that degrading Christians as a whole (or any group with a vocal, ugly few) is just as bad, as prejudiced, as degrading any other social group. Most people in the industry would never accept a blatantly offensive comment about homosexuals, for example, but religion seems fair game.
Some folks might say, Well, Bets, the difference is that Christianity is a choice… but not for this Christian, and trust me, I’ve tried. The only real choice is our behavior. Other people behaving badly and/or personal bitterness don’t excuse rudeness and hatred. We’re each in charge of ourselves. It’s time someone (and it might as well be me) stood up and called bullshit. SFF folks pride ourselves on acceptance of all people, of tolerance and mutual respect, as well as facing humanity’s struggles with acceptance in our stories. But that acceptance apparently only extends so far. It’s entirely fair to take on religion’s corruption, but do so with the same respect you’d show any other group where one of these is not like the others.
I think we can do better as a genre, as an industry, as professionals, as people.
Paul (@princejvstin) on February 18, 2013
The trope that really annoys me in fantasy novels is the “Crystal Dragon Jesus” trope.
That is to say, its a fantasy world whose religion is really just an Earthly religion with the serial numbers filed off. Christianity especially, but other religions (hello, The Force!) in fantasy often are just differently colored variants of Earthly religions.
When the parallels are such that the author appears to be attacking one religion or another, then I get even crankier.
I think writers can be more imaginative than that.
Erica on February 18, 2013
As someone who is not religious but who knows and loves several intellectual and socially liberal Christians, I agree with you.
I think, though, that the negative PR issue that Christianity has with a lot of highly educated, socially liberal and creative people is partially because the word “Christian” is almost universally used these days to encompass a socially conservative, anti-scientific, anti-free-inquiry world view, and being a Christian is frequently cited as an excuse for having sexist or homophobic views in particular. I think a lot of classical conditioning has taken place here over the past 35 years, so a lot of non religious people who are socially liberal get an emotional “yuk” reaction to the word “Christian.” It’s unfortunate.
And then there is the underdog thing, of course. Since the majority of Americans are Christians of one kind or another they are sometimes seen as being bullies who want to force their religion on others in both the public and private spheres.
My fantasy world (in the novels I’m working on right now) has made up religions that hopefully do not strongly resemble any real world ones, though my knowledge of how real world religions are organized has informed them to some extent. Given the diversity of beliefs people have and have had throughout history, it would be hard to make a fantasy religion that doesn’t resemble a real world one in some manner at least.
Andre on February 18, 2013
Well put. Religion is an easy target these days, but the crimes associated with religion are not exclusive to it; they’re a risk that comes with any sort of group identity humans can form. And, no matter how well-reasoned, a stereotype is still a stereotype. In fact, the more truthful they seem, the more insidious they are in terms of their ability to make us hate without realizing we’re doing it.
It’s unfortunate that many SF&F readers and writers—a group one associates with thoughtfulness and inclusivity—can fall victim to this trap just as easily as anyone else.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 18, 2013
I don’t know, Paul. I just finished the book THE RED KNIGHT in which Christianity figures heavily. In a way, that familiarity was nice because some crazy shit happened in the story. Religion figures as a motivation (and an anti-motivation–heh, did I just coin a word) and it wasn’t yet another thing I had to figure out. Not that the book is that hard but sometimes it’s trying when every little damn thing in a story is something you have to figure out.
Paul (@princejvstin) on February 19, 2013
Well, a problem I see is, if the religion in your fantasy world is too obviously derived from a real world one, people are going to conflate problems, criticisms and commentary on your religion with the counterpart in the real world.
It’s human nature.
“Oh, author Laura Garfield’s Steppe Warrior’s religion of the “God of the One Moon” is really Islam, so she must be attacking Islam when she has her character rebel against it.”
There are authors who do it well, but hewing too closely is asking for trouble, I feel.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 18, 2013
Erica, I think it’s true. I took a year of religious studies in college and the one thing that astounded me was just how many religions there are, not even counting the ones that have died out…
Betsy Dornbusch on February 18, 2013
I don’t believe religion should be an easy target. By far the majority of Muslims, for instance, are not violent. I’d wager they don’t spend much time thinking about anything but trying to live their lives. Ditto Buddhists, ditto Christians. It’s sad and ignorant when a majority falls for the noisy rhetoric of the few and makes it a stereotype.
Sabrina Vourvoulias on February 19, 2013
While I agree that most SFF writers of faith have at some time or another heard our peers’ estimation of our intelligence plummet with the revelation of belief, I think there is a false equivalency being set up here. Anti-Christian comments in the U.S., while sometimes foul, are not the same as anti-Sikh or anti-Muslim or anti-Santeria comments, because Christianity is the dominant religion of the dominant culture. While we like to say that there is a strict separation between Church and State in the U.S., we see Christianity’s entrenchment as the “true faith” in the fact we swear on a Bible before testifying in court; we hear Jesus invoked by our highest officials during tragedies such as the one in Newtown; the Ten Commandments are in evidence in the majority of our small courthouses across the nation; we learn to pledge allegiance to our country as indivisible under one God, etc., etc. To criticize or even rail against the dominant religion or the dominant culture is just not the same as criticizing or railing against a religion with little financial, legislative or cultural power in the nation. Repressive and oppressive regulations and/or actions are instituted and enforced by those with actual power (whatever their religion) over those without the same level of power (whatever their religion), and frequently enough those in power don’t even see the ways the legislation and/or actions are oppressing minorities. Think about how many movies you’ve seen that demonize Islam or Voudoun. I think a lot of the current sentiment being expressed about “anti-Christian” comment is really a reaction to that entrenched-assumed Christian belief in our society being called out by members of a “minority” religion (or by the arreligious). And, sure, it is uncomfortable and tremendously unpleasant for the Christian SFF writer, but I’m hard pressed to see it as oppressive or repressive.
Zachary on February 19, 2013
You’ve just became my favorite person of the day, Sabrina! I hope, though I doubt, this makes you as thrilled as I am.
No, seriously, great comment.
Bryan Thomas Schmidt on February 19, 2013
Yes, I’ve been decrying the serious anti-religious bigotry in SFF for a while now. Many in our community treat Christians as badly as anyone they would label homophobe treats gays and it’s got to stop.
Bryan Thomas Schmidt on February 19, 2013
And btw, I couldn’t disagree more about it being a false equivalency. That’s just an excuse to justify the behavior that gets trotted out time and again.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 19, 2013
Sabrina, I agree. I am a huge proponent of the separation of church and state. It’s also a travesty that popular culture has aligned certain religions with antagonists. The particular anti-religious use in films and books I find most offensive (far more than anti-Christianity) is against Wicca.
From Wikipedia: The word prejudice refers to prejudgement: i.e. making a decision before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case. In recent times, the word has come to be most often used to refer to preconceived, usually unfavorable, judgments toward people or a person because of gender, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race/ethnicity, language, nationality or other personal characteristics. It can also refer to unfounded beliefs[1] and may include “any unreasonable attitude that is unusually resistant to rational influence.”
I used the comparison I did (homosexuals and Christians) to show the hypocrisy of prejudice; it’s wrong to call gays stupid but it’s okay to call Christians stupid. I don’t think there’s any room for hypocrisy in prejudice, especially among a group that is so anti-prejudice (to our collective credit), even where majorities are concerned.
Thoughtful criticism is much different than prejudice, though there is a fine line. I’m suggesting here that the line is constantly crossed by the SFF community with no repercussions–indeed, the prejudicial side is widely accepted and even encouraged. It’s a prejudice rooted in: “If you’re a person of faith, then you surely fall in with the lowest common denominator of Christianity (belief and the majority issues you mentioned) rather than considering each person on their own merit.” That’s what prejudice IS at its heart–lumping a group together and equating it with the group’s so-called dregs. That it’s the majority has no bearing on the wrongness of the prejudice; prejudice is prejudice is prejudice.
Sabrina Vourvoulias on February 19, 2013
Betsy,
I didn’t say majority I said dominant. The distinction is important because a majority can, in fact, have little or no access to power within the status quo (e.g., during Apartheid Black South Africans were the majority, but not in terms of the structures of power). Does prejudice express itself even to individuals who are in power and are part of the status quo? Of course. But I would argue that often outcries against the status quo — or efforts to challenge the assumptions of existing power structures — get dismissed, or are unthinkingly (or deliberately) mischaracterized as expressions of anti-(Christian/White/you-name-it) because then we don’t have to reflect on the underpinnings of what is being called out.
I’ll give you a non-SFF example. For about a decade I worked at a Catholic newspaper. During that time two Grand Jury reports were released about clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese. As soon as the first report was released we all read it, and realized that along with the instances of abuse there were also a lot of actions/behaviors/etc. which under different circumstances we might have assumed to be innocent aspects of parish life (like priest reassignments). The Archdiocese responded to that first report with accusations of anti-Catholicism. Were there expressions of anti-Catholicism in the report? Oh probably. Did that invalidate the points the Grand Jury report was making? Not at all. But there were plenty of just ordinary Catholics who were more comfortable thinking of it as an attack on the faith because they didn’t want to think of what it could mean if it wasn’t that.
To be clear, I’m not saying what you point to in your blog is akin to what was part of the reports of clergy abuse. But as a Latina Catholic SFF writer I myself have to examine and reexamine any knee jerk sense of personal attack (either of religion or of ethnicity — which I find is rather more frequent) against valid (though sometimes unfamiliar) expressions of challenge or outcry directed not at me, but at my assumptions or my blind spots.
I wanted to thank you for starting this conversation, Betsy. I enjoy considering what blog posts like this bring up, and writing about them from my perspective. And I’m grateful I detected neither sanctimony nor Christian one-upmanship in your responses to my comment.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 19, 2013
Betsy Dornbusch on February 19, 2013
Sabrina,
There’s also the fact that at SF Cons Christians are often in the MINORITY. I was just at a party with a bunch of friends last fall and I’m pretty sure I was the only person of faith in the room. But, since outside the party I’m in the majority, it would be okay for them to start criticizing my faith to the point of prejudicial, assuming (often wrong), negative statements…? Say, it’d be okay to equate all Christians as homophobes? Sounds out there, but I’ve heard that kind of talk before.
Not that my friends did that; we had a bunch of fascinating discussions about faith and government and all kinds of things with no offense given or taken. That just goes to show criticism can be made without offense, if you’re careful.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 19, 2013
Bryan,
It is a false equivalency, but as I explained, it’s one I used on purpose. It’s the “majority” thing I take issue with; that can’t excuse prejudice but I think it often does.
Mazarkis Williams on February 19, 2013
Well, I would hesitate to call anyone stupid before I knew for sure they were stupid
I do think there is something to be said for Christianity being the dominant culture. I really sense a lot of victimhood from Christians in my community, who feel that they are being discriminated against for the simple fact of the separation of church and state – even though almost everyone on the school committee and the city council are Christians. My city is Catholic enough that some neighborhoods still have saints’ festivals. I don’t think their treatment qualifies as persecution – in fact, I think they are accustomed to privilege and become offended when they perceive others getting any consideration. (My city is experiencing an ongoing drama at the moment in regards to St. Valentine’s Day.)
Still, as annoyed as I can get, I would never meet a Christian and assume he is homophobic or sexist. You mentioned a party, Betsy, and I’m wondering if anyone did say something to you that was offensive? I’m just curious what kinds of statements you mean (without implicating any of the other guests!)
Betsy Dornbusch on February 19, 2013
Maz,
The party I mentioned was actually with friends and though a lot of vocal atheists were there (my son had wonderful, intelligent conversations about atheism and religion that night) I never felt the least issue with it.
I feel actually less victimization from SFF folks (on a regular basis, though things are definitely said…and really, I’m not a person to take offense at much, despite my take in this post) than I do from noisy Christians who misrepresent my faith.
It does get frustrating to always have to offer a disclaimer when I mention my faith just so people won’t assume I’m bigoted and hateful and socially conservative. That’s where I think most of the prejudice comes from: people pay attention to the noisy bigoted Christians rather than the majority and lump us all together. Kind of like I’ve heard prejudicial statements about Muslims, assuming they all hate the West and are jihadists.
Mazarkis Williams on February 19, 2013
I understand. That makes me cringe, too, although I admit to having a knee-jerk reaction from time to time when someone says, “hey I’m a Christian!” I guess, because I was not raised with religion, I have trouble understanding the importance that might have to a person.
Renata Hill on February 19, 2013
Bets, I can totally see you drinking in a bar and discussing Jesus. Makes me chuckle to watch that scenario in my head because the more you drink, the more persuasive you become — sorta like glamouring the listener.
Regarding your main point: prejudice is prejudice no matter the side. In my experience, it seems that small-minded people are the ones who are most prejudicial; they are unable to listen to any other points of view, let alone understand. Plus, they’re lazy. It’s much easier to shut down and stir one’s own cauldron than to look around and see what else is brewing. I feel very fortunate that life has thrown enough challenges my way to teach me about listening to others’ viewpoints, even if they are completely contrary to my own beliefs. For me, living with others on this crazy planet (or any other, bringing in the SFF theme) is not about agreement, but respect.
Garland Stueart on February 23, 2013
Ok Renata, you asked for it.
It does not bother me that the SF&F writers bash Christians. Almost all other writers do the same. I love a good SF novel or any good fiction. In fact I love reading good clean (language) literature. Word do affect the mind. Therefore one must be aware of what they read. Where I live, one cannot walk outside on a clear night and wonder what lies beyond the planets and stars. This gives writers who have imaginative minds many scenarios .
Everyone has biases and prejudices. To say otherwise is simply lying to self. I have a son and niece who truly love to read and write. Both love SF&F. My son has a SF blog that he maintains. They are different in that one seems to have an open mind and the other closed. They may disagree but that is my opinion. I actually know nothing about the SF & Ff anti-religious biases. But there is certainly an anti-religious, anti- Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-conservation attitude among the liberal MSM. This is troubling because many of them profess to be Christians with open minds. It seems the in-thing to make fun of Christians who express their values. To call them all kinds of names and criticize their personal stand. If one took the time to read the Bible, they would find many things that to the mind of many to be SF & F. While researching the Bible they might just come face to face with the Author. Be Blessed!
Betsy Dornbusch on February 19, 2013
LOL, Yeah I try not to be all “Hey, I’m a Christian!” either. That can be annoying… Don’t even get me started on the proselytizers that give Christianity a bad name.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 19, 2013
Renata, haha! I now must write a story about someone whose magic only works when s/he’s drunk. (It’s mine, the rest of y’all, I called dibs first!)
Good point about the laziness. If someone thinks all Christians are like the ones presented on a certain news channel then they haven’t paid much attention…
Kristin Janz on February 19, 2013
The discussion here has focused on anti-Christian sentiment in SFF, but I’ve certainly heard plenty of anti-Muslim comments within the community, as well as general anti-religious comments. Prominent writers openly saying that all religious people are obviously idiots, that sort of thing.
As for the false equivalency question: yes, I agree that Christians are the dominant culture in the United States (although as Betsy points out, not necessarily at SF cons). I don’t think we’re an oppressed minority. But it seems sometimes as if people want to treat tolerance as a zero-sum game: if we’re more tolerant of Christians, there’s somehow less tolerance to be drawn from the Great Tolerance Well and extended to, say, people of color. That doesn’t make sense to me. I think that the more we teach ourselves to avoid negative generalizations about one group of people who are Not Like Us, the better we’ll be at doing it with other groups. For those of us who are writers, it makes for better writing, too.
One thing that makes me uncomfortable about these sorts of discussions among socially liberal Christians is that we constantly seem to be at pains to distance ourselves from, you know, those OTHER Christians. Sometimes that can start to sound as if we’re saying that conservative Christians really do deserve prejudice, and then we’re back to generalizations. I’m not saying we shouldn’t question people’s beliefs, or judge those beliefs as wrong or harmful. But I think we should avoid judging the people who hold those beliefs as bad people. Especially those of us who are trying to follow the teachings of Jesus. Since he kind of told us not to.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 19, 2013
Kristin, thanks for the reminder. I tend to go that direction myself with my disclaimers. It’s not really fair for me to do so. I need a new disclaimer, maybe, more along the lines I’m a Christian who believes in social rights like gay marriage and everyone getting 3 squares a day…
Kristin Janz on February 20, 2013
Me too! And the reminder is for me before it’s for anyone else. Notice how careful I was to categorize myself as a liberal.
Michael Samerdyke on February 19, 2013
An interesting essay on a fascinating topic.
To me it seems like the Christian who writes SFF is caught between two fires. On the one hand, there are Christians who view SFF with deep suspicion (think of all the “Harry Potter” controversy.) On the other hand, there is hostility toward Christianity in the SFF community. Usually (to me) this is presented as hostility toward “religion,” but the religion in question is pretty clearly Christianity.
I remember one workshop where the critique circle was split pretty evenly between those who were religious and those who were not religious. I realize now that the people from that workshop who went on to be published were the ones who were vocally non-religious.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 19, 2013
Interesting. I tend to perceive a vocal majority of atheists in SFF, but it could be the cons I hang out at and my friends, online and RL.
David Ellis on February 19, 2013
“My point? Prejudice goes both ways. I put forth that degrading Christians as a whole (or any group with a vocal, ugly few) is just as bad, as prejudiced, as degrading any other social group. ”
I’m of two minds about this. I know Christians I respect (only a few though—pretty much only of the extremely liberal variety). But the, as you put it, “ugly” few are not at all few. Where I live nearly every Christian I encounter approves, often with a disturbing casualness, of condemning everyone who doesn’t share their religion to eternal torment. The scriptures of the Christian religion have some really horrendous things in them and it’s far from unfair to judge someone negatively based on their willingness to consider such a work the Word of God.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 19, 2013
David,
Hmm. I do live in Boulder, Colorado. We’re rather progressive socially… my perception could be quite skewed.
David Ellis on February 20, 2013
What are your views regarding the Bible and it’s many, to put it mildly, morally dubious contents?
betsydornbusch on February 20, 2013
David,
I consider it historical documents with a lot of good advice and a lot of ridiculous, poor advice. There are some good stories. (I’m a writer; can’t resist good stories.) Word of God? Not so much. It’s too corrupted by humankind.
Garland Stueart on February 23, 2013
Betsy,
I would be interested in what parts of the Bible are too corrupted by humankind. Also about the ridiculous and poor advice. Just asking.
Betsy Dornbusch on February 23, 2013
I consider all of it a human document. That’s not to say there isn’t truth to the stories inspired by Christ and God and holy people, but it’s a human document written by and for humans. Does that make it less important or essential? Not to me.
Um, silly advice? Pretty much all the stuff that is so steeped in historical context that it’s inapplicable today. (Which is pretty much up to the individual to decide.)
Garland Stueart on February 24, 2013
That is the opinion of most non-Christians. Most Christians consider the Word of God. True there are some who thing that it was by humans and for humans and nothing more. That way they get to pick and chose what they like and discard that which does not fit their thought process. Interesting! Be Blessed.
David Ellis on February 20, 2013
I wish that view of the Christian scriptures was more common among Christians.
Quincy Allen on February 21, 2013
I’ve been following this conversation on and off since Betsy started it. Frankly, discussions on religion are some of my favorites so long as they are discussions rather than shouting matches. I’ve refrained from joining the conversation because sometimes my diatribes are interpreted as being anti-Christian simply because I call out some of the extremist pundits and demagogues that have been influencing the body politic of this nation. Let me begin by saying that as a strongly held philosophy I contend that all religions, philosophies and ideologies are valid from one individual to another. I also contend that there must be a separation of religion and state and that the prejudiced condemnation of any “group” is simply that, prejudice. I also believe that there should be a separation between belief and knowledge, particularly when it comes to public education and the governance of “we the people.”
What I’ve found interesting in this thread is that there has been a lot of commentary here regarding the “what” of anti-Christian sentiment at cons and elsewhere, particularly in the SFF community. However, I have seen little regarding the “why” of it. Recently, Betsy posted a link (included below) regarding legislation put forth by a right-wing Christian conservative in Oklahoma, and she clearly condemned it. I think this article is a perfect example of the “why.”
So, let me take a crack at why I believe more and more people are railing against Christianity these days—and yes, in most cases, unjustly. There is literally a war going on in this country between belief and knowledge, and in the balance lies either Democracy or Theocracy. Cast your mind back to the past eighteen months and the litany of Christian pundits and demagogues who shouted how this is a Christian nation and should be governed by Christian principles; consider Romney, Akin, Rubio, Bachman, Limbaugh, Ryan and a litany of others who, with every breath attempt to literally force the rest of us to be governed by Biblical mandates.
Lawsuits and “sneaky” legislation are put forth by very outspoken, right wing Christians on a weekly basis that attempt to force creationism and intelligent design into our schools. Our legislatures are inundated regularly with legislation that in every respect attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade or curtail/eliminate contraception from health care. The Oklahoma legislation Betsy linked up is a perfect example of this on-going assault, and examples abound no matter where one turns. A small group of zealots shout that they are Christian and then, in the same breath, infer that everyone should be.
The truly unfortunate net-result of this war is that many outside of the Christian community see it as an attack by Christians as a whole rather than as an attack by a small group of Christian zealots. The natural—and ill-considered—reaction by those outside the community is to feel persecution and respond in kind: hence the outcry, prejudice and animosity… humans are, after all, merely humans. Make no mistake. I’m not condoning this reaction. Far from it. We should condemn prejudice wherever we find it, regardless of what direction it’s flowing, simply because it is the basest form of ignorance.
But the fact remains that there are well positioned, outspoken and empowered “extremist” Christians who actively and deliberately continue to inflict their brand of Christianity upon the populace as a whole. The larger body of all Christians are subsequently suffering the consequences, in part, at least, because that body does not systematically decry the extremists in power. There are some who do, to be certain, but the extremists in power are there because they were voted there and have not, as yet, been voted out.
And all of this boils down to that difference between knowledge and belief. I have every respect for those who “believe” strongly, regardless of the form that belief takes. But the only thing that should be permitted to govern, the only thing that should be disseminated by the state is knowledge. What those of us outside the Christian community are repelled by is that the right-wing demagogues have not merely forgotten this tenet of equality, they have placed ice-climbing shoes upon their feet and continued to trample it for a number of years now.
It has become a war, and we could talk all day about who started, but that would be a wasted endeavor. Either extremist Christian members of our representation will acknowledge that “we the people” are made up of many faiths (and a lack thereof) or they will continue their assault. Should they choose the latter—as they appear to be doing—then the larger body of all Christians will continue to suffer the knee-jerk reaction by many non-Christians.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/02/oklahoma-hr1674-science-evolution-climate-change
Garland Stueart on February 23, 2013
That was a mouth full Quincy. After read your comments, I think that it can be stated that you are very Anti-Christian. You are certainly allowed to have and express your opinion but, it seems that you went overboard in that you know ; “The larger body of all Christians are subsequently suffering the consequences, in part, at least, because that body does not systematically decry the extremists in power.” I am not an extremist, but you cannot separate belief and knowledge. One without the other is of little use.
Devon Derego on April 9, 2013
I enjoy you because of all of the labor on this site. Betty really likes carrying out investigation and it is easy to see why. I know all concerning the powerful means you render important solutions via this web site and as well recommend contribution from others on the article and our princess is undoubtedly discovering a great deal. Take pleasure in the rest of the year. You’re conducting a brilliant job.