Member-only story
It’s Not Easy Being Green: What’s “Bad” about Christianity
For those who think that is a click bait headline, let me explain. Medium writer Graham Pemberton challenged me to share my thoughts about the reformation of Christianity. As I disagreed with his ideas drawn to some degree from Medium writer Keith Michael and Bishop Spong, I accepted the challenge. As I thought about how to approach a rather daunting subject I thought that as a Christian I find much that is beneficial, some that is bad, and sadly, a lot that is ugly about my faith and faith tradition.
This post starts the second part of this discussion: the bad. I spent 16 posts on what I considered beneficial about Christian beliefs. It is my hope, however hopeless, that those who read my thoughts on what is bad will also read what is good. In writing about beneficial beliefs I had to continually remind readers and commenters that I was not arguing for the truthfulness of those beliefs. I’ve done that in most of my well over 200 posts on Christianity. I was simply trying to inventory what I personally have experienced as beneficial in holding to a more or less traditional or orthodox Christian faith.
Framing this as the good, the bad, and the ugly forced me to consider the differences between what I consider bad and ugly. The way I decided to approach that is drawing a line between the beliefs themselves and the people…
