This is something I've been trying to understand for a while, it seems to be a relatively new phenomenon and primarily among the younger crowd. This certain species of "Christian" that desires, nay, needs to differentiate themselves from other Christians and exclude others who don't belong. I was trying to figure out why lately my fb friend count has been dropping, since I couldn't nail down who was deleting me they obviously couldn't have been too important. Then my wife went to see a friend last night, who told her that she and her husband both deleted me. I barely knew them so, no biggie. But apparently it is because I sometimes post critical news articles to my page and comment on things and this offended them.
Is this where we are in this country? Electronic communication has become so pervasive that we filter out anything that disagrees with us? I admit having done it in the past, but only when the individual becomes personally belligerent. But I am a liberal and have many conservative friends, some "Christian" some simply angry. I first noticed the "Christian" phenomenon in high school, when I chummed with a guy who liked to hang out at lunch with the prayer group and I couldn't figure out why they didn't seem to like me very much. One day, one of them told my friend, "he just doesn't 'get it,'" and it finally dawned on me that I wasn't part of their gang. Now, I am a Christian, I was baptized, confirmed and believed JC was my savior. At the time I even taught Sunday school at my Church, but all of that was meaningless because I wasn't part of "their" gang. This was pretty insignificant, that guy and I drifted out of being friends and once the others' shallowness and intolerence was laid bare for me, I didn't miss them in the slightest. I wonder if anyone reading this will say, "he's just bitter because he's not cool" and no I'm not cool, never was, never will be. And yes, most of my worldview has developed because of this sort of thing. But it makes you realize what a lousy life it is to be intolerant, you get to feel superior to others who mostly couldn't care less but other than that, it is a self-imposed isolation.
My wife seems to have gone through something similar, and I can't help getting angry when she tells me about how the group she tried to be part of in college routinely excluded her. They "allowed" her to be part of the group on the fringe, so they could feel superior and have someone to keep down. Exclusion, isolation, division, ostracism, these are not things I would attribute to the Prince of Peace. I guess the sin that both of us were guilty of was an insufficient level of hate for those "outside" therefore we could never be "inside," it doesn't really even matter what those outside were guilty of (homosexuals, promiscuous, or just heavy) what matters is that this arbitrary barrier was thrown up to allow the insiders an opportunity to feel superior to others. Damning them to hell, or just unpopularity, simply to make themselves feel important. The other sin was, of course, insufficient fervor to impose their beliefs on others.
Now that I see the same in politics, culture, or whathaveyou it is obvious that religion was just a convenient excuse to practice a All-American pastime.
Oh and the reason for the quotation marks is that this brand of Christian has a need to declare themselves as such at every opportunity, while it lets them feel superior, what it really does is let us know because by their actions, this sort of person really doesn't act very Christianlike, at least in any way I understand it.
