>” The people hanging out outside abortion clinics and gay clubs with all caps boards such as "GOD HATES F*S" and "YOU WILL BURN IN HELL"?”
Do you believe the majority of churches have attendees like this? Westboro Baptist is not at all representative of the local congregation but plenty of people think that kind of behavior you mentioned is common. I believe it is due in-part to unfamiliarity.
No, but I also have never seen a self-professed christian come out to call those folks out. I was raised christian and one of our new pastors was forced out because he was gay, and some of the charities our denomination supported got canned because they also ministered to gay people.
I don't think it's at all weird to point out that christians have a long and robust anti-gay streak going for them, and that's just one type of intolerance.
>”but I also have never seen a self-professed christian come out to call those folks out.”
To this I would say, the number of Christians who would enthusiastically denounce Westboro-Style beliefs and hostility to LGBT in the name of Christianity is very high. Especially in the contemporary era. There are plenty of reports in the news where Baptist churches have denounced the signs, slogans, and actions of the repugnant “god hates ***s” Westboro Baptist types and copycats.
At the end of the day, this is all anecdotal and the sheer number of Christians means you will find people that I mention, and people like you have mentioned. But based on the faithful I interact with as a non-Christian, I asset that the tolerant ones are far larger in population than the intolerant ones.
I grew up in highly religious (calvinist) farming country, then did grad school in highly religious (mostly baptist) west Texas , and since then have had many highly religious coworkers (a variety of denominations). I say this to give context to the next paragraph.
It is my sincere and honest belief that for an awful lot of churchgoing people their disagreement with Westboro Baptist is not the content of the message but rather how they go about spreading it.
This isn’t just about the Westboro church. And yes, albeit less explicitly homophobic or such, there are a LOT of churches and movements in that style. Can find lots of street corners with someone preaching by guilt, telling you this is your last chance not to burn in hell, and indeed not at all following in Jesus’ footsteps.
American Christianity is gross. Megachurches are gross. It’s all capitalistic, a massive industry, and consistently knee deep in homophobia, misoginy and more. Everyone uses God as a way of justifying whatever shit they’re into. “Guns are my god given right! God is on my side!”. It is all the absolute opposite of what Christianity supposedly stands for. And just because some cute little hometown church in the south only has sweet old ladies and is super tight knit etc doesn’t mean this doesn’t apply at scale.
Do you believe the majority of churches have attendees like this? Westboro Baptist is not at all representative of the local congregation but plenty of people think that kind of behavior you mentioned is common. I believe it is due in-part to unfamiliarity.