If i had some bullets and a gun!!

We come to the end of another year, some of us will be glad to see the back of it, others had a great year and have no reason for fear or despair. We as a species saw more wars, more famine, more destruction by nature and by man, we saw governments overthrown, we saw public figures die and we partied in the street over the death of a woman who was loved and loathed in equal measure by probably equal amounts of people, all the time forgetting "there but for the grace of God go i" . This year i have been amazed by acts of kindness, acts of love, which have changed lives and opinions made people better and given hope where little existed.
Into this kettle of discord, i jumped onto an online Christian page which contains all the usual suspects and rants so much about what is wrong they rarely point out what is right, everything is a sin and if you do not believe like we do you are demonic (3 times in 2 weeks) i was told that (a new record) for me. So we now have Christians acting and performing like a viking horde on a pillaging raid and not caring about taking prisoners, they just need to be right. Basic biblical understanding goes out the window, because every word is true and it is all literal and don't you dare get me to think about my faith because thinking leads to demonisation. You see Christians take the bait far to easily and jump up and down without thinking how it actually looks, make wild claims lets look at a few from History. Alice Cooper branded demonic and satanic turns out Alice is an entertainer a singer and he knows shock tactics sell he is also a Christian and will happily talk about his faith. The movie The Last Temptation of Christ caused up roar due to a small segment towards the end of the movie, Christians got up in arms wanted to picket cinemas and branded the movie as blasphemous. Actually if we had shut up as Christians it would not have mattered, it was the Christians who publicised the movie and by the way the movie was a hard watch and was rubbish, not as good as the book it was based on. What i'm driving at is this, sometimes we need to take a back seat and wait for things to unravel a bit, don't jump to inconclusive conclusions, don't brand people for not being like us/me. As Christians we spend far to much time telling society it is wrong, that it is in a moral pit and forget we are part of that society we helped shape it by our attitudes, our desires and we helped create the moral pit. How? by not doing the right thing, by not speaking out against injustice (of all types) by not caring about those we don't like, by not doing what Jesus would do. You see the church or large sections of it have decided this years hang your coat on topic is Same sex marriage, it's going to run and run and for some people it matters for others it does not. Some of us will leave hot headed debates and snide comments to those who feel the need to browbeat and deride people, last week someone said "that the time for debate is over on SSM because teenagers are killing themselves. Instead of browbeating and condemning why not hug that Gay teenager/person and tell them you love them" that actually spoke masses to me. You see i have decided for the new year i'm not going to get involved in stupid debates that run round in circles, i'm going to set out to love those who i find it difficult to love, love those who are different, to try and make a difference in hurting lives. In short i'm aiming high but I'm going to try and "do what Jesus would do"

Bigotry is wrong in most peoples eyes, it's an intolerance of different opinions that mostly has more to do with ignorance or one upmanship. Bigotry is used in politics it's used in society and heaven forbid it's used most widely in the church. In the last few weeks in Exeter we had a march by the EDL which i went along to it was an interesting exercise in reality against the media and i came away understanding a bit more about the EDL and why they are like they are. At the same time a group called Exeter together was marching to protest against the EDL, this march was a show of diversity and unity and by and large was good except for some of the speakers had petty and purile digs against the EDL. But back to the point of those who call themselves Christian being bigoted and being bigots, and this hurts to write but i'm going to anyway.

Christians talk a great deal about being tolerant and not bigoted, but we tend to be more bigoted than those we accuse of it. None of us would want to be branded a bigot and i expect most of you will disagree, but from what i have witnessed today within a certain Christian forum and what i have witnessed over the months in a few others intolerance is rife within Christian circles and ironically it's Christians slating Christians because of differing opinions. If you are not of the same ilk as me you are wrong, if you are evangelical and I'm a Liberal you are wrong, if you are traditional and i'm more progressive you are wrong. It's a shame on Christians, we are in the season of Advent, awaiting the coming of the prince of peace and yet we show bigotry to our brothers and sisters in the guise of robust debate, and that term winds me up "robust debate" is a cover all for i will hold a bigoted opinion and call it robust debate, because that way i can cover up my bigotry.

Intolerance is wrong whether its a right wing organisation or a left wing organisation, whether it's my intolerance to differing views or people groups. If i say i'm a member of UKIP it would cause uproar within certain quarters, i would be branded a bigot, but that lack of intolerance to my views is bigotry just the same.

IF WE ARE SHOWING BIGOTRY TO EACH OTHER IN THE KINGDOM, JUST HOW THE HECK ARE WE MEANT TO SHOW THE WORLD WE ARE NOT BIGOTS?. It makes a mockery of those words of Jesus " that by the love you have one for another they will know you are children of God" How are we going to show a lost and hurting world that we are capable of living in unity with our differing opinions and bring about a change to righteousness and God, because when we get involved in bigotry no matter what disguise we give it we are doing a massive disservice to each other and to the kingdom of God.