Why It's Hard To Be Black & Christian in America...

This article I feel has been a LONG time coming and I feel like everything I've been thinking and feeling has led to this. Before I continue I should preamble a lot of things so you can understand where exactly I'm coming from, of course I'll be omitting a few bits and pieces of personal information. I am 25 years old, I will be 26 next month, I am African American, I am male. I grew up in a Fatherless home, I was raised by my Mother and Grandmother, both of which are light-skinned. My Grandmother was so light-skinned that many often mistook her for a White woman.

I am visibly African American as you've seen. My family is unfortunately a statistic, as my family was torn apart by the drug abuse of my father. Unfortunately I met him a few years back and was none too pleased with the reunion. Thankfully he is out of my life. I was raised in Detroit all my life around other African Americans and wasn't fully accepted by my peers due to my voice being a few octaves higher than it should be and the fact that my vocabulary and taste in music didn't sync up with theirs. I have not done drugs, I do not drink, heck, I don't even drink coffee. My mother is a worker at Ford and has been for a long time. We're living a middle class life and getting by day to day. We are also Christians. However recent events in American history have driven a wedge in America that hasn't existed since slavery.

Sense Out Of The Senseless...

So I wrote a blog post earlier this year about the shooting in Colorado, The Trayvon Martin Case and The Shooting In Norway but it since then there has been a SWARM of other tragedies ravaging the world that just can't keep my attention before the next set of domino comes crashing down. However my blog on Colorado was set off by the insensitive morons who maligned anyone who saw their sense of humor as inappropriate as "moralfags", in this case, I have yet to see any Trolls attempting to make an anti-hero out of The Newtown Shooter (I will call him The Newtown Shooter and I refuse to use his name) Anyways, as I've done before, I'll attempt to address this situation from a Christian perspective and offer my 2 cents...

Note: I apologize for this article...in advance, I'm having a hard time keeping my thoughts together and not because I'm having a hard time grasping the situation, not at all. I'm having a hard time because there have been SO MANY horrible things since Colorado that it's almost too easy to form an "Oh what now?" attitude about things such as these. I don't watch the news mostly because it depresses me and though I am NOT a depressive, I do tend to dwell on things more than I should. So I've developed a somewhat detached outlook on things that only keeps me dealing with facts and figures and hardly emotions. But at the moment I'm grasping to say something emotionally helpful and failing at it miserably. Personally I'm ashamed of this post and I'm not sure why it's on the blog but nonetheless I felt the need to post this, perhaps I'll post something more coherent later...

Theology By Implication

We live in a day and age where consequences are swept under the rug and implications of certain positions are not scrutinized to the point where we reach a core understanding of a person's beliefs. Many of you know I wrote a blog talking about Nominal Christians (Christians in name only) and how they are disrupting the effectiveness of The Gospel by attempting to maintain 2 or more contradictory beliefs and actions. But I never explained in full how they are doing this, hence why I decided to write this blog post about the implications of certain theological positions and what they mean to a Christian. Let's dive in!

Homosexuality, Slavery & Women's Rights

Ya know lately I've been running into MORE AND MORE shallow, non-thinking pictures made to display apparent contradictions in Christianity and Christian thinking. Anyways, I must AS ALWAYS correct the MANY misconceptions and hopefully correct the thinking of anyone who would endorse this level argumentation as meaningful. So let's dive in.

Jesus Is The Prince Of Peace

So I'm slightly annoyed, just got off work and I'm fighting a headache so already I'm not in the best of moods. When I come home, I find this lovely status posted by someone who I both know and respect:

" I just heard someone dub Jesus the "Prince of Peace." Unless you're homosexual; unless you worship another deity other than his father; oh & don't forget unless you don't accept him as your "lord & savior." Then yeah, I guess he would be the "Prince of Peace."

I'm not posting this here to publically shame him or anything like that, I'm posting this here because:
1) It's a good opportunity to witness to him.
2) It's good opportunity to teach.
3) It's a good opportunity to address some other things as well.
With all that being said, let's get to it.

Mock Christians, Fear Muslims

So I was online yesterday and saw this video and decided to watch it against my better judgment, BUT I'm actually VERY glad I did because it revealed something about our culture. Many, MANY Non-Believers go on and on about The "Christian Majority" and how Christians run EVERYTHING and so on so forth. As if to say we're in complete control of everything and whine to get our way. This couldn't be further from the truth as our beliefs are constantly ridiculed, maligned and referred to something evil that should not exist and even worst yet a mental disorder.  And while some Christians have made it a point to defend the stronger criticism we receive from people in places of authority, it doesn't effect the criticism we receive from the people without authority. We are often told that the only reason we get offended by ridicule of Christianity is because we don't actually believe it. As if that's the only reason we can be offended and it's not because our Lord and savior is being maligned a fashion He does not deserve. As if it's not because we feel that Christ is sacred to us and hold Him in high regards? No, we're offended because we don't actually believe any of it is true...Right.

According to The Bible...

All too often nowadays I'll be on Facebook and all of a sudden one of these images will pop up on my wall. These images are usually very short, simple texts and or pictures that make several statements regarding Christianity in a mocking, snarky fashion as if to say "Checkmate Christians!". After I shake my head and chuckle at the foolishness of such images, the unfortunate and sobering reality dawns on me that there are people who think in such a fashion and THEREFORE I have to write an article dealing with the "arguments" put forth in the image in order to make the person who made the image think 2 twice about it next time. (not that it'd matter.) LET'S DIVE IN!