TWITTER ESSAY

Dear religious conservatives,
Can we have a frank conversation about your paradigms and politics?

It feels as though it would be helpful to share with you how you look from outside your social and information bubble.
This isn't to demonize you, but to help you.
1/

First, you need to know that the Left doesn't hate you because you're Christian.

Frankly, I can't consider you Christians at all. I was raised religiously. I've read the Bible many times over and even preached it in my youth.

You don't resemble the Jesus I read about there.
2/

Something as central to Christianity as Jesus's Sermon on the Mount reads as antithetical to the aims and perspectives of modern religious conservatives.

Trump and his most ardent disciples are neither meek nor merciful, nor do they hunger and thirst after righteousness.
3/

I've read conservatives laud the Ten Commandments, but when Jesus was asked which was the greatest, he unequivocally said that the greatest commandment is to love God, and "that the second is like unto it: to love thy neighbor as thyself."

Let's discuss "Love thy neighbor."
4/

The disingenuous lawyer who had asked Jesus that trick question felt embarrassed, following it up with the query "Who is my neighbor?"

He was looking to NOT have to love other people. Who could he hate? Who could he harm?

The conservative right seems a lot like that lawyer.
5/

Jesus answered with the Parable of the Good Samaritan: an anecdote that deals directly with issues of poverty, justice, religious differences, and tribalism. The message was clear: Love those who aren't like you. Love those who you disagree with. Love EVERYONE.

That's Christ.
6/

When you tell us that you're Christians, you don't really mean that you're like Jesus at all, and we find that disheartening and off-putting.

When you talk up "religious liberty," you don't mean the freedom to eat kosher or wear sacred undergarments.

You mean bigotry.
7/

Why do you insist upon a religious "liberty" to harm other human beings? To fire transgender persons? To deny same-sex couples marriage licenses? To legislate the personal autonomy of women you've never met?

These don't seem to us to be issues of freedom but of oppression.
8/

It is strange to us that you claim your religious expression must necessarily harm others. That doesn't feel to us like either a legitimate freedom or, frankly, a desirable religion.

Why would your God insist that you hurt people?
Why would he punish you for another's life?

9/

In the grand cosmology of the universe that you espouse, it feels disingenuous to us that you focus so little on doing good and loving your neighbor, and focus so much on controlling other people's bodies. We fail to find a moral argument in such a paradigm. It feels wrong.

10/

We understand that you think being gay or transgender is a sin. What we don't understand is why you think it is your place to legislate or enforce your views on others' bodies and lives. You don't get condemned by God for another's theft. Why would you for another's sex life?
11/

We also really don't understand why you are so intolerant of LGBTQI persons, but are so willing to ignore or excuse the manifold sins, including sexual ones, of someone like Donald Trump.

It feels to us less that you're righteous than that you're just fearful and bigoted.

12/

We understand that many of you feel uncomfortable with Trump's personality and behavior, but you still vote for him, and you hated Barack Obama, a man who really was and is a fervent Christian loyal to his loving wife and model family.

We find that discrepancy problematic.

13/

I hear you when you declare that you feel besieged by secularism and progressive politics.

What, I might ask, though, is so egregious to Jesus Christ about asking police to stop shooting black people? Or to want an end to poverty in America? Or to treat women with respect?

14/

When we look at your "morality," it seems very little to resemble morality, and so very much to resemble a politics centered on retaining social and political power for, primarily, rich white men.

Are you moral or are you tribal?
Because you come across as immorally tribal.

15/

We are not hostile to your relationship to your God.
What we resist are your efforts to harm your fellow Americans in the name of a faith that so little resembles the teachings of Jesus Christ.

If you are a Christian, then follow his teachings and be a good person, please.

16/

There is room in America for all of us. Space is not a scarce commodity. Freedom is not a scarce commodity. Worship how you choose.

We ask, though, that you recognize others have rights to freedom and autonomy of choice and identity, as well.

We are ALL of us Americans.

17/

You don't need to see the Democratic Party as your enemy.
You have a place at the table as equals to all of us.

You can't insist, though, that other Americans have NO place at the table. That's the bargain we made to each other in the Constitution. Please abide by it.

18/

You are not hated.
You are not persecuted.
Your faith is not anathema to the social changes that are happening in our country.

Be you, but be respectful. Love your neighbor as yourself. Allow that our freedoms are inherent to those who are different from you. Just be kind.

19/

I hope that we can have meaningful and open conversations about your hopes and fears, and about who we all are, and about how we can co-exist.

We liberals strive toward a more perfect union that still includes you. Please accept our sincere invitation, our loved neighbors.

End/