I like to consider myself pretty open-minded. It's been a long time since I've been truly shocked at anything I've seen or read about on the web. However, every so often I come across a news story or a clip that blows my naive mind waaaay open.There's a YouTube video doing the rounds today entitled "Heath in H*ll". There's absoLUTEly no way I'm going to link to that disturbing video here, but if you feel inclined, you can do a little legwork on YouTube to find it.
The basic gist of it was that a particular church in the United States is so incensed at the thought of Ledger 'promoting' the gay lifestyle (by being associated with Brokeback Mountain) that they are saying they will picket his funeral if it is held anywhere other than England or Australia - and let's just say Fred Phelps (I presume he is the pastor at this particular church) has less-than-complementary words to describe both of those countries - my country! Whether you agree or disagree with Ledger's artistic choices - and they are artistic, not personal - I think you'd agree that Phelps has taken a flying-leap off the edge of reason with this kind of unwarranted venom.
There are many, many things I find disturbing about this clip. Too many to list. But I will say one thing.
Religion doesn't factor as prominently in our national identity as, say, the United States. We have a vibrant Christian community if you look in the right places, but we don't wear our religious affiliation on our sleeves and there is no such thing as the Australian Bible Belt. I would hazard a guess and say that non-believers down here probably already think Christians are a little cuckoo. People who believe things 'without evidence'.
Folks who begin to have questions about Christianity are left with two options. One, they can source the Australian pastors and their multimedia on the web (and there are some great ones, but nothing like the level in the States) or ask their local pastors, or they're left with what they see portrayed by American evangelists.
A genuinely-interested person wanting to know more about God, is instead getting Fred Phelps. Hardly the best advertisement for the Christian faith, is it?
We're more laid back in general in Australia. We take things as we see them. So when we're continuously seeing Christianity portrayed by the very non-Christian-behaving 'hate-monger pastors', it makes us want to run far, far away. Friends and family who are not on the same faith journey already have this jaded picture of Christianity in their minds, making it all the harder for new believers to wade through all the muck that is new-found faith. If we say we are now Christian, and the only image of Christianity our relatives have in their minds is of the enigmatic and very hard-spoken 'mega church' evangelists, then they're going to think we are completely and utterly crazy. Like call-the-white-coat-people insane.
So yes, this clip upsets me. Because I know that it is not all like that. I regularly access some great Australian resources in this area and just to prove that I'm not anti-US on this matter (LOL), there's a great little podcast called Wrestling With The Basics that I listen to which suits me just fine - these guys don't take themselves too seriously :) And that's not even counting the hundreds of wonderful blogs out there, the majority of which are American :)
It would be nice to silence the Phelps' of this world though. They're doing more damage than good.
Note: Before you go in search of Phelps' poisonous clip, let me just say, it's pretty full-on in its language, and probably not safe for young readers/viewers. And there's been such a backlash on YouTube over this that there are several 'rebuttals', some of whom are very open in what they themselves believe. I personally claim NEITHER side of the fence, but it should be pointed out that I have not watched any of these rebuttals and so I can't testify as to their contents - they could be pretty vile in language and could be out of alignment in what you personally believe. But let's play fair folks :)
Cheers,
Lizzie
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