Dear People who use “Christians think/say/believe”,

Dear People who use “Christians think/say/believe”,

Can you please, please, please cite your source? It’s getting both boring, and tiresome to not only have to correct you repeatedly, but to also have to ask you “Where did you hear that?” or, “Who told you that?”, or say “Do we now?”.

I know that there is a current media image about what Christians Believe and it’s not really helped by some some people, however, please be aware that Christianity is a belief that is made up of denominations. Tarring everyone with the same brush is much like saying Everyone in the West Believes or Everyone in Russia thinks. It is both inaccurate, and factually incorrect. Being as most of these articles seem to come from people who claim that they are basing whatever anti-Christian/anti-faith rant on the line in question, it would be useful for the rest of the world if you could actual verify your facts about Christianity to the point where you named a denomination.

For example, “American Christians Hate Gays” is wildly inaccurate. The Episcopal Church (that’s the Anglican Church to those of you that live in England) have partnered Gay Bishops, partnered Lesbian Bishops, and have recently begun performing single-sex weddings. To say “English Christians Hate Gays” is also wildly inaccurate. The Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Anglican Church (for historic reasons, though there is no codified power. Provinces can choose to ignore him (and often do)) has simply called for a “Moratorium” (that is, a temporary ceasing) on any further advances on the issue of the issue of single-sex marriages because of the advances in American which happened far quicker than Africa was ready to accept.

That doesn’t even begin to look at what individual Anglican Bishops think, and that’s wildly different from what the Catholic Church says, and from what individual Catholics think, which is again different from (some) Catholic Bishops and monks. That is again completely different from the Baptists, the Methodists and so on, all of whom have an even looser structure. Then you have Pentecostal Churches, and free churches.

Then there are the churches which are essentially so far away from anything that people can simply proclaim themselves a minister, and if enough people accept them as a minister, the title sticks. These people often have no formal training, and often no formal education.

So, when you say Christians Believe without the qualifier please remember that you are being intentionally inaccurate. That gives Christians of all stripes the right to respond with atheists believe. Yes, I realise that atheists, by definition, do not believe, but I’m trying to show how important is it use the qualifier when speaking of Christians. The stripe of Christians are many and varied; and yes, that in and of itself is a valid criticism, but please, lets at least know which one of us your trying to criticise this time.

~BX