‘Jesus Lovers’ Need Not Apply
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I like to consider myself to be a pretty open-minded person. Okay, very open-minded.
How so, you ask?
Well…I suppose politically, for one.
I generally avoid political convos — I am scarred from my Dad being incapable of having political conversations without absolutely losing his shit…but…if I were forced to classify myself politically, I’d say I’m liberal…?
…I think marijuana should be 100% legal everywhere. Aside from the obvious benefits and myriad of helpful uses that it has, and the fact that it is natural and non-addictive (yes, yes, I realize this is highly debatable — I am only speaking about my own personal opinion), think of all the money that could be made off of the sale of legal marijuana and used to help teachers or to improve healthcare or fix a billion financial issues in this country…the list of reasons that it should be legalized goes on. Plus, COME ON — its fucking pot, not meth. HOW is it not already legal EVERYWHERE???
…Abortion should be a non-issue — it should be legal and available for all women-PERIOD. It boggles my mind how there is even a question about whether a woman should get to choose to have an abortion or not — who the fuck else should make that decision? Old, white, Republican men? Ummm, NO. So, obviously, I am pro-choice and I will say nothing else on this because I get way too heated. And yes, I have had an abortion and I do not regret it and if someone had tried to stop me and told me that it was not my choice I would have LOST MY DAMN MIND. Okay. Done.
…ANYONE and EVERYONE should be allowed to get married. I do NOT understand how anyone believes that they have the right to decide who is or isn’t allowed to get married. Gay, straight, bisexual, transgender — love is love is love. And if two people want to legally bind themselves together (personally, I do not recommend it), then Mazel Tov!!! Why is this even an issue??? (Okay, I know its a religious thing — don’t worry, I’m getting to my strong feelings on that momentarily.)
So, that’s not a ton of examples to support my liberalism and self-proclaimed open-mindedness but they are really the only three items that I feel strongly enough about or educated enough about to publicly comment on at this time.
HA.
In general, I tend to lean way to the left in all matters, political or otherwise…I believe in climate change and global warming (its fucking SCIENCE people); I think there should be a much better and more attainable path to legal citizenship; I believe that healthcare and higher education are, and should be, treated as basic human rights; etc, etc.
So…here’s my dilemma…if I am so open-minded and liberal, why do I have such a strong aversion to self-proclaimed and devout Jesus Lovers?? (I realize that may not be a very ‘PC’ title…but I am not sure what else to call these individuals?)
The immediate and excessive eye-rolling that occurs when I encounter people who take every word of the Bible to heart or publicly refer to themselves as ‘Jesus Lovers’ makes me feel pretty judgmental and not-so-openminded — which I am not proud of and do not like about myself!
Let me give you an example.
I was browsing Medium today and came across an article that caught my eye.
I clicked on it and was about to start reading when I noticed the little blurb next to the author’s picture at the top, the personal description or whatever, said: ‘Jesus Lover’.
CLICK! (That's the sound of me immediately closing the article without reading a single word.)
All because the author described herself as a Jesus Lover.
Which gave me pause…because, as someone who considers themselves to be open-minded and liberal, that is a pretty closed-minded thing to do.
Just because this woman openly loves Jesus, does that mean what she has to say or write about holds no value or is wrong?
Hmmm…I’m going to go ahead and annoyingly answer my own rhetorical question, therefore making it not rhetorical in the least and say, yes.
I’m not saying that she is a bad person. Or that she is unintelligent. Or that I dislike her.
But…the fact that she publicly announces and defines herself by her love for Jesus Christ means that I struggle to take her opinions or her input seriously.
Okay, but before you decide to hate me and my Jesus-judgy-ness, let’s explore this a bit…
I am not an expert on religion by any means — I have vacillated between being Jewish, agnostic, or an atheist my whole life.
My sister and I were technically raised Jewish. My Mom was Jewish, raised by two Russian Jews, and my Dad was…well, atheist, I think?
He was raised Catholic, brought up by an Italian Catholic mother and went to Catholic school for much of his life. (Which is probably why he is now an atheist.)
But religion falls into one of the few categories of topics that I do not breach with my Dad — religion, sex, and politics. All no-no’s. So, who knows what Dad is.
Either way, we were raised Jewish-ish.
Which means we celebrated Hannukah (I can even recite the entire Hannukah prayer in Hebrew to this day, thank you very much); we went to temple on the High Holidays; we celebrated Passover and did the whole long-ass meal with hiding the matzoh and all that…but that was about the extent of our Judaism.
I did go to Hebrew School for a few years but as it grew closer to the time when I would need to start preparing for a Bat Mitzvah, my Mom asked if I would rather continue with Hebrew School and have a Bat Mitzvah or continue taking horseback riding lessons.
HA.
I promptly threw my Hebrew School books out the window and never looked back as I galloped off on my horse. (Okay, not literally, but something pretty close to that scenario occurred.)
Anyways…religion never really played a big role in my life after that. I think I’ve been to church once — on Christmas Eve or something with a friend in high school.
WAIT — nope. We were going to go to church for Midnight Mass but we only made it as far as the parking lot of the church.
We had smoked a joint on the drive from my house to the church and had a serious case of the giggles and were in no condition to walk inside a church that was jam-packed with Christmas Eve folk.
So, I’ve been to the parking lot of a church during midnight mass. Close enough.
Still — none of this explains my extreme aversion to people who so openly and whole-heartedly declare their love for Jesus and live their lives according to everything that the Bible says.
I mean, I am sure they are very nice people and since I do not personally believe in this magical man who rises from the grave every Easter or, wait, is that not how the story goes? He is resurrected on Christmas Eve? Easter?
CLEARLY, I DON’T KNOW and quite honestly, I find all of it to be exactly that — a story.
And while I love to read stories, or even write stories, I don’t believe in stories (especially fairly ridiculous stories) as a guiding principle for my life. I believe in science. I believe in exploring a variety of concepts and ideas from many different religions or spiritual groups.
But I do not believe in living my life by the teachings of the Bible or by Jesus Christ. Gay marriage is wrong? A wife will obey her husband? No thank you.
And I simply cannot take anyone who wholeheartedly believes in these ideas seriously.
Which means that I probably just pissed off a lot of people…but…eh. If you’re a good Christian, you’ll forgive me, right?
Here’s the thing…I did have a bad experience with a very devout Christian friend when I was younger and perhaps this has shaped my view of hard-core Jesus Lovers as being closed-minded fools…
Sometime in the late 1990s: Me and my best friend, Caroline, were playing in my basement. We used to set up jumps, like horse jumps, all over my basement and gallop around, jumping over them, and pretending that we were showing our horses that we actually rode in real life. I can’t even properly explain this and it sounds incredibly absurd as I type it out but just go with it -
Anyways, we were innocently playing ‘horse show’ when Caroline started crying, like, full-on bawling — completely out of nowhere. I was stunned and rushed to her side trying to comfort her — what’s wrong?? What happened? Are you hurt? Etc.
After many minutes of crocodile tears (am I using that correctly? I have always loved the saying but never known exactly how to use it), she finally looked up at me and said, “I’m just so scared for you and sad for you.”
To which I replied with a bewildered look on my face, “Why?”
“Because you’re going to burn in hell because of your Jewish blood.”
Ummmmm….come again?
She was dead-ass serious.
After realizing that she wasn’t kidding, I promptly kicked her out of my house (she lived down the street, calm down), and we never spoke again.
This was my BEST FRIEND. And we were like 12 or 13 years old and she seriously believed that I was going to burn in hell for all eternity because my Mom’s side of the family was Jewish.
Fuuuuuuuck THAT.
And, maybe that’s where this critical view of Christianity stems from?
Come to think of it, I don’t know that I’ve ever really unpacked the whole experience or thought too deeply about how it shaped me until now…but I really do think that that was one of my first experiences with religious ignorance (or just plain ignorance) and it just turned me off of Christianity and anyone who is super devout or hardcore about religion in general.
Now, I can understand people who take bits and pieces from the Bible or use some ideas from Jesus Christ to guide their own behavior in a positive way…but I CAN’T, however, get behind someone who builds their entire existence and way of thinking off of these very stringent and closed-minded, not to mention ancient, ideas and stories.
SO, back to my initial question— can I consider myself to be an open-minded person if I am so quick to judge and write-off anyone who claims to be a hardcore Jesus Lover?
And furthermore - might I be missing out on a lot of great writing or art or music created by self-proclaimed Jesus Lovers if I am immediately turned off by those who deeply and truly believe in the teachings of the Bible and Jesus and describe themselves as ‘Jesus Lovers’?
Maybe.
It’s something I’m not done exploring…I don’t have all the answers yet.
Or really any answers, for that matter.
Ha.
But…I think I’d take the opinion, insight, and rhetoric of Bill Nye or Neil DeGrasse Tyson or any number of my favorite authors or, really, anyone with a scientific, progressive, accepting, and love-based way of thinking about the world over the teachings and rules put forth by Jesus Christ and the Bible any day…and, for now, I feel totally comfortable with that.
Even if it means that I am not as ‘open-minded’ as I claim to be.
