by Eli Chisholm

Created on: March 12, 2010

Someone once said, "I've got no problem with God, it's his fan club that gives me all the problems."  And that's really no surprise; we are, after all, merely fallible humans, driven to instinctively fear things we don't understand or that falls outside our scope of experience.  One of the traits of nobility in a human is the ability to embrace the unknown, rather than reject and hate it.

Hatred in religion is nothing new.  For every good man or woman that practices the faith, there are those that use it as a means to forward or legitimize their own fears, prejudices, or hatreds.  "Burn in hell."  "Your actions will bring you damnation."  "God hates fags," is probably the most stark of any of the denunciations uttered or posted on signs. Jesus warned Christians of people like this, that used the coverings of faith to hide their own corruption:  "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.  Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.  Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.  Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.  Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness."(Matthew 23:13-15, 25-28)

Jesus struck out at injustice, at those who were in a position of religious power and clout, and took them to task for abusing their positions and authority for their own wicked ends.  He had to do it, since at the time, due to the Law, there was nobody else who had the authority to do so.  But time and time again, Jesus rises up and denounces the Pharisees and Sadducees, the teachers of the law and the  high priests, for practicing hypocrisy, acting in manners that went counter to the will and word of the Lord, and masking their inner corruption with their faith.

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