I keep coming back to Ursula K. LeGuin's classic story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas".
In it there is a wonderful, happy utopia that requires just one single tiny injustice in order for everyone to enjoy the glorious benefits of their society. And most of the citizens either put the thought of that injustice from their mind, or else they rationalize it as being for the common good.
But a few cannot live with it, no matter how much they benefit from it.
And in the end, they have to walk away.
The people leaving the Christian church today are the ones walking away from Omelas.
I am a Christian. I believe in what Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount. I try -- with varying degrees of success, and often falling short of my best possible effort -- to live by those teachings.
As long as we let the bigots and the con-men and the slickee boiz have access to the TV cameras and microphones, we will drive people away from the Christian church.
And when we drive away people who have been raised in the faith -- or rather, raised in the most toxic sub-sets of the faith -- we cannot feign surprise when they finally see the truth, realized they have been lied to all their lives, and then turn with a vengeance on those who did the lying.
That's where the most militant anti-Christians are coming from.
Those who enjoy privilege are afraid they will enjoy it no longer. They are not afraid of mistreatment, they are afraid they will be held responsible for hurtful things they say and do to others whom they can safely ignore now. The outliers like the racist thug who shot up Charleston will commit worse and worse outrages.
According to current demographics, in 2048 the non-Hispanic white population in the US will be 49%. They are already below the crucial tipping point where either party can get elected just by appealing to white votes only; to achieve victory in the future a political party has to either cultivate non-white voters or suppress non-white voters.[1]
That’s the bottom line, white Christian America (especially we males): We may have not caused the problem, but if we refuse to take steps to correct it, if we deny it even exists, then we assume full responsibility for it and all the guilt that goes with it.
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[4/1] I'll leave it to the astute reader to decide which party does which.