That's me in the spotlight/ Losing my religion

It's a well known fact amongst those I'm closest to that I am, unashamedly, a Gleek. I love the show. However, this evening's episode brought several things to light for me.

Basic synopsis: One of the characters makes a grilled cheese sandwich which he perceives to have an image of Jesus on one side. This leads him to start claiming Christianity and praying to "Grilled Cheesus." He treats the sandwich like a genie and, coincidentally, the sandwich seems to grant his wishes. Meanwhile, another character's dad has a heart attack, and the other members begin talking about that "spirituality stuff", which generally just leads to whatever religion they were raised in. This prompts one of the students to file a complaint with the school board so that religious songs cannot be sung in Glee club.

Facebook is now teeming with comments on how offensive and wrong this episode is, how they've misconstrued Christianity into a bunch of yahoos that believe in a "Santa Clause for adults."

This got me to thinking; don't we? The majority of "Christians" that I know DO treat Jesus like a genie, like a great power that exists primarily to grant all of our wishes. When our wishes don't come true, we respond in one of two ways: We denounce Christianity, or we rationalize with some form of a "not His will" comment.

In the episode, the character who's dad was hospitalized is gay. He makes the statement, "I don't go to church because most churches aren't very friendly to gay people." How true is that? Most every sermon I've heard in the last year has negatively referenced homosexuality in some form. In turn, we've labeled ourselves as self-righteous, arrogant legalists who uphold our laws and don't have any need for loving those whom we deem unworthy. Is this Christ-like?

Actually, on this note, let me rant for a minute. We as Christians are admonished to love unconditionally and accept people as they are. I have many gay friends, many of them professing Christians. They know what the Bible says (some better than me), and I know that God is to be their only judge (let he who is without sin cast the first stone), so why is it that the body of Christ can't seem to love these people? Moreover, why are they the subject of so many sermons? Why not prostitutes, or thieves? In fact, lets bring it closer to home: Why not gluttons? Why don't we condemn the "turn or burn" preachers who fail to disciple or the Christian that doesn't give of his resources cheerfully? Why are we instead making the gay and lesbian demographic feel as though they are worthless and God can't love them? This year, there have been four suicides (that I know of) that were directly related to the condemnation of the person's sexual orientation. HOW CAN WE LET THIS CONTINUE? The fact is that we have succumbed to the same CULTURAL misgivings that led preachers in the 1700s to own slaves and expel blacks from their churches. Anyway...

Ultimately the show ended, not surprisingly, with a resounding Universalist message. The whole thing just further proves that people need a god, something to hold on to, especially in times of trouble. So where do we fit into all of this?

As a side note, by claiming Christianity we are identifying ourselves with the same group of people that led the Crusades, the majority of history's wars, the Spanish Inquisition, and produced people like Pat Roberson and Benny Hen. So it shouldn't surprise anyone when the rest of the educated population wants nothing to do with us.