Q: How do you deal with the people who say they’re Christian, but use their “piety” to justify acting hateful / intolerant / judgemental toward others?

A: This is a great question; thank you for asking it. To be honest, it can be a real struggle. Especially as a public Christian theologian, it frustrates me greatly to see the label of “Christian” so often applied to some of the loudest, most intolerant voices in the public sphere. And in my day to day life, I have felt both anger and grief when people I know — especially family members or other people close to me — sometimes seem to have such radically different ideas from my own of what it means to be a Christian.

I don’t have a cut and dried answer for you — but I do have some advice, which I hope will be helpful.

Continue reading “Ask a Pastor: How to deal when people use faith to justify intolerance” →