Why is it that out of almost all the religious and non-religious persons I know, I always seem to butt heads hardest with christians? I suppose in the interest of full disclosure I should say other christians. Yes, that’s right, I profess to be a christian, much to the dismay of my more conservative friends . . . And more liberal friends.

Ah, the peaceful buddhist. What has a buddhist ever done to you, really? Swept your walkway so you wouldn’t step on an ant? Perhaps he fixed you a dinner of healthy vegetables instead of slaughtering an animal and serving you a McDeath Deluxe.

And when is the last time a Hindu left you a “missed you at the Wednesday morning pancake breakfast by the way you’re going to burn in hell for eternity” message on your cellphone? Well?

Meanwhile, hippies and new-age crystal worshippers are too busy filling their hookahs in preparation for the solstice to bother reminding you that the abortion you had when you were 17 really did a job on Your Saviour. Personally, I’ve never had a Green Peace activist stand up during the business meeting and remind everyone that my recent divorce does in fact make me ineligible to be a deacon.

Perhaps the wrath of God bubbling under the surface of so many christians comes from the unique tenets of the christian faith. While buddhists, hindus, jews, agnostic humanists, and new-age tree huggers are called to be peaceful, loving, and forgiving, the christian is called to a much higher standard: righteousness.

The problem with this calling is that in truth, one can never be righteous enough. In fact, protestant christianity believes this so much as to have named a doctrine after it – sola fide – or justification through faith alone. That’s a damned fine theory until one observes that in practice, it’s not the joy of having been saved that get bible-thumpers hot and bothered, but rather the promise of hell and eternal suffering awaiting all others that really excites them.

What I mean to say is this–The focus of many evangelicals is not the saving grace involved in becoming a righteous person, but rather the consequence of such a state of grace. You see, in christian theology, God uses grace as a vehicle, not a end reward. It is His grace that draws us to him in such a way to make us want to live a righteous life out of love and gratitude. Thus, one living in the graces of the Lord is living according to His Will, which consequently means they are living a life of righteousness.

The fatal mistake, however, is that attention is paid to the end (the righteousness) rather than the means to the end (the grace.) Thus, you suddenly have an army of believers comparing their lives to the lives of depraved sinners, and erroneously concluding that they are christians because they are righteous, when in fact they are righteous because they are christians! It’s not a message of “start living right and get salvation” that should be shouted, but rather “get salvation and start living right.”

Thus, you end up with supposedly godly folks who, unlike the peaceful monks in Tibet or docile potheads of San Francisco, are so focused on the fact they didn’t covet their neighbor’s wife today that they forget that the absence of envy is merely the presence of grace.

Then again, it could simply be that they’re feeling guilty for shagging their secretary and seeing your lack of guilty fear just really pisses them off . . . But I digress.

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