Monday, June 22, 2009

An Open Letter to Stand Firm in Faith

I note that my posting privileges at Stand Firm in Faith have been withdrawn. You would have saved me a significant amount of time had you had the courtesy to inform me of your decision. Courtesy, though, is not something which characterizes your site.

More and more you have become the ecclesiastical equivalent of Rush Limbaugh, inciting and nurturing hate towards any and all who differ from you, without, yourselves, contributing anything positive.

I notice that your recent targets are, again, Louie Crew and Mark Harris, two men of complete integrity who have served the church both in the United States and abroad. As you have done with Ernest Cockrell, Ann Fontaine, Lisa Fox, me and so many others, you have taken their words out of context and then invited in your host of fear and hate mongers for further vilification of good people. As Rush Limbaugh discovered some time ago, spreading hatred sells – what Rush has not learned yet is that spreading hatred in ways he and you do rots your souls.

Your latest attack on Louie Crew must have taken you a good bit of time, searching through Louie's enormous website to find the picture you posted of Louie and Ernest. That must have brought your gang a lot of snickers and laughs. The real laugh, though, is on you. Louie is perhaps the most generous, most compassionate and self-giving and kind lay person in the Episcopal Church – and has been for decades.

Your Christianity is not something one can recognize in Holy Scriptures. You represent a small, angry, fundamentalist segment of the Christian faith. The Christian church is far broader than your singularly narrow point of view – we are Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Quaker, Presbyterian, United Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Church of God, and on and on. Your belief that you stand above all other expressions of the Christian faith is ludicrous – compounded by your ignorance or disregard of the Beatitudes and the constant commands of Jesus Christ to love those with whom you differ.

Snickers and character assassinations do not a Kingdom make. They are only the outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual bankruptcy. It is well past the time to put away your childish fear and hate mongering and to apologize and to make amends for the enormous hurt and distrust you have sown. Put very simply, it is time to grow up.

Thomas B. Woodward

3 comments:

Robert said...

Well said Tom. Although I fear they will not hear you.

joseph651 said...

Thank you for not responding to there comments Stand Firm in Faith, Tom, I dust off my feet and turn my back on you people of little faith.

Thomas B. Woodward said...

Joseph, can you tell me more about what you are getting at with your comment? Clarification will help. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.
Tom