My brother is a Christian. He used to be an alcoholic . . . but one divorce and a 12 step program later, he’s hopelessly addicted to the lord. He’s just as screwed up as he ever was but the chances of his destroying anyone else’s life through drunk driving is greatly diminished. I guess we should all sleep easier.
Sadly, God — or rather God speaking through his minister — has told him it’s ok to hate me. The minister has damned me to hell for not embracing the specific beliefs of his particular church as espoused from his particular pulpit. Actually, it’s more like a stage than a pulpit. I’m also damned because I’m a homo.
There was a brief time when my bro could manage condescention: ‘I love the sinner, but hate the sin,’ he’d say. But even that veneer of civility is gone now: I am dead to him. Sigh.
When we were kids he hated me because I was cute. When we were in school, he hated me because I was smart. For a couple of years after college we stayed drunk and got on pretty well. But then he hated me as an adult because I made more money than he did. Now he hates me because he loves the lord and the lord hates me; or so his minister says.
Here’s the thing: he has two sons. The oldest is 14 and in my brother’s words is becoming a challenge to love. I gather that his once a week parenting of the boy has consisted of forced praying, forced visits to church, forced preaching hellfire and damnation and a constant obsession with what the kid is doing wrong every minute of every day. The kid has put his foot down. He refuses to go over to visit his dad.
My Christian brother’s attitude is this: the boy is in sin. He’s not honoring his father. Until the kid acknowledges his sin, begs forgiveness and pays his father the respect he’s due, my brother wants nothing to do with him. ‘He can sit in his room and ROT for all I care,’ he said.
They have not seen each other for several months. I’ve begged my bro to reach out, be flexible, keep the door open, but he is filled with self-righteous indignation and sees the sinful son as a pariah. Meanwhile the boy has started to have difficulty at school and there’s a hint of drugs in the air. His mother has asked me to get involved: talk to him, listen . . .
I guess that makes sense. After all we’re both sinners in his father’s eye. And isn’t it a hoot that Dad’s hated gay brother gets to be the one who guides the kid through his diffcult teen years while Dad stays safe behind the walls of his faith.
That’s the thing about Christians: they have this damnable attitude that they have THE answer, that they are the only ones on the planet who know the truth, that the rest of us are sinful and dangerous and should be shunned. Or imprisoned. Or tortured. Or worse.
And I really shouldn’t single out Christians, either. Look at the Moslems! Really, look at most institutional religions: they share a belief that there is but one way to salvation/enlightenment, and that way is their way. And everything that is NOT their way 
is a threat.
The cross is a rigid organization of right angles, strong, unbroken, definite.
But humanity is not made up of right angles. We’re more spherical. Actually, more prune like: slimey and wrinkled and uneven. And like the lowly prune, that unevenness is the source of our beauty.
Religion is by nature, Tyrannical. Any time we surrender free will in favor of some larger power outside ourselves, we are being tyranized. Those who embrace the tyranny turn to tyranize those of us who stand outside the circle. My brother is tyranizing his son, and the boy will eventually hate him for it. He has judged me and in a sense, tyranized me too. All I can say is it certainly is a challenge to love him. I wrote this in 2004. What happened to my Bro? He became a raving right wing lunatic, filled with rage and hatred. I guess he’s still Christianized, but I don’t know because we have not spoken in ten years. The last time was Christmas 2014. I called him after a few years of silence. We had a polite chat that ended with me saying I had opened the door and the next step would be his, he’d have to reach out to me. He hasn’t. And what of the boys? Both went down the drug tunnel. The older one was so deep in it, Bro sent him to rehab. I paid for it, and the kid was high the day after he came home. That was it for me. He went on to be a dealer and eventually shot and killed a guy who was threatening him. The younger one did a little better, but makes my blood run cold. Last time I saw him, eight years ago, he sat across the table from me at Denny’s and stared holes in me as I struggled to find something for us to talk about. It was very uncomfortable and he knew it. And I knew that it was a skill he’d honed and used a lot: making adults uncomfortable. I left the lunch realizing that the kid was a psychopath.