The Young Christians Are Becoming the Bullies, Not the Bullied

What is happening to the American church?

Until I became a teenager and was lured away by the all the temptations of the modern world — I used to claim I left the church because its views on homosexuality clashed with the love I had for my gay friends and relatives, and while it did in fact clash, the real reason, I can admit now that I’m older, was definitely puberty, and the whole not-til-marriage thing — I essentially lived at my church. I even wanted to be a youth minister. Like many people, I found clarity, purpose and community in my church. I was not raised in a particularly religious family, so I came across God on my own. I was a searching child, looking for meaning, for a connection to something bigger than myself, and in a small rural Midwestern town, church was the logical place. But it was not just a club to me. I was a true believer. Church was my whole life — my primary direction.

Thusly, I would hang out with other Christian kids all the time, and we discovered, quickly, that when we went out together in the actual world, our beliefs did not provide us much comfort: It mostly got us targeted. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, being one of the God Kids was a great way to get yourself shoved in a locker. Being into Jesus was the opposite of cool; it was a sign of weakness…