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October 31, 2006

"People always focus on the loud minority who ruins everything"

There's a webcomic I read a great deal called Something Positive, drawn by Randy Milholland.

It's not a webcomic I will recommend to the broader populace. It's really not "positive." It might well be the most misanthropic story ever told, and it has been since the very first comic. It is about a comprehensive, equal opportunity offender (not to mention, from time to time, hideously obscene and vulgar - the comic I link above is one of the mildest ones, honestly).

But at the center of the story is a Southern Baptist patriarch - Fred MacIntire - who can be a curmudgeon, a bitter soul, potty-mouthed, who has never had as much interest in church as his late wife - but who genuinely believes and has shown grace to the most unexpected people at the most unexpected times. I first really started to get Fred's character in the midst of this story about the MacIntire's church getting taken over by a money-woman - one of the most moving drawings I have ever seen was the couple sitting quietly in the church despite the damage they'd taken. (It's even more moving knowing that Fred had less than a year with his wife left at that point - and that Fred has Alzheimer's and never got up the nerve to tell Faye. Warning - that last comic involves Fred's son Davan, and is therefore VERY potty-mouthed).

So that brings us to the current story. The widower Fred, now shaking off the shackles of his overprotective daughter, is going to a Haunted House. Only this isn't just any Haunted House.

If you dare, read forward from there. The story has ten parts. Part 6 is especially devastating - and I'm pretty sure seeing something like that would send me over the edge too. Obviously, there's more than a bit of gleeful ripping on fundamentalism here.

But this is the most devastating part: At the point where everybody is doing their "oh that was awful let's go somewhere and have fun", Fred stands up and witnesses. And he gets stunned at the response.

It strikes me that this foul-mouthed and misanthropic webcomic drawer has drawn, quite simply, the most believable Christian I've ever seen in any media, sacred or secular.

And then I read the newspost below. And it's pretty troubling.

...to my Christian readers: I am sorry. I am sorry many of you do get stereotyped or find yourself having to defend your faith against those who've been jaded by the [crazy-as-a-bat] insane. More than a couple of you (and one or two people who'd never read my comic before and only read enough of the archives to justify feelings of persecution without realizing I attack pretty much everything, but to you I don't apologize - to you I offer [something I won't bother to mention on a family blog]) felt this storyline was portraying Christians as the likes of Phelps. This was not my intent. However, I have some awful news for you.

The problem of being lumped with them won't go away until you become more vocal.

People assume most Christians are heavy-handed, pushy, intolerant bigots bent of dominating any other culture or idea and supplanting it with their own whims because, for the most part, the ones who speak up the most ARE heavy-handed, pushy, intolerant bigots bent on dominating any other culture or idea and supplanting it with their own whims. It sucks. It's horrible. And it's the what everyone of any faith, political idea, or lifestyle has to deal with. People always focus on the loud minority who ruins everything. And like any other group, the only way you can combat this is making your views and, in this case, your kindness and actual testimony louder than the hateful prattle of those hurting your beliefs.

I could go on about my history with Christianity (yes, I was once a Christian. I even, as a teenager, drew comics for a Christian Magazine called TeenQuest - TQ - published by Shepherd Ministries)- but I have a date tonight and it's Halloween. Maybe another time.

I'm not going to stand here and tell you that I'm something I'm not, here. I am an evangelical. I buy into the Great Commission. I believe in making disciples, not just of this nation but of all nations.

But: You're reading the words of somebody who once believed, and who no longer believes, and who you can be pretty confident no longer believes in part because he became embarassed to be associated with all the blowhards around him who believed.

Christianity is about Jesus first and foremost. But we remain the body - the Bride - of Christ. And we have an obligation to represent Jesus as best we can. And I simply can't shake the feeling that, in this day and age, we do a flat-out horrible job of it.

And why do I need a foul-mouthed comic to remind me of this?

Posted by Chuck at October 31, 2006 09:32 PM

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