This kind of thing? Is why I get uncomfortable re-embracing my Christian upbringing:

1) Pat Robertson on Haiti, which has just suffered a disaster of Lisbon earthquake proportions: Haitians are “cursed” because their
ancestors “swore a pact to the devil” to liberate themselves from the
French in 1804. “True story.”

— That’s right. CURSED. By GOD. Pat Robertson’s God is not my God.

2) Heidi Montag Pratt, avowed Christian who wanted to make a Christian music album, on something she decided to sing about: “Come eat my panties off of me / Do whatever you feel comes naturally.”

— Thump a bible one day, smut it up the next. If it gets you attention, that’s all that matters, because doesn’t God want it that way? Heidi Montag’s God is not my God.

And don’t even get me started on Brit Hume or Carrie Prejean, who hates the idea of gay marriage but thought that God wanted her to have breast implants and pose for semi-nude photos.

I know, I know, I know: these are not representative of Christians or Christianity. They are failures of Christianity, in their own ways – in the case of Robertson and Montag-Pratt, two very different ways – and I shouldn’t let their examples dissuade me from approaching Christianity with an open heart over the course of my spiritual journey.

But still. Identifying myself as being in community with the hateful Robertson and the vapid Montag? Not so compelling. I really need to look past this. How do faithful Christians – of any denomination – look past this kind of thing? You do look past it, right? Right?

Inquiring heart wants to know.