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Christ empowered his followers to clothe the naked, feed the hungry and tend to the sick. For some reason American Christians have decided that these explicit dictates should he ignored, much like the reminder that it is not their role to judge, so that they can instead focus on bigotry.
- That's pretty much the entire history of Christianity.
  
  It's really not.
  The corrupt nature of the Church as an institution exists to take advantage of the naive humanitarianism of its fellowship.
  People, by and large, do want to help their neighbors and provide for the young and the elderly. Modern prosperity gospel Christianity and historical Catholicism/Protestantism hasn't change human nature. People in the church still pursue benevolent goals. It only pollutes human perception and education, by misallocating resources intended to improve society.
  
  I think they're using "Christianity" to refer to the institution.
  
  No, it isn’t. For most of history most Christians were taking care of those around them. It is with industrialism and Calvinism that we see people move away from this.
  The infuriating part is a different beared Jewish guy tried to put into practice these ideals and the USA fought to stop it everywhere.
  
  Dude, a guy named Constantine literally started this modern Christiandom train rolling with his “Hey guys, I just met Jesus, and he told me I should be in charge now. So, I’m king, ordained by heaven, and we’ll enforce this new order with lots of violence.”
  And he and his successors then proceeded to conquer territory, and then mint coins depicting a soldier holding a cross and smashing the head of his enemy under his boot. In hoc signo vinces.
  And thus Christian imperialism, conquest, subjugation, and terror has marched along ever since. Lest ye forget the Crusades and the Inquisistion, for example.
  Yes, there’s beauty and kindness in the Christian tradition as well. But let’s not pretend that it was all huggy-bunches-of-love until Calvinism showed up.
  
  Constantine literally started this modern Christiandom train
  Constantine ended the institutional persecution of monotheists within the Roman empire. The apostolic church had been groving along well before that.
  The end to formalized persecution gave Christians an opportunity to begin organizing openly - leading to the Ecumenical Councils that would define the church as an institution for the next two millennium. But the foundations were all in place well beforehand.
  And thus Christian imperialism, conquest, subjugation, and terror has marched along ever since.
  The Church, as a military power, has always been mediocre at best. Rome itself was gutted during the transfer of the court to Byzantium. And this laid the seeds for the Roman Orthodox split, which divides the church to this day.
  The Western empire dissolved into feudal states, with Catholicism and the Church operating as a kind of diplomatic corps and patronage network for European aristocrats.
  It wasn't until the emergence of Protestantism, following the failure by the Hapsbirgs to consolidate power during the 30 Years War, that capitalist expansion began to produce imperialism in the modern sense.
  The conquest and subjection that followed was in pursuit of economic growth via slavery and plunder. The church existed to help rationalize these economic pursuits, but the priesthood was secondary to the merchant classes in actually executing it.
  
  The Renaissance occurred when Greek scholars in the Ottoman Empire were exiled by Islamic extremists, thus bringing the knowledge of antiquities to Europe.
  When Islamic extremism reached India, the Moguls were about to be overthrown when the British turned up.
  
  When Islamic extremism reached India, the Moguls were about to be overthrown when the British turned up.
  Wait, what?
  
  It’s sad how many downvotes you have while being correct while the other poster has a bunch if upvotes while being really off the mark.
  
  Well Constantine convened the council of nicea to codify his rule and leave out a lot of the Bible, so there's that.
  
  We'll also note that their supposed god claim never chimes in to distance himself from these people.
  
  Dude, a guy named Constantine literally started this modern Christiandom train rolling with his “Hey guys, I just met Jesus, and he told me I should be in charge now. So, I’m king, ordained by heaven, and we’ll enforce this new order with lots of violence.”
  Constantinus was the Emperor of Rome before he converted the Empire. He did not create the notion of the Divine Right to Rule. His conversion was entirely politically motivated as it happens near his death.
  Calvin is the one that promotes the notion that wealth is a sign of God’s love which is the opposite of what Jesus taught.
  Why did you reply authoritatively if your understanding of this subject is so poor?
  
  It wasn't Calvin it was Luther. And he was quoting Saint Augustine.
  Calvin said that although the righteous were selected and so charity would not gain brownie points to heaven, the selected would do charitable works because they were the select.
  Martin Luther just opposed all charity.
  
  You need to brush up on your history then. The church's history is largely violently forcing others to convert and using the Bible to persecute those they don't like.
  
  That is entirely unrelated to the fact that most Christian communities did in fact try to clothe, feed and tend those that needed it. Most humans will try to ease the suffering of those they know in their communities if they can because most aren’t so cold hearted
  
  I dont understand why your down voted.
  Christian institutions = \ = christian followers.
  a few hundred years ago homeless people and veteran carried tokens that enabled them to be given free food and help at churches.
  Paster Damian died of leprosy after 11 years of helping others with the sickness, tending their wounds, sharing food and digging graves. He kept doing so while he was sick.
  The catholic church as an institution absolutely is evil but that does not automatically make believers or individual priests so.
  History is Littered with proof of this. Science denying is not the answer to religious bigotry.
  
  The fact is for most of history you wouldnt have left your county so you actually were more inclined to be closer with people you might not have loved because of expediency. You aren’t going to chow down on seconds if you know your neighbor is starving unless you are a psychopath and most humans aren’t.
  
  After all the murder and violent colonialism, kind of makes it a moot point, eh?
  
  No, because the point that all the bigots are missing is that religious people are generally no different than other people. If you see a starving kid you aren't going tosit in front of them chowing down. You will, presuming you aren't on the ASPD spectrum or starving yourself, feed that kid.
  Most humans did this . Most humans do this. You have to raise them to believe helping others is wrong and that enters Protestant Christianity through Calvinism.
  
  So, by your own logic, religion is not required to help people, so why does that forgive Christianity for its holy wars and violent crusades?
  
  No, you have just completely misinterpreted my comment a second time
  
  Or perhaps you just refuse to notice your blind spots.
  
  No, I know what I wrote. Im not sure why or how you could think otherwise.
  We should stop here.
  
  Your statements don't align with reality, which isn't surprising because religion doesn't align with reality.
  
  Are you so prejudiced that ypu think most people would not give food to their neighbors if they were starving? Are the people around you that horrible?
  
  I'm talking about Christians, not most people.
  
  So then yes you are either that bigoted or the people around you are abnormally indescent. Most people won't let people they kind of know starve. It has nothing to do with faith. The evangelicals who buy into the prosperity gospel do this because of the aforementioned Calvinism.
  
  Not at all. I'm not saying there's not good Christians; I'm saying they're the minority and aren't representative of the religion as a whole.
  People have been using religion as a justification for hate, pain, and misery since religion was invented, and Christianity isn't any different. I'm not sure why you think this is a recent change.
  Plus, only helping people you know or kinda know doesn't make you a good Christian. The majority of people, Christian or not, have no problem ignoring the needy if helping them would inconvenience them in any way.
  
  So yes you are that bigoted. That's something for you to work on.
  
  Ever heard of The Crusades?
  
  You mean where muslim invaders were cast out of Europe ?
  
  Yes what relevance does that have to the willingness of people to take care of their neighbors?
  
  Holy wars and misogyny aren’t a requirement for people to help their neighbors.
  
  You keep trying to steer this to stuff I am not talking about at all, why?
  
  Because you’re avoiding the real issues that people have with religion.
  
  So you are incapable of holding a normal discussion then. Why are you here?
- Every movement in history has hypocrites that follow it, and give the movement a bad name. Lumping "American Christians" together and then judging them based on the worst people who adopt that title is creating a straw man.
  All American Christians that I know try and follow what you pointed out in your first sentence.
  The statement on judging however is a bit misguided, Jesus didn't say to never judge, but to be careful to avoid hypocrisy and to judge with love.
  
  At this point a substantial portion of self identified Christians in America are supporting some ideologies and programs that are the opposite if Christ’s teachings. It isn’t a small part. It might even be close to the majority.
  
  Yeah, that's true and it's very upsetting that so many hypocrites would exist within the wider church. I'd argue that someone that doesn't follow the teachings of Christ isn't a Christian at all since that's literally what the word means.
  
  The catch is for many of these their Churches are telling them thiscis the message of Christ
- Expecting Christianity to base their actions on Jesus is like expecting the Nestle corporation to base their actions on the Quik Bunny.

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