Photo courtesy of Jon Tyson via Unsplash

It is a tale as old as time, people doing or saying something cruel to others in the name of Christianity, but it seems to be happening much more often in recent days.

I want to be very clear – this is not a blanket statement about all Christians or even the majority of them. I have several friends and family members who are very dear to me who are devout Christians. This is not about them, this is about those who spread hate in the name of Christianity or do nasty things and attempt to use their religion as justification for those actions.

In one of the most obvious examples, religion has been used to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people for decades now. A specific instance was a baker refusing to make a cake that was meant to celebrate the transitioning of a transgender customer. While I believe that private business owners have the right to serve whom they choose, I also believe that refusing to serve someone because their private life is supposedly “against their religion” is absurd. Actions like this not only create hostile environments for LGBTQ+ people, but they also normalize hate and encourage other like-minded individuals to be bolder in their hateful actions.

It is a near-universal experience for atheists and people who follow other religions to deal with Christians, either online or in person, who refuse to accept that there are other viewpoints in the world. At work, I’ve had multiple customers decide to hold up the line to try and preach to me and to convert me and my coworkers to their religion. I’ve always found people acting like this to be incredibly ironic, as many of the people who try to push Christianity on unwilling people are also the first to throw a fit when a person or entity even thinks of saying something that goes against their specific worldview.

Whenever pro-choice rhetoric or other supposedly “anti-Christian” issues are shared, often, hard-core Christians will come out in droves, begging to “not have it shoved in their face,” when many of these same people are guilty of doing that exact thing just to push their religion.

Former Major League Baseball pitcher, Curt Schilling, is a prime example of a Christian using his religion to justify poor actions. Schilling has been embroiled in constant controversy for the last 15 years from his 38 Studios debacle in Rhode Island to his comments on the Jan. 6 riots; he has kept media attention on him even after his retirement.

Most recently, he revealed to the world that his former teammate Tim Wakefield and his wife, Stacy Wakefield were both fighting cancer. He admitted that he did not believe they wanted this information shared but in his words: “As a Christian and a man of faith, I have seen prayer work, so I’m going to talk about it.” Schilling revealed intimate details about the Wakefields’ health struggles, including the fact that Tim had surgery and that Stacy had pancreatic cancer.

Tim Wakefield died from cancer just three days after Schilling publicized his diagnosis, and Stacy Wakefield died five months later on Feb. 28. Two people who did incredible charity work for the Jimmy Fund, a Boston-based child cancer charity, were deprived of peace in their final days because of Schilling’s actions, all in the name of his God.

Many Christians, like the ones I have mentioned, have good intentions when they act, but they consistently justify their actions with their religion. The shortsightedness of some of these people prevents them from realizing how their actions impact others. Until Christians stop imposing their religion on others in this way, people will continue to suffer due to their ignorance and the hubris of these Christians.