Michaele Shapiro’s article brought to light the clash between a post-modern, liberal tolerance and the  seemingly narrow-minded, blinkered view of the conservative religious right.

What I want to do firstly, as a Baptist pastor, is to bring to the table the concept that not all Christians operate in such a fixed world, nor do all Christians respond with such rapid knee-jerk reactions.

What bothers me is that there are key words that will automatically provoke a vehement response from the religious right. With the media access granted to this bloc in the U.S., their views are much more clearly propagated than they are in Australia.

In an Australian context, I have to work to get a Christian voice heard and so I consider other people’s points of view; I listen; I dialogue; I seek to understand; I seek to persuade and I seek to build relationships and bridges. Does this mean that I compromise my worldview? By no means! Does it make me a liberal? I sincerly hope not. What it does mean is that I work hard to understand my own thinking and engage it with that of others.

It seems that in the U.S., the religious right, in particular, has a ready made populace who want to hear these views expounded and so they have become lazy in their thinking and rhetoric. It is particularly sad that they have missed the point in the SpongeBob SquarePants debacle and have opened themselves up to ridicule.

I find it irresponsible when Christians leap in with slogans and heated views and, then, when they are attacked, they file it away as “persecution.” The Christian worldview may be unfairly critqued at times, but often it has more to do with half-baked thinking than it has to do with any sense of attack.

Please understand that there is a core of Christianity that wants to engage at a deeper level. I am part of InTheFray to make my voice known and to learn from others. I believe, from my vantage point in Australia, that Americans need to be exposed to a broader range of media that doesn’t just reflect insular views dictated to by a culture that is still largely dominated by right-wing Christianity.