I got into a conversation with a dear right-wing conservative friend of mine. She is a practicing Christian, and declared that no “real Christian” would vote for Obama. She even went so far as to not allow someone with an Obama tee shirt on hold her baby. This is going to be a long election year.
My entire life I’ve been hearing about what “real Christians” do or don’t do, and I started to question some of them around the age of 15 (I was then told that “real Christians” don’t question what their parents tell them.)
The list of what people say “real Christians” do and don’t do is extensive, and I’m pretty sure that if everyone that I’ve heard is correct, there are, in fact, no real Christians at all, anywhere.
I started listing them with a friend of mine who had grown up in the same repressive, un-joyful Christian way that I was and has, like me, put distance between herself and her joyless parents.
This was what we came up with (through several fits of laughter).
Real Christians don’t own TVs, have cable, have MTV, go to movies, go to movie rental stores or watch movies at all. They don’t listen to “hard rock” music, “rock music”, or “soft rock” music. (Actual quote from my pastor: “I’ll hit you with a ’soft rock’ and then you tell me if it hurts.”) They don’t listen to secular music, either. Real Christians don’t listen to “hard rock” Christian music, Contemporary Christian music, Christian music with a beat or Christian music with musical accompaniment. They don’t listen to jazz.
Real Christians don’t go to public school, secular private schools, Christian private schools, or homeschool. (Really!) On the other hand, only homeschoolers are real Christians.
Real Christian women don’t wear men’s clothing in public, wear men’s clothing at all, or wear clothes that look like men’s clothing. They don’t wear bright colors, drab colors, or jewlery or makeup. Real Christain don’t worry about looking fashionable, conversly, they would never leave the house without looking fabulous. They don’t wear pants, they don’t wear shorts, they don’t wear bikinis. They don’t wear one piece bathing suits, they don’t swim at all. Real Christian women don’t wear skirts that hit higher than two inches above the knee, show the thigh, show the knee, show the shin, or show the ankle. They don’t worry about wearing skirts or pants, because worrying about such a thing is very “un Christian”. They don’t work outside of the home, they don’t work outside of the home when they have children, and they don’t earn money. Also, yes, they do. They go to college, they don’t go to college, they graduate highscool, and they don’t go past eighth grade. They use birth control, they only use natural birth control, and they don’t use birth control at all. Real Christian women don’t have short hair, don’t have wild hair, and don’t show their hair to anyone except their husbands. They don’t cover their hair, either, and they only cover it when in prayer. They don’t color their hair, and they don’t color their hair pink (I tried once). They don’t pierce their ears, they don’t pierce their ears more than once, they don’t pierce anything but their ears. They don’t have tattoos. They only have Christan tattoos if any.
Real Christians don’t do yoga, don’t do pilates, and don’t have acupuncture done. They don’t use herbs healing, they only use herbs for healing, they don’t use modern medicine, and they don’t use ancient medicine. They don’t have doctors of the opposite gender, they don’t have doctors at all, they don’t eat meat, and they are not strictly vegetarian as that would be insulting to God who gave us many delicious animals. They don’t eat pork, they don’t eat organic, they DO eat organic and they don’t keep Kosher like the Jews, who are still waiting for the Messiah. They DO keep Kosher because it’s in the Bible.
Real Christians don’t speak in tongues, except when they do.
We kind of got lost on the whole book of Revelations. Apparently there’s a school of thought called Pre-something and a school of thought called Post-something that has to do with “End Times” (which are upon us, coming, and have already past hundreds of years ago.) We tried to get our pastor friend to explain it to us, and got confused even further.
“Add that to the list,” I said. “Real Christians understand the Bible.” So we did.
At this point I poured us each a glass of wine which reminded us to add, “Real Christians don’t drink alcohol.” to the list.
And then we gave up!
