Evangelicalism is a violent expression of faith.
Whether it be the conversion of others and the subsequent condemnation of their religion and life, or waving the flag in heated hyper-nationalism and cheering on the dogs of war, or threatening children with hellfire and brimstone unless they quickly receive Jesus as their personal savior and be baptized, there is violence in the heart and soul of evangelicalism.
But violence demands compensation.
Even the most violent of people create for themselves some kind of an honor code to compensate for their otherwise sad lives.
Evangelicalism has crafted its honor code with a stance against abortion.
In its own backward and upside down way, evangelicalism portrays itself as kindly and faithful, loving and wise, and obedient to the gospel of god.
It's compensation ... and oddly enough, even here, evangelicals cannot escape their inclination to violence.
Even as they defend the "unborn," they threaten violence to the mothers who choose abortion, and to those who offer the procedure.
Ever here, rather than perhaps hanging their heads in sorrow and fleeing to the throne of mercy, evangelicals do the evangelical thing: violence.
Because of evangelical violence, this bizarre honor code is maintained with its own forms of violence - "You see how good we are? How loving of the unborn we are?"
Even as Second Amendment rights are touted from pulpit and podium, the flags of war waved against others who not of their own kind and the social disease of racism maintained as an expression of purity.
Violence on every hand is the evangelical way, and to compensate, evangelicals have crafted an illusion for themselves, that they love and protect the unborn.
And in so doing, unwittingly, have fled from God and turned to the task of their own justification - a decision that never ends well.
Those who live by the sword die by the sword ... those who embrace violence do violence to their own soul, and what's left is a ragged and angry human being who can't shake his or her own condemnation, no matter the honor code they self-create to compensate for their willful and deadly violence against others.
