The New Christianity: Be Nice to the Left, Smear the Right<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
A while back I wrote a tongue-in-cheek column entitled "Say Something Nice," relating to a campaign started by Mitch Carnell, a leader at the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />First Baptist Church in Charleston, SC, who wanted Christian groups to say nice things about each other.
 
In it I said that I was following Mitch's idea to always say nice things about everyone, so when my young son asked me about Adolf Hitler, I said only nice things about him and as a result, my son now admires Hitler. (No relation with reality here).
 
Recently Mitch showed his true colors in a press release sent by email to members of Christian Newswire, in which he not only compares a woman with a Christ-killer for not dialoguing with him but in fact tells an unflattering story about his own father, at variance with God's 5th Commandment (while in the same article saying Christians must be respectful to one another). It seems this woman had asked him a rhetorical question in an email and when he tried to respond, she had blocked him.
 
He writes:
 
This blocking episode is much like the one described in John's Gospel when Pilate asked Jesus, "What is Truth?" and then he did not wait for the answer. He went out to the people. He did not want to know the answer. "When I was a teenager my father would confront me about some breech of acceptable conduct with, "How could you do such a dumb thing?" Before I could answer he would throw up his hands and proclaim, "I don't want to hear it."
 
I wanted to find out if Mitch himself may no longer be taking emails because, unlike his first press release at Christian Newswire, this one did not contain his email address.
 
So I wrote him this email:
 
Hello Mitch,
This is Donald Hank, the guy who wrote the article "Say something nice" regarding your article in Christian Newswire and how my son was influenced indirectly by my adopting your say-something-nice approach.
I just wanted to know I saw your latest press release today.
I was surprised because your article sounded a little edgy. Have you decided to change your tack? It's ok. We are only human.
Don
 
Mitch did in fact respond:
 
Thanks. I wondered how it would be taken. I thought I was very nice.  Mitch
 
My response:
 
Hi Mitch,
Nice?
Were you talking about your latest press release in which you accuse your own father of mental abuse and compare a lady with a Christ-killer for not wanting to dialogue with you?
But God doesn't command us to be nice, so that isn't the issue.
Stephen wasn't stoned for being too nice, was he?
Jesus called publicans, Pharisees, etc, hypocrites right to their faces.
John the Baptist and Jesus both called their people a "generation of vipers."
Early Christians, our models, weren't nice. They were good. Those are opposites.
You have demonstrated that those who push for "niceness" are hypocrites, because the push for niceness is in itself a nasty frontal assault on orthodox Christians. You are asking them to be nice, but you have no intention of being nice to them.
Your movement is right in line with Nancy Pelosi and Hillary's idea to silence the orthodox, but the tactic in the "niceness movement" seems to be a stealthy attempt to impose self censorship and end vital dialogue right now when it is needed most.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn said in a speech at Harvard that in the Soviet Union, they have state imposed censorship but in the US, we have self censorship of the press--he was referring to the phenomenon of political correctness, which didn't have a name back then.
I haven't made up my mind about you yet, but there are at least 2 possibilities, which I will list as nicely as I can:
1-You are pathologically naïve, like Jimmy Carter, or
2-You are a cunning "Christian" leftist who has a clear vision of a socialist world in which orthodox Christianity, the bedrock of the faith, melts away through infiltration (in other words, you pull, Pelosi-Hillary push, and you reach the goal of silencing dissent).
No, Mitch, that was not intended to be nice. It was intended to be kind.
Let's be kind to the future generation and restore morality in this country. That is a far cry from saying nice things about the vipers that are trying to harm them with false doctrines.
In your response you can try to convince me that you are not one of those vipers.
Regards,
Don Hank
 
Now, I had not checked into the background of Mitch Carnell until this point.
 
So on a hunch, I went to Google and did a search using the key word group: First Baptist Charleston Wallis.
 
I did this because I suspected that his church must have a close relationship with Jim Wallis, the arch bishop of "Christian" Leftism, who has nothing but praise for the party of partial birth abortion. Sure enough, one of the links brought me to an article in Wallis' flagship site Sojourners, which touted an upcoming appearance of the well-known antagonist and subverter of Christian orthodoxy Tony Campolo at the First Baptist Church of Charleston.
 
"Campolo worries that conservatives such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have given Evangelicals a bad name" says the Sojourner article.
 
And further on: "Progressive Evangelicals simply have decided to stop talking about gay marriage, he [Campolo] said."
 
As I was writing this, the following came in from Mitch himself, they guy who wants us not to discuss controversy:
 
Thanks for your thoughtful response. At the very least we have people talking [my emphasis]. I am happy to be put in the same class with President Carter and perhaps I am naive. I believe that Christ commanded us to love one another. "This is how you will know that they are mine and I am theirs that they love one another." In order to share the gospel we must first be heard. I am happy that you want us to be kind. The kindest thing we can do is to win people to Christ. Because you and I may disagree with each other does not mean that either of us is wrong. It means that we have a different point of view.  Mitch
 
My response:
 
Now I understand why people block you.
You don't pay any attention to what people say and don't address their arguments.
Did it ever occur to you that your dad may have been dead-on right about you?
 
I don't know how much longer this dialogue will continue, but please note the contradictions:
Mitch indicates he is glad "we have people talking," but his church supports leftist Tony Campolo, who clearly is happy when they don't ("Progressive Evangelicals simply have decided to stop talking about gay marriage") and he himself, in his "say-something-nice-Sunday" campaign, is asking people to voluntarily stop the opposition. Read: accept gay marriage, abortion, apostasy and moral relativism. In other words, shut up and let us liberals define your beliefs (I'm not exaggerating about the "shut up" part. Mitch's web site contains a favorable book review of "For God's Sake, Shut Up!").
 
Thus the "Christian" Left slams orthodox Christians hard, saying they are giving Christianity a "bad name" and that they need to shut up. Yet they insist that we must say nice things about other Christians.
 
Cleary, for them, those other Christians are the Christian Left.
 
In other words, don't worry about slandering the Christian right. We'll do that for you. With a smile.
 
Donald Hank is a technical translator and staff writer for Laigle's Forum.
 
Contact the author: don@zoilandonsplace.com