I was repulsed when I heard a young thug pretending to represent me, a white person in America. He further poisoned my identity by claiming he represented Christianity. He ended his diatribe by, of course, wishing the death to the Jews.

These people do realize that Jesus was not white, right? And that Jesus was born a Jew? As a Christian leader watching white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members (alt-right) call for "taking America back," I thought, "these people don't understand the idea of America, nor Christ." Their true ideological leader is Friedrich Nietzsche, not Jesus. In "The Antichrist," Nietzsche asserts that Christianity, as a religion and as the predominant moral system of the Western world, is "the religion of pity." It "elevates the weak over the strong."

"Another Christian concept ... has passed even more deeply into the tissue of modernity: the concept of the 'equality of souls before God.' This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights."

Nietzsche really understood Christianity, he hated it, but he understood it.

White supremacist Nazi types, ironically, when they attack "liberal values," are fighting against the very values of Jesus while yelling at everyone how they are "Christians."

The spirit of Jesus' teaching is foundational for us all.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

These are the values; this is the America, we must "take back!"

Lindensmith is pastor of Seventh-day Adventist Church in Fargo.

Go here to see the original:
Letter: Members of the Alt-Right do not represent the Christian faith - INFORUM