Before I get to the story I need to say something really important! This is not an attack on Christianity or Christians. I'm a Christian myself so I'm not attacking them. But at the same time the majority of what Angelo says here I agree with because there's a lot of problems with some Christians not all. And I love Angelo's character for giving me the opportunity to explore this.

They Called Themselves Christians
Angelo's POV

They called themselves Christians, the men who condemned me and Jack and the relationship we had. They said that what we were doing was ungodly, that it went against the bible. For the longest time I felt guilty, like I was committing a crime and worse a sin, like it was wrong. I allowed them all to get into my head, to make me believe that God wouldn't hear me, listen to me, even that He wouldn't love me because of Jack. I realise now how wrong that was, I realise now that God wouldn't turn his back on me. I realise now that there is no crime, no sin in doing the most natural thing in the world, falling in love. I realise now it was men, it was the church who told me it was wrong, not my God. My God, I know now, is promoting love and understanding and those men who condemned us had no right to.

They called themselves Christians, the men who screamed that Jack was the devil. Since Jack had left I had thought so much about Christianity and my faith in God and Jesus and the bible was not shaken, not in the slightest. My faith in humanity was another matter. I learnt that men are too busy living in fear of God's wrath and the Devil's temptation that we can't see the truth in front of our eyes. I say we because I'm more than aware than I am just as bad as the men I am speaking of. I was the first to scream "Il diavolo" and hand him over. But I who was scared and confused and didn't understand quickly saw that it was wrong. Surely older, wiser, more experienced Christians should've known? They called Jack il diavolo but were their actions not more satanic than anything Jack had ever done? They had set out to hurt and maim and kill, all Jack had tried to do was help and love and live his life. Surely there was no crime in that, was there?

They called themselves Christians, the men who attacked Jack. The men who had brutally killed him oh so many times. They said they were acting in the name of God but there was no way I could accept that. It seemed to me that God would be horrified at what was being done in his name. Did my God not give Ten Commandments, the sixth of which was "Thou shalt not commit murder"? I knew that made me guilty, that made me a sinner as much as them for starting it, for killing him. But I regretted my actions, I took confession, repented, sought forgiveness. Was that enough for my God to forgive me I hoped and prayed it was. The men who killed Jack though, there was no regret, no repenting. I think to many of them it didn't count as murder because he always came back, but it did, he was still human, he was still flesh and blood, he still had emotions and felt pain, his heart and his breath still stopped every time. The pain was still written on his face, the silent plea for it to stop, the undeniable hope that the next death would be the one that actually killed him. And the men that killed kill, I think many of them enjoyed it. How was that Christian? For me God would hate those actions. Were his son, my Lord Jesus Christ's most important messages not to "Love thy neighbour" and to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"?

But I think the worst part of all of this is that I called myself a Christian and I let it happen. I was the one who made it all begin and even when I no longer agreed with it I did nothing to stop it. I could see it was wrong and evil but I just let it continue. I allowed fear to stop me doing the right thing. Fear of what would happen, fear of being condemned, fear of being told I was being controlled by the devil, fear of everything. I allowed that to make me turn a blind eye to all the pain and suffering that was happening to the man I loved because of me.

Since Jack I feel as though my eyes and mind have been opened and I feel as though I'm seeing things how they are and I stand by my faith. God, Jesus, the bible, they are not the problem, the problem was and is people. Many people who called themselves Christians were close-minded hypocrites who twisted the words of the bible to fit what they wanted to believe. They worst part was that most of the time they weren't even away they were doing it, they truly believed they were true Christian men, they couldn't see the lies they were telling themselves. They couldn't see they were just picking and choosing the parts of the religion and faith that suited them. They couldn't see anything wrong as they called themselves Christians

R&R?