Am I Giving Christianity a Bad Name?

Today, Listverse.com published a list called Ten People Who Gave Christianity a Bad Name. It's pretty good, and I agree with every entry. But, it's also such a shame that Christianity has such a dark history. (Remember, I'm a medievalist, I'm more aware of the skeletons in the church's closet than most people.) Here are a few entires that got me thinking:

Concerning Pat Robertson:

...he doesn’t even know how to lie convincingly. He swears that “the spirit of God comes mightily upon [him]” and enables him to leg press 2,000 pounds, though he is 79 years old. This claim has been thoroughly debunked by weightlifting experts, and yet he persists in claiming and not proving it.

He has claimed to be able to deflect hurricanes by praying to God, and stated that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for abortion throughout America (not for Mardi Gras, which would be a little more understandable), thus showing that he did not pray for Katrina’s deflection. He believes that 9/11 and Katrina might be divinely connected.

The hate mongering Matthew Hale, who laughed when one of his followers committed murder, is described thus:

...he calls himself the Pontifex Maximus of the Creativity Movement, which is just another offshoot from the Ku Klux Klan. The church is for whites only, and it has its own bible, in which one finds passages such as, “You have no alibi, no other way out, white man! Fight or die!”

His church calls for a worldwide, racial holy war, to exterminate the Jews and all black people, in order to establish “a white world.” His reasoning: God is white...

And, infamous Fred Phelps Sr.:

He and his congregation picket at least 6 churches and political establishments around their hometown everyday, with signs that read, “God Hates F_gs,” “Thank God for Dead American Soldiers,” “America is Going to Hell,” etc...They picket the funerals of dead soldiers, screaming at the families, even while they grieve at the gravesides, that the soldier has gone to Hell and so will they. Then they laugh...

The entire list is disheartening.

I must remind myself that at the heart of these hateful acts lies simple misunderstandings that any of us could harbor. Not showing love to homosexuals and holding on to foolish and outdated ideas of racism puts us only a few steps away from using our faith to bludgeon those we don't like - just like the evil men mentioned here.

Am I giving the faith a bad name with my life? Or am I using the love that Christ commanded to reflect His Light into a dark place? I hope I'm doing the right things with my life, because I don't want to end up on that list one day.