I wrote this post on Friday:
I am growing increasingly frustrated with the prevalent attitude I am seeing that says, “This is what I think (believe), and if you don’t agree with me, you are wrong.” In other words, you can have your own opinion, as long as it is the same as mine.
What happened to diversity? What happened to valuing the opinions of others? What happened to polite discussion that ends in an agreement to disagree? Why is it so important for everyone to agree on everything? I think we are looking at a pretty dull society if we all become robots who think the same way, act the same way, and believe the same things.
Even more frustrating to me is the fact that I am seeing this so often from people who claim to be Christ followers. I expect (although I don’t like it) to see these types of attitudes in the people of the world who don’t claim to be Christian, but as Christians, we are supposed to be counter-cultural, to imitate Christ, to love one another. Yet more and more I am seeing those who say they are Christians who are angry, judgmental, and leave no room to tolerate, much less hear the opinions or beliefs of anyone else. And that isn’t what I see in Jesus. I see a man who didn’t judge the adulteress, the tax collector or the people who didn’t believe His teaching. The only time we see Jesus angry is when the religious leaders of the day were turning the house of worship into something that it wasn’t meant to be and when these same leaders were putting unrealistic rules and expectations, and thus oppressing, the people under their care.
So it makes me angry when I see Westboro Baptist Church doing their protests in ways that are hurtful to others.
It breaks my heart when I read a story about a pastor who wasn’t allowed to perform the marriage ceremony of an African-American couple in his own church, and instead had to use another church in town.
It hurts me to see this whole Chik-fil-a controversy blowing up all over Facebook bringing a dividing line between friends.
It mourns me to see and hear such hateful and judgmental language used about those who are in poverty.
It was my plan to finish it this morning and post it. It was a hard post to write, but one that was screaming to get out. I had to stop writing though because I was getting pretty worked up and needed to walk away.
The interesting thing was, when I “walked away” I ran smack into this post from Jen Hatmaker.
And all I could say was, “wow!” This woman put exactly what I was thinking and feeling into words much more eloquent and profound than I ever could. So I decided I would share both my words and hers today.
Are you ready to leave behind the hate and drama and get to the real work of loving people like Christ did? I know I am.