As my mind had started to support the causes I felt the Lord leading me to champion, and as my heart of love questioned things that stood in contrast to compassion and kindness, I was met with opposition. Not by my enemies, but by my friends. Yet instead of talking it out, I found myself being shouted at. I was attacked by people I considered friends, and my Christianity questioned by people I had known over twenty years. You were allowed to proclaim yourself as a Christian if your opinions were exactly the same as the majority, but if you spoke anything different, forget about it. You got ousted from the club. So, if I disagreed with the politics, I obviously couldn’t believe in Jesus, and if I spoke love, it was called heresy. You could think, you just couldn’t think differently. You had to be in agreement on what sins specifically were the big, bad ones, and hush up about the seemingly insignificant ones. In other words, you were encouraged to read the Bible, but not so intently that you actually attempted to be like Jesus. That was way too much, and it went in opposition to things like standing up for Christian rights. Because it was good to stand up for the Lord; you just had to ignore the fact that you might have to stand on the backs of the other children of God to do it. Y’all, I don’t think God is proud about this at all. Actually, I think it makes Him sad.
Let’s just say for a moment, for sake of argument, that my ideas were bogus, that I was way off base. Call it backsliding, or whatever you wish. How do you think you should try and talk some sense into me? By attacking me, or by calling into question my salvation? Goodness. Who decided this was the way to go about it?!
After the last year, but especially the past week, I’ve sadly discovered that there’s a large amount of bullying in the Christian community. If you dare to think for yourself, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart, rather than Fox News, be prepared to be called the worst of all dirty words… a liberal. I have seen friends feel led to stand up for injustice, but be silenced by the bullies around them. I have seen friends try to walk in love, but be told they’re wrong for thinking that way. There’s a rhetoric that has to be repeated, and taken in as gospel. Funny thing? When you open your eyes and take a real look, it’s the furthest thing from the gospel there is. The bullies of Christianity are displaying behavior that is the furthest from Jesus there is. How is this furthering the Kingdom?
At the start of this post I mentioned writing down names on a piece of paper. You see, I found myself yesterday feeling down. My heart was broken, and I found myself thinking again and again about the hurt I felt, about the insults hurled against me. I realized that I couldn’t continue in offense, that I had to let the hurt go much like I had purged high school from my memory. I had to remember that I was in this world, but not of it. I had to remember that I wasn’t the names the world gave me, but that I was who my Father knew me to be. My salvation wasn’t based on who I voted for, but rather who I served. I served Jesus, not man. So I tore up the little piece of paper, and I took comfort in knowing that opinions are just as flimsy as that post-it note I threw into the trash.
