This past week, these past few days, I have done a lot of soul searching.
The war of words that has been waged on the internet has been seemingly endless surrounding the gay marriage debate. Long, heartfelt debates and conversation have occurred even in my own home. I have wrestled with what to believe, what to support, how to show love, what is truth and how to untangle this mess called my faith and how it works in our culture.
I have read many articles from several blogs of some people I have grown to respect. I respect these people, not because I agree with them on all issues, but because of their heartfelt sincerity in expressing their view points.
While I sort out the mess in my own heart, trying to separate my own sin nature from what is truth and how to show love, I have rested inside my soul what I believe.
There has been so much banter and noise in the online space surrounding the gay marriage debate that I have been trying to avoid it, but that has been increasingly hard to do. The toxicity has made me sick to my stomach because of the awful discourse that I have seen, mainly inside the Christian online sphere.
Today I was reading across the Twitter stream and came across an individual who I had grown to admire through his writing, especially his writing on the current gay marriage debate. The reason I admired his particular article on gay marriage was that even though I completely disagreed with him, he had the ability to write in such I way that I respected him and how he approached the subject.
He made me question what I believe without being abrasive. He made me question what it means to love people and what that love looks like. I walked away questioning what it really meant to love others, how to show love, and how Jesus would want me to love others.
Then I saw his tweets.
Sucker punch would be one way to describe the hypercritical words I was reading 140 characters at a time. And not just one tweet, but repetitive tweets.
He was mocking me, although not intentionally, even though he had no idea who I was. He did this by ridiculing my point of view; he mocked how I view gay marriage. The words he was using that once were used to edify me as a brother in Christ were now used to mock my point of view.
He encouraged me the day before in what it meant to love others and how Christ showed love. But when there is an opposing view against how he interprets the Bible, and the love he spoke of went out the window.
The comments are passed off as nothing but simple humor to make a point. But if he were to follow what he preached it would not seem that way. Making fun of how another brother or sister in Christ interprets the Bible seems pious and prideful and not at all like the love he so eloquently wrote of in his article.
I feel disappointed.
I know we all have our faults, and we all say and do things that are hypocritical sometimes, but it was very hard to read a respectable post just to turn around and read the hypocrisy hashed (pun intended) out on twitter negating everything he had just written.
I hope as Christians we are able to disagree with each other in love, not just preach on it as if we own the corner of the market on love. Love does not belong to only one side of the debate.
The world is watching.
They are watching how professing Christians are fighting, arguing, and slaying each other with their words. Words that are not spoken in love on either side of the debate. And when the bible speaks of this:
“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – John 13:35
I wonder this: through mockery and ugly discourse, what will they know?
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Photo credit: “Christ’s Example – Life of Christ Framed Canvas, Found at DaySpring