I'm sitting here again with nothing to say. I had a blast at Chick-Fil-A with...everyone. Since I'm not an idiot, I don't walk around worrying about how my actions affect some "community" or other, as if every person that might fit the category thinks and acts a certain way. The problem with people like Rachel Held Evans is that they want to hide the fact that they don't really stand for anything in particular. Does the Bible teach against homosexual practice? It's a simple question. Do you believe in those things? How to say something is a different consideration than whether it should be said. We could flagellate ourselves all day long about failures to show respect, love, or what-have-you, but at the end of the day, we're going to offend someone. If we tell the truth in Christ with love, people WILL hate us. And we need to have a real conversation about whether that's our fault, or theirs. Be willing to say, "I did all I could to respect this person; it's on them, now."
I'm all for conversation, discussion, meeting people where they're at, etc. But the question needs to be asked: Have we equivocated on the word "church" so much that we don't even know what we're talking about? Or who we is? Dialogue is not an end in itself. Neither is ecumenism. You do both to arrive at the truth. Are you so caught up in coming across nice that you can't think of anything you'd be willing to be hated for? If I'm a "bigot" for saying that gay "marriage" is a contradiction in terms, so be it. I don't think eating a chicken sandwich to say so (and to stick up for those who said so) is offensive in the least. Maybe you could convince me that the whole affair--staged ostensibly by a politician of one party--could pose a problem for the witness to Jesus Christ, who knows no party. But I think the real tragedy of the thing is that more people from both sides didn't denounce this badgering of a kind man who was asked what he thought. He didn't say anything hateful or malicious at all. He not only has the right to say what he said, but by the commands of the gospel under which he labors, he kept the peace for which we Christians are known.
So the rest of it is just sneering at the bourgeois in one's comfortable anti-capitalist perch, while absolutizing your prudential judgment that it was a bad idea. No one's making you go. And a note to the perpetually offended: it's not like you didn't know about Chick-Fil-A before; practicing Christians have known, and that's why we go. So save the faux-outrage for someone who cares.
I'm all for conversation, discussion, meeting people where they're at, etc. But the question needs to be asked: Have we equivocated on the word "church" so much that we don't even know what we're talking about? Or who we is? Dialogue is not an end in itself. Neither is ecumenism. You do both to arrive at the truth. Are you so caught up in coming across nice that you can't think of anything you'd be willing to be hated for? If I'm a "bigot" for saying that gay "marriage" is a contradiction in terms, so be it. I don't think eating a chicken sandwich to say so (and to stick up for those who said so) is offensive in the least. Maybe you could convince me that the whole affair--staged ostensibly by a politician of one party--could pose a problem for the witness to Jesus Christ, who knows no party. But I think the real tragedy of the thing is that more people from both sides didn't denounce this badgering of a kind man who was asked what he thought. He didn't say anything hateful or malicious at all. He not only has the right to say what he said, but by the commands of the gospel under which he labors, he kept the peace for which we Christians are known.
So the rest of it is just sneering at the bourgeois in one's comfortable anti-capitalist perch, while absolutizing your prudential judgment that it was a bad idea. No one's making you go. And a note to the perpetually offended: it's not like you didn't know about Chick-Fil-A before; practicing Christians have known, and that's why we go. So save the faux-outrage for someone who cares.
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