Frustration

This all started out when I posted my short story (which is more or less about abortion) and a short rant about why I think it’s wrong (murder is murder; despite the hardship of the mother, the fetus is still deserves the chance to live.  If the fetus was a few months older and baby outside the womb, would you still think it was okay to kill it?).  I got a comment asking whether I supported Social Welfare, cheap education, sex education, adoption and fostering services, affordable healthcare and easy access to effective, convenient contraception.  It startled me a little (they weren’t being mean; it was an honest question), but my first thought was ‘Seriously?  Why ask that?  Of course I do.’

Then I got to thinking about the way much of the world (or this little corner of the world anyway) sees religion and realized maybe it wasn’t an odd question after all.

[My answer, btw: “Yeah, I think those things are important. We're supposed to look out for each other, whether financially or making sure everyone has the same opportunities for education. And while I personally believe in abstinence, I hardly expect everyone else to. It's incredibly important for kids to understand both the potential consequences for their choices and all the ways to make sex safer.  While I don't feel I'm old enough (or at the right point in my life) to adopt or foster kids, I'd like to some day. I'm adopted myself.”]

So I kept turning it over my head and getting all worked up and now I need to rant.

I here about things like people protesting at military funerals and I want to shake them and yell “What part of ‘love one another’ didn’t you get?!” (Though of course I wouldn’t, being passive-aggressive as I am.)

It’s so terribly frustrating the way the world sees us (I’m generalizing again, I know).  Has “Christian” always been synonymous with “intolerant” and “judgmental” and I just never noticed?  How exactly is that striving to be Jesus, the Savior who spent his time with fishermen and tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners?   How is that showing God’s love?

It makes me angry, and frustrated, and hurt because look at the kind of reputation we’ve given the God we love.  Who’s going to follow a God portrayed by a religion like that?

On the other hand, there have been times when Christians who are too tolerant, who ignore the biblical rules/laws frustrated me almost as much.  (I feel a bit hypocritical on that point these days, perhaps leaning a bit too close to too tolerant than intolerant myself at times, but I’m trying).  After all, how are we supposed to convince people to come to Christ if we act no different from them, if we pick and choose the rules we follow and the rules we break?

If we give up our beliefs and rules and morals to live like the rest of the world, how are we ever going to convince them we have something they don’t?  If we don’t live like we’re saved, how can we expect them to believe us when we say we are?

Again, feeling a little bit like a hypocrite because I’ll stay silent about all of this most of the time, both sides of it unless asked outright for my opinion (or when ranting on here obviously).

It shouldn’t have to be one or the other, right?  Having Christian morals does not have to be synonymous with “judgmental”.  But being tolerant doesn’t have to mean giving up your morals and beliefs either.  There has to be some sort of middle ground between being judgmental and being a complacent pushover.

Doesn’t there?