A factory in Vermont no longer fires people or even lays them off. Unneeded or unsatisfactory employees are given "Career change opportunities."
General Motors called a plant closing a "Volume-related production schedule adjustment."
Chrysler Motor Company called plant closings a "Career alternative enhancement program."
In many schools, children do not fail anymore, they "achieve a deficiency."
At some hospitals, patients never die. They simply experience, "negative patient-care outcome."
The idea behind this no-fault language is that since no opinion is actually wrong, we want to word things in such a way that nobody takes offense or ends up feeling badly about him or herself.
This has created a difficult environment for the church because despite what the culture teaches, tolerance is not very high on God's list of priorities. That sounds like an awful thing to say, but it is true.
Since the beginning of the last century, it has been considered enlightened to believe that there is no such thing as sin. After a hundred years of wrong thinking about the nature of sin and man, we have come to assume that when people do wrong, even when people do outright evil, that they have been victims of some circumstance outside of themselves. It is assumed that they have been the victims of poverty or too much sugar or bad education or even bad toilet training. It's assumed that people are basically good, so if they do wrong, it must be attributed to some outside factor.
With this social history, it really is not surprising that our non-Christian neighbors are stunned when we talk about sin. They are outraged when we say that abortion is wrong, that adultery and pornography and sexual relationships outside of marriage are immoral, that lying and cheating are unethical, that homosexuality violates God's law.
They immediately assume that if we believe in moral absolutes, if we believe in absolute truth, if we believe in sin, that we hate all the people we consider to be sinners. To the average person, the absence of tolerance simply means hatred. And since by definition to be a Christian means to accept God's law as absolute truth, we are intolerant and therefore we are hate-mongers. But nothing could be further from the truth.
The problem is that unspiritual people cannot understand the truth of God's Word, and so what we actually believe is misunderstood and misrepresented. We are pictured as cold, uncaring, bigoted, hatemongers, who restrict women's rights and bash gays and cram our version of morality down people's throats. We have even been compared to modern day Nazis.
But, I grew up in the church. The cultural stereotype of Christians does not match my experience. Most of the people I have associated with all of my life have been Christian people. And far and away, most of the Christian people I know are caring, compassionate, forgiving, loving, people. Certainly there are some that are not -but those "Christians" who are uncaring and unloving do not accurately reflect the character of God.
God is not especially tolerant, yet He is "compassionate and gracious..., slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin." (Exodus 35:6-7)
We, as followers of Jesus need to be the same as our Father...not especially tolerant...not calling evil good and good evil; yet, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, quick to love and forgive.
Unspiritual people will never understand us, but we need to represent Father accurately regardless of the world's understanding.
#by-his-stripes.com #ByHisStripes
No comments:
Post a Comment