Divorce — The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience

I came across this article and found it very interesting. The article is about a Professor Smith, a Political Scientist from the University of Washington, who did research and found that evangelical Christians fight for rights concerning the sanctity of life; like abortion, homosexuality, sex education, prayer in schools, etc, but nowhere in the mix was the topic of divorce. The sad part is, the divorce rate among evangelical Protestants is just as high as the divorce rate for the public, but the church has followed suit with the culture and made divorce a private matter. In the words of the author "evangelicals allowed culture to trump Scripture". Are Christians to busy preaching against very valid issues to pay closer attention to its own body of believers? Why are we not as passionate about divorce destroying the "traditional family" that we fight so much to hold onto as we are about fighting a homosexual's "right" to be married. Smith believes that divorce will actually cause more detriment to a family than homosexual marriages will and from what I have seen and read this will turn out to be very true if Christians do not step up and speak out against divorce. Not only speaking out publicly, but in the church as well. I'm sick of hearing pastor's say there is life after divorce, which is very true but why are we not helping believer's avoid having to face life after divorce. Is the church going to continue to conform to the worlds standards and beliefs about divorce or are we going to rise up and tell the church that no divorce is not okay and there is hope for restoration.

Gay Bullying: Are Believers the Problem or the Solution?

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the topic of bullying lately, specifically the bullying of gay and lesbian children, teens and young adults. I have had this topic on my mind for the past month and I debated whether or not I would talk about it on this blog, but I decided to go ahead anyway. First, I want to start by saying that I in no way agree with or support homosexuality, but I believe that as believers we aren’t doing enough.

There is an anti-bullying bill called the Safe Schools Improvement Act and it wants to include sexual orientation as a category along with religion and race and it would also provide programs to educate students. However, certain Christian organizations are fighting this because they believe it will lead to a tolerance of the homosexual lifestyle. Also stated was the fact that adding anti-gay bullying to the bill would be telling our children what they should believe morally. The last I checked this was not the responsibility of the school board or the society at large, that is the responsibility of the parent(s). Of course we don’t want schools teaching our children the opposite of what we believe about homosexuality because it confuses them and for some makes it seem ok to indulge in that lifestyle; but we cannot stop people from saying what they want to say and even if we stopped schools, there is still, television, radio, even worse the internet and people in general that state their own opinions. We can’t shelter our children from everything so the best thing I can do for my own is to teach them the standards that we live by and that is whatever the Word says and hope that they make the right decisions for themselves because we cannot do it for them. Are we as Christians so caught up in the fact that these people are sinning, that we lose sight of the fact that we are to be showing them the love of Christ as a way to lead them back to Him? It’s no wonder the homosexual community wants nothing to do with the church because the Jesus that Christians shout at them who is supposed to love them so much is not being demonstrated. Adding anti gay bullying to the bill may cause people to become more tolerant but if we don’t add it, more innocent lives will be destroyed because there is no one there to protect them, and I’m not saying that this bill will protect them because we’ve seen examples that it doesn’t always work to the victim’s advantage. When are we going to get or our moral high horse and really show the LGBT community what the love of Christ looks like. Every time I hear about or read something like this I keep thinking to myself what would Christ do in this situation? It seems so cliché for a Christian to say “WWJD” but maybe we should be asking ourselves that question more often instead of saying and doing what we have been doing.

What if this we’re you child being bullied for whatever reason, what would you be feeling right now? Imagine what all the other children and parents are going through? Are we looking out for the best interest of the children or are we just fighting for the cause? We really need to stop making it about religion and focus on the relationship because this is what Jesus did and that is why He has made and is making such an impact in people’s lives.

I'll end with this quote by Father James Martin: "If pro-life means trying to avoid anything that will threaten any life, from natural conception to natural death, then we should be finding ways to protect all life, which also means preventing suicides, and preventing gay suicides," Martin wrote. "In any event, there is much for us, the church, still to do."

The articles I read for this were: Believers: Problem or solution?, Christians respond to gay bullying, Christian right decries bullying, When a bullies kid grows up, Adult survivors of peer abuse.