“Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.”
This quote by Rick Warren does indeed say a lot about how we as people view society in today’s time. We have neglected to accept others who are different than us. We think that we have to hate anyone who has different views of the way things should be done than we do. And that, my friends, is simply not right.
When most people think of this kind of conflict, the first group of people that comes to mind is, unfortunately, most usually the Christians. We are seen to be some of the most hypocritical fake people in the entire world, which is why, as sad as it is, some people refuse to come to church or to be saved. They see how other "Christians" treat people, and, knowing in their heart of hearts that that kind of behavior isn’t right, no matter who you are, they avoid Christianity altogether. They never allow themselves to develop a relationship with Christ, and they never allow themselves to experience the love and peace and joy that He has for His people. And by the time they pass away from this life, it is too late to do anything about it; instead of Heaven, they are cast into Hell for eternity. And I feel that there is no one else to blame for this except for us Christians- I say us, because I am guilty of it as well as anyone else. It’s our job as Christian people to show God’s love to everyone, to never judge, and to act as Jesus would, every single day. It can be a tough job, I’m not going to lie, but it can be done. And I think that the biggest thing that we as Christians can do to win the souls of other people is to agree to disagree.
Mark 12:31 says “The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." It doesn’t say “only love your neighbor who is exactly like you” or “only love your neighbor who does the same things as you”, nor does it say to “only love your neighbor who has the same beliefs as you do.” No. All the bible simply says is to “LOVE your neighbor, as you love yourself.” A big issue in the world of Christianity is that of homosexual couples. I’m not going to speak too much on this topic, because I have some very good friends who are gay/lesbian and the last thing that I want to do is jeopardize my friendships with them. I personally don’t agree with the idea of romantic relationships with people of the same gender, but who am I to decide who someone can or can’t love? Who am I to show hatred to people, simply because they have different ideas than I do? If I did that, I wouldn’t be showing God’s love to people, but I would instead be casting judgement. And that is something that I know that Jesus would never go or agree with. If I did all of those things, I wouldn’t be fulfilling my job as a Christian person.
My purpose when writing this article was not to hurt any feelings or to make anyone angry with me, but to let other people know that we cannot call ourselves true Christians and hate others for being different from us at the same time. Just because we don’t agree with what someone else does, doesn’t give us the right to mistreat that person or people in any way. I think that if all Christian people wouldn’t show hatred and hypocrisy towards those who are different, but instead lived by the “agree to disagree” principal, people would have a more positive image of Christians in today’s culture.
