I stood in front of the congregation next to the preacher with his wide eyes and welcoming smile. I listened—even as a child, I listened—while he welcomed me into the world as a reborn daughter of God. My grandmother could barely contain her excitement of watching the preacher baptize me and the church welcome me into their hearts. I resurfaced from the water the same girl I was, but I knew Jesus as my savior. I was too young to truly know the importance of this. But now I know. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to appreciate my religion, my god, my salvation.
I am still a sinner. I don’t go to church, I worship God on my own time in my own environment. Sometimes I go out with friends and enjoy myself. Every once and a while I catch myself telling a lie. Sometimes I stub my toe or fall down the stairs and let a curse slip. That might make some Christians angry. I will never deny that I am only human and that as a human I inherently do the wrong things at times.
Lately I’ve seen a lot of back and forth about Christianity and the hatred that is spread in God’s name. I watch people argue over how terrible Christians are because the Christians they’ve met are filled with hate and intolerance. It’s sad. It’s disappointing.
Here’s the thing: the God I was taught about in Sunday school and church can’t be happy about what his children are doing. The God my grandmother followed didn’t expect us to judge everyone else. But there are Christians out there who are focused on less about God's word and their own relationship with him and are pushing a hot button issue: LGBTQ. It’s a division among a lot of Christians. In fact, it inspired the Buzzfeed video “I’m Christian, But I’m Not.” The video features several Christians who express that they are accepting, tolerant and sometimes even part of the LGBTQ community. Another blog I read was a response of the video, examining all of the negative things that were said in the video such as “I’m a Christian, but I’m not uneducated.”
But it seems that in this country the term Christian is not sitting well with other religious or non-religious groups. The typical view of a Christian is becoming an image of someone who doesn’t love his or her neighbor, someone who can’t accept others as they are and someone who sits atop a pedestal next to God. I see this video as a defense to that opinion. Those who appear in the video are trying to defend the stereotypes of their religion. I understand that because I’ve done it so many times before when I explain to others that I’m a Christian and they wince or shift uncomfortably.
My grandmother strived to live her life in the most Christian way possible. I may be bias but I think she succeeded more than most Christians would today. She didn’t care about your sexual orientation, whether you’d been in prison or if you cursed like a sailor. The only thing she cared about was whether or not you’d been fed.
Read more about it on The Blaze.
