This evening I had the wonderful opportunity to walk around the downtown historic area of the nearest city to where I live. About 10:00 the clubs start up and the theaters let out, and people are everywhere. I am definitely a people watcher and have found one thing to be true- that many sane upstanding and decent individuals that are thrown together in a crowd become instantly stupid. Drunk and loud and braver because they have drunk and loud buddies to back them up. The stupid incident that I was fortunate enough to witness (while on an otherwise dull date) was that of some college guys and highschool girls lining up for a club, and throwing spitwads and other unidentified trash at the uber ultra super conservative Christians across the street. Now these Christians- were not entirely minding their own business- they were exercising their rights to freedom of speech- and happened to be screaming at the people in the club "The Lord judges, and the unriteous will be cast down into the bottomless pits of hell"
Truly if it were me that they were screaming at I might have to say something- The stupid mob to which I am referring is not the one throwing nastiness across the road- it is the group throwing bad evangelism and judgment across the street. Think about if I walked up to you and just yelled that you were a sinner what would your reaction be? I was truly annoyed. But you know I didn't think of this until we had left but the best place for those people so very concerned with the souls of sinners would be the student centers of all of the universities at about 10:45 in the morning. You will easily spot the kids who are still drunk from the night before- grabbing the capuchino in a desperate attempt to stay awake for their finals that they didn't study for because they were up all night trying to convince their girlfriends that that other girl at the party meant nothing. If you want to reach people- talk to them then, they know the only one who could help them is God. And he will... ohwell- at least I got a super large sonic limeade out of the date right?
posted by o-likewoah @ 9:35 PM
3 Comments:
Hey, congrats on the limeade!!
I think of all of the bad T.V.eveangelists sometimes...they do way more damage to the cause of Christ than they could EVER do good if they were sincere. Then there the people (I won't even call them preachers) like Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton, who peddle racism for a living. I think that God will deal very harshly with people who use his name to create confusion, or make a buck.
Anyway, glad to hear that your date wasn't too exciting. (Interesting dates are good. Exciting dates are not as good...)
You catch more flies with honey . .
It's always better to reach out to someone by offering them something that grabs their interest. No one is interested in being judged.
Those people should remember that God loves sinners--even before they change their ways. If we want to change them, we have to first open the door to let the Holy Spirit move in their hearts. When you spend all your energy telling someone that they are wrong, it's more like slamming the door.
People like that want others to focus on them, not God.
And consider too that for those of us that don't believe in any of this stuff, it sounds to us like a bunch of people who literally believe in Santa Claus screaming at us, being mad that we don't feel the same way. Naturally, we think we are dealing with crazy people and feel threatened.
The thing is, I feel fine with other people believing in whatever they would like to believe in. It's the fact that it rarely stops there that is the problem. Why is it that they can't afford me the same courtesy?
If God is truly universal, I don't need some human walking up to me telling me their version of the truth. I'll get it from the ocean (for instance).
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