Rant

A bit of a rant I felt I needed to get off of my chest lately. I apologize in advance if I offend anyone.

Commence ranting.

One of the difficulties I find with Facebook, is when the people I care about post things that to me seem hateful and hurtful. As I'm sure many people feel about the stuff I've posted. I apologize if I've offended anyone, but I believe what I believe, just like you believe 

what you believe. And surprise surprise, I even believe that my beliefs do not contradict my Christian faith. While I am not one for labels, I have accepted that over the years my views have largely become aligned with what might be called liberal views. For this I make no apology, it is where my personal studies of Scripture and Theology have brought me. If you feel that this shift in my views now disqualifies me from being a child of God, or that I have damned myself, then I am sorry you feel that way. And I apologize further for thinking you are wrong in your assessment. Contrary to what some of you may or may not think, I do not believe the things I do because I hate God, hate the USA, hate the Republicans, hate rich people, or hate Scripture. Furthermore, I do not believe what I believe because I love evil, want people to be lazy, want free stuff from the government, like communism, want everyone in the World to be atheist, or because I don't want people to be awarded according to their contribution. On the contrary, I believe what I believe for almost the exact opposite of those reasons. I am not the Devil, nor am I the Anti-Christ. I am a Christian, in many ways like you are, but in other ways not like you. This is so whether or not your theology allows for people like me to be Christian. I believe that you believe what you believe out of love of God and love of neighbor, even if I sometimes have difficulty understanding how that is so. I only ask for the same courtesy in return.

Ranting concluded. Thank you. :o)

Random thought

I find it very interesting that people are now speaking out against the boycott of Chic-Fil-A as unfair, because all its owner did was "share his opinion". But many of them were perfectly fine with, and even called for and supported a boycott of JC Penny because they hired Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesperson. Now I'm not calling anyone a hypocrite... but you gotta admit, it does seem suspiciously similar to inconsistency to me.

Having said that... as a Christian I am not a big fan of boycotting. While I support people's right to boycott, I believe that they are rarely ever effective in the way that they are intended to be. Lets face it, even if the boycott achieves its goal of reduced revenue for its intended target. Who does that hurt? The CEO who makes his millions/billions regardless or the employees who need these jobs to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. And the unintended consequences as well as the unintended victims of a boycott increase exponentially as the boycott finds more "success". This is why I did not support it when it was used against JC Penny for hiring Ellen as their spokesperson, nor do I support it now that it is being used against Chic-Fil-A for the views espoused by its CEO. For the record, I do not agree with Dan Cathy's position on the subject, but he has every right to express it as well as support the groups that share his views.

While a boycott is the freedom of every American, is that the loving thing to do? Can we as Christians justify the things we do and say in response to our "enemies". I do believe I once read somewhere that we are to love our enemies. Are we loving our enemies? Are we turning the other cheek? Are we genuinely attempting to enter into a loving discourse with our opposition? If we truly care about the things that we purport to care about, then are we really doing every thing we can to bring those things to fruition? Are we cutting off the nose to spite the face?