Certain Christians: Stop Being an Ass!
Got your attention? Good!
“As you may presently yourself fully be aware of,” Jason Collins, center for the Washington Wizards, came out of the closet. He is the first major professional athlete to be out of the closet. But you know who ain’t here for Collins or anyone being publicly out? Heterosexual (conservative) straight Christians, that’s who. They’ll even go so far to tell you that Collins ain’t even a real Christian, if you look at it closely! One such man, ESPN Sports analyst, Chris Broussard, said the following:
“Oh oh oh oh oh, honeyyyyyyy. Whyyyyyy you got to be so mean?” – Jill Scott
Let’s break down his argument:
1) Broussard said that you can’t live an openly homosexual lifestyle or any lifestyle involving premarital sex and call yourself a Christian because you’re walking in open rebellion to God and Jesus Christ.
But…wait…who isn’t…wait…
Listen, I don’t know of one Christian who fits that definition of a Christian. Jesus said if you’ve ever lusted in your heart over someone, you’ve committed adultery and it’s just like having premarital sex. Also, if you’re living openly in such a lifestyle, it’s a problem, but living a closeted sexual lifestyle is different? That’s not rebellion either? (I know the answer, I’m just asking for Broussard’s clarification.)
2) Who gave Broussard the right to define a “real” Christian when my Bible says that if you confess Jesus with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you’re saved?
3) Does Broussard even live up to his own definition of a Christian? What makes something a lifestyle, sinning more than once or once in a while?
4) Jason Collins only came out as gay. Why is Broussard making the leap from coming out to all kinds of nasty butt secks?
Clearly, I have questions. My other questions are for Christians in general:
a) Why is it that you’re pegging all your hopes, dreams, aspirations, and the blood of Jesus on gay people lately? What’s up with that? An athlete came out and y’all are all, “Not in MY house!” Um, they don’t live with you, and your house is probably very ugly and decorated poorly, like your wardrobe. They could help with that, but you don’t like them, so continue to live as eyesores to the rest of us. Like, why does it matter to you so much that you take to the media to espouse your beliefs? We all have beliefs. Why choose -THIS- to make a stand?
b) How are people going to hear about the love of Jesus that you claim to want to share with them if all you do is take political stands? Sure, you can say you’re taking a moral stand, but my goodness, when you do that, you’d best be living life 100% accurately and not up in a men’s room trying to give blowjobs to other men. Every 3 hours. Between 11p-4a. At the rest stop. You’re really starting to turn the conversation away from Jesus and onto yourself with the noise you make, so please stop it. Jesus was much better at living life and straightening out the lives of others than you could ever be, so why not leave that up to Him for others? Mmkay? Can you look into buying some humility?
c) You say that Satan is busy taking away your rights of free speech. You say that Satan is now influencing America away from Christians. He’s just starting now? Nothing to do with being angry that he could never be God (after fully convincing himself that he had a shot at overthrowing his own Creator who [most likely] spoke him into existence) and chose to get back at him by turning as many human beings against God as possible to hurt God, who has love for all, so they won’t live with God eternally? Satan is just starting to get around to Americans now since the dawn of time? Okay. I think that while some of your arguments are true, I think some of the anger, rhetoric, and quick exodus from churches and the faith is due to people finally being fed up with Christians acting like assholes. (I said I wouldn’t cuss on my blog and mention Jesus, but I don’t have a better word to get such a strong point across. You’re acting like assholes and jerks, and I’m tired of it.)
c-continued) Christians, sometime after the Great Awakening, became obsessed with trying to be like the Catholic church, with their gold, money, jewels, huge edifices, and rules/regulations, that they started focusing on the wrong things. They stopped focusing on others and started focusing on stuff like who is the better denomination; who has the fastest growing congregation; who has the biggest penis building; how many creeds have you memorized; what catchy slogan that is pseudo-Biblical do you know; how many titles does your pastor have versus my pastor – things that won’t get anyone to heaven. So, when Christians started focusing on stuff like this instead of, oh, I don’t know, the redeeming work of Jesus on the cross and His resurrection (and the people coming by each week asking what they must do to be saved because they’re finally yielding to the Holy Spirit), they started losing a connection to people. Some Christians got it right, but sadly, they’re not the loudest ones out here today.
c-some more) Christians started being more concerned with process, appearance, and rules. They completely forgot about love, grace, truth, love, and grace – which saved them. People started having to “live right” publicly, but being hell-raisers privately. Church attendees got tired of the double standard and chose to make a life for themselves instead of in Christ. They figured they knew about life as much as a hypocrite and didn’t want to be tied down to the hypocrite’s standard, so there you have it. Taking all that into consideration, I think Satan was busier breaking Christians down from within with a focus on the wrong thing than he’s ever been with driving this “new” anti-Christian Americanism. On top of all this, America was established with Christian principles (more so for the colonies), and Christians here got spoiled. Honestly, if Jesus said, “The world ain’t here for ya” (paraphrase), why would you get comfortable thinking that America is here for you? America is part of the world, whether or neoconservatives want to believe it. I’ll give you the whole, “America is a different experiment that worked out and stays above some things,” argument, but anything after it? That’s where I hop off.
So, Christians, if you really want to avoid a trick of the enemy, stop focusing on making stands to defend your beliefs. There is time for that every day, believe me. But when a fellow admitted Christ-follower has struggled enough with himself and the Lord to finally own up to the fact that he’s gay and live authentically before the Lord first (as he said in the article) and others second, I don’t think a public castigation of him and questioning his belief and salvation is necessary. Especially not from another sinner who is saved by grace, and for whom I probably don’t need to dig that deep to find some sin that qualifies as a “lifestyle” because you do it daily, leaving me with no other choice but to say you’re not really a Christian because you’re doing that sin. Show love, grace, truth, understanding, grace, engagement, and love instead. Like Jesus did. Gays (and everyone) need the same love that Jesus showed you to bring you to Him. Please work on extending it before real persecution (jail sentences, free speech restrictions, etc.) begins.
This quote summarizes so much for me. I want to throw shoes at the person who left it on Facebook (he’s a friend of a friend):
At the end of the day, what most non-Christians think about Christians in America is that we don’t love them. They know we love ourselves, and we love our beliefs, and we love our right to speak up about stuff we don’t like, and we we love our right to love Jesus, and talk about him and wear t-shirts and stickers about him. But they don’t know we love them. That is our own fault. We have become more known for defending our right to be followers of Christ than acting like followers of Christ. Even I largely prefer the company of non-Christians over Christians, and I am a Christian.
What do y’all think? Are Christians being persecuted in America the way some say, or is it a mixture of some persecution coupled with people being tired of Christians living hypocritically while telling others how to live? Let me know your thoughts.
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Category: Christianity
