I keep constantly seeing and hearing talk about what people believe should be done about homosexuals in the military, gay marriage, gay rights, legalizing marijuana, taxing marijuana, and so on. The topics are becoming too overbearing because what I am seeing is one person trying to control another person and I find this sickening.
You will probably wonder how a Christian can have such feelings when most “Christians” want the government to take their view point and enforce it as law because of what the Bible says. The world is made up of different people from different walks of life. Not every one in the United States is a Christian.
“But this is a Christian nation?”, some may say. Really? A Christian nation? How many people in the US are “Christians”? When a poll of 35,000 people was taken in 2008, a report was made that about 78% were Christians.Within that number Catholics took up about 24%, Evangelical churches composed about 26.3%, Mainline churches account for 18.1%, and Historical Black churches made up about 6.9% of this sample (http://religions.pewforum.org/reports). Don’t you know that there are also people who are Atheists, Agnostics, Deists, Buddhists, Taoists, Jewish, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Muslims, Unitarians, Hindus, and many other different types of religions living in the United States? Did you know that many of these numbers are unaccounted for because only .0001% of the population was surveyed (303,824,640 people lived in the USA as of July 2008.)? Did you know that there are supposedly 34.2 million people in the United States that do not have any type of religious affiliation at all (11% according to my numbers, but on some websites I am seeing it as high as 16%.)? Do you believe that you should force your religious views on them? What if they forced their views on you? You’d probably call that persecution, huh? Also, do you believe the amoral entity called the federal government is a Christian anything? Does it, as a whole, act like a Christian entity? How can it be any part of a “Christian nation” when it steals and kills, taking the place of God in the lives of its citizens?
The Bible says, “There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?” in James 4:12 and in John 8:7, “So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
I ask all this to say WHY DO WE REALLY HAVE TO CONTROL EACH OTHER? I think that if we allowed everyone to be accountable for their actions, rather than telling them what to do and what not to do, there would be less fighting, hatred, and war. “But I don’t agree with you?” I don’t agree with you either. Do you think that we can still be friends?
I live my life by this:
Mark 12:30 “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. 31And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”
This is what God wants. Stop judging others and forcing them to do what you want. Let God be their judge. If you seriously feel the need to help your fellow man, and see them come to salvation, stop pushing your beliefs down their throat for them to choke on. Love them. Don’t shun them. Everyone is looking to be loved. God is love. 1 John 4:8 says, “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”
We need to take care of ourselves, judge ourselves, and be examples of our Lord, rather than being lord over others.
Megan A.K.A. “Mom”
You and I are proof that people with different belief systems and different ideas can be friends <3
April 28, 2011 @ 10:24 am
^_^ Love you, Morgie. Yeah, we disagree on everything almost. Yet I have realized that many times we come back to the middle ground and agree that we have separate opinions and walk arm in arm from there.
In this post I was stepping outside the box and asking others to join me. It seems that a few are having a hard time with this.
April 28, 2011 @ 2:00 pm
*high five* awesome post!
April 28, 2011 @ 4:30 pm
Megan, I’m glad that you are thinking about these things. Law-making does involve morality. Usually in history, those in power have decided what morality governs the land, and often it was selfish. People who lived under a poor ruler learned how to stay out of his way and to not make ripples. Those who lived under a good ruler would thrive. We live in a country where we argue over and define the moral code of our nation. It is wonderful to have this freedom, and if we didn’t have it, chances are another group of people would force their morality on us. (And I’m not talking about any group specifically.) However, I’m not saying that we should only concern ourselves with lawmaking, or the defining of the moral code under which we live. If we have the strictest law code, but do not observe it, living immoral lives, pursuing wantonness and selfish gratification, our liberty will be at stake. We will be compromised to the point where another more disciplined group of people can take our liberty from us, and we will lose the privilege of legislating our own morality.
Thanks for your thoughts, Megan! With the deepest respect,
Matthew
April 28, 2011 @ 7:11 pm
There are really only 2 laws a Christian should follow. All the rest fall under those two. But that is written to Christians. I think the point is mostly about Christians who try to use the state to control others and force them to behave like Christians, rather that using methods Christ endorses.
April 29, 2011 @ 9:08 am