Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Evangelical Bigotry

Does being an evangelical Christian give one a license to be a bigot? I saw a friend yesterday, and congratulated her on her new romantic relationship. I had seen her holding hands with a guy a few days ago. She thanked me, but then said that her adult daughter wants her to break up with him, because he is a Catholic!

I was taken aback, and asked her to explain. "Because Catholics believe Jesus is still on the cross, and they pray to His Mother Mary, and say the  rosary, and confess to priests." Then she told me where she goes to church, which was intended to make me understand her views. I tried asking her, "You don't think Catholics believe in the resurrection of Jesus?" She replied, "Yeah, I guess so."

If you don't want to be with the guy, say so, but don't blame it on his religion!

I wonder how evangelical bigotry will play out in this year's election. Will Romney's Mormon faith be more of an anathema to evangelical Christians than Obama's record?

3 comments:

Ryan said...

I think there's several issues to consider here, and I'll leave the conclusion up to the reader, but I think we would be oversimplifying to label her daughter's concern simply as bigotry. Being "yoked" in marriage to someone of a different faith is something that warrants careful consideration, as Paul warned, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?" (2 Cor 6:14) And as Jesus warned, if we are committed to the life he leads us to, on the one hand "my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" but His life will be disagreeable to those who are not committed to him: "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household." (Mat 10) So one central question seems to be, are you both committed to the life Christ calls us to? And if yes, *how* we are each being called to serve, and what areas of our life is God working on cleaning up? I do think your suggestion is right, that we all ought to be focused more on cleaning up our own impure hearts, wrong attitudes, selfish ambitions, and other countless sins, before trying to correct what we perceive as incorrect theologies. "How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." As C.S. Lewis has suggested, we ought to get back to the heart of "Mere Christianity" with a heart of love, and the message of salvation. As Paul puts it, "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all knowledge and all mystery, and a faith that can move mountains but have not love, I am nothing." (1 Cor 13) And again in agreement with Lewis' push to get past our many perceived differences, we are also instructed many times by the apostles to avoid quarrels ... "But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless." (Titus 3:9). It seems to me that any two people contemplating marriage ought to consider and discuss in depth what's on their hearts, understand their differences, but we ought to "major in the majors". Pick your battles, stick to what's important, and move past what isn't important. Is what's on your hearts following Jesus? Are you committed to a person, our Savior, or to a doctrine? S.D.G.

Bob's Blog said...

To my readers,
I am so glad Ryan took the time to write his comments on this deliberately provocative post of mine. I agree with what Ryan has said here. Moreover, I want to say that Ryan is one of the finest Christian men I have ever known. He radiates his Christian faith, and is a role model for me. I thank God Ryan is in my life.

Terri Wagner said...

Gosh Ryan you said it best. The real question to me has always been how deep is your faith to you because mine is very deep to me. I could marry someone not of my faith if I thought they truly respected it and me. But it's tough when so many things in your spiritual life spill over into your "real" life. I mean how could I ever explain why the announcement of a temple in say Pensacola (I wish) means so much to me since you're not LDS. Thoughtful comments.