Friday, August 3, 2012

Chicken Wars


They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit. Jeremiah 17:8


Chick-fil-a boss Dan Kathy has been taking a lot of flack these days for coming out and saying that he supports the traditional view of marriage. And those who exercised their own free right to support someone who was exercising their free right to free speech by going to buy a chicken sandwich yesterday are taking the flack too.

Yesterday, we didn't see anything at all uncommon. We saw Americans doing something that has been part of our culture ever since a group of rabble rousers threw some tea overboard in the Boston harbor. They were putting action behind their beliefs. Taking a stand....backing up someone they wanted to support.

Independence and individuality is something that flows through the veins of our country's DNA. It is built into our constitution and framework of our entire belief system. But it is not always easy to know when to step up and when to back down. At what point do we act on our beliefs?

Do we act on them even if by doing so we further widen the gulf between differing views by making it about "us" versus "them?" Someone has to be the enemy. Someone has to be wrong.


Many of the comments I read  opposing the support of Chick-fil-a were very troubling. It seems many people have very definite, and in my view, warped ideas about Christianity and Christians in general, most of them not favorable, some of them outright disturbing.

We were labeled, fundamentalist, racist, gluttonous, stupid, ignorant, hateful, uneducated and uninformed. And the Westboro Baptist Church kept popping up in comments, as though all Christians should be branded with that particular (and I use the term very loosely) church.

You could argue the point that if the church and Christians in general had done a better job historically of loving and reconciling people of differing viewpoints maybe this all wouldn't be an issue. But then again, no one ever loved and forgave and tried to reconcile more than Jesus, and they crucified Him for it.

Because they didn't want to hear the truth. They didn't want to be told what they were doing was wrong. Lets face it, none of us does.

And the very same spirit that existed then, continues to wreak havoc in the world today. He is our true enemy, and he has only one goal. To Kill, To Steal, To Destroy......Lives. That's been his goal from the beginning.

Hurting people sometimes strike out against something they may not even fully understand themselves. The enemy is the spirit behind the hate, and it is he who we must fight, always. Never the individuals.

There is a war we are in. But it's not us against them. It is God against all sin whatever the flavor.

6 comments:

  1. "But then again, no one ever loved and forgave and tried to reconcile more than Jesus, and they crucified Him for it." -- Such truth behind those words!

    I struggle sometimes between the desire to proudly display my faith and my concern about becoming (or even looking like) one of "those" Christians whose entire faith seems to focus on the judgment and condemnation of others. Circumstances like this make me so frustrated, because (as you said) it can so quickly become an us-vs-them situation, and that's so counterproductive!

    Thank you for bringing it back to the basics and reminding us of what's really at stake!

    God bless,
    Paula

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  2. Yes and Amen! It doesn't matter what the contoversy is either-if there are sides-they will be taken. It is true REAL love for each other that gets so lost in these issues.

    I love what John Newton said, that to remember our own depravity is the root of perpetual tenderness.

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  3. Thank you all, this was a hard post, so many strong feelings on both sides. We always think our issues are new, but when you look at the early church, they were dealing with the exact same things! Lori

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  4. I think the balance Jesus struck is a real struggle for us to imitate. He loved individuals implicitly...they felt His care for them in every interaction. Yet, not once did He compromise His position or His relationship to the Father. He did not give in to the socially accepted way... He stood for what is right, yet still managed to convey love.

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  5. Yes, right you are Dusty. Hard for us to figure out how to do that, maybe that is the problem, we just need to let Jesus do that through us :-)

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