we’re called to love.
Articles and attitudes like this break my heart:
http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Pro-Life-Is-Prettier-Katrina-Fernandez-01-27-2012?offset=0&max=1
The pro-life movement is one that is very close to my heart. I’ve been involved with the March for Life before and I endorse those who actively stand up and “fight” for the right to life. But there is nothing that bothers me more than people who use their platform to tear other people down. This article is a shocking and petty ad hominem attack on the pro-choice protesters who appeared at the March for Life. The idea that “pro-lifers are pretty and pro-abortionists are ugly” does nothing to preserve the lives of the unborn and it only gives the world more reason to be angry at Christians or angry at those who support pro-life causes. I believe that articles like these actively work against our cause.
Christians are called to love others. I don’t agree with abortion, but that does not make it okay for me to insult those who support it. We even have more of a responsibility to love those who do not believe, because we need to show them God’s love. Those who live in darkness don’t realize it until they see the light. We just read this passage in Sunday School this morning:
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the churchwhom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
- 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
It is not our responsibility to condemn those who do not have our same convictions. It is our responsibility to show them Christ’s love. This attitude of self-righteousness, slander, and hatred towards those outside of our belief needs to be purged from the Church. I know that I’m not perfect and I have to constantly check myself from falling into attitudes like this, but it’s worth the struggle. Our goal should be to spread God’s truth in love, even when that requires loving those with whom you disagree.
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth… . Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
- 1 John 3:18, 4:9-21
