It seems this issue has come into my mind several times over the past three days now so I might as well explore it here. Tonight I was watching the Amazing Race and was once again disgusted with one of the teams. The Weaver family from Florida is thoroughly hated by everyone else competing on the show because they are loud, obnoxious, and just flat-out annoying. But what REALLY bothers me is how their actions and words are so incongruent. When the season first started, I was impressed that a family would actually pray on camera and was happy to see that the producers would actually select a Christian team. However, as the season has progressed and tonight especially, I think my opinion of them has hit bottom. These Weaver people are in the car praying "dear God, please help us beat the other teams if that's your will", "dear God, please show us where to go", and then they are making fun of other teams' pictures, wondering how much some women's boobs cost, calling others retards, and generally being completely nasty. This family personifies the very reason why Christians are horribly stereotyped as being holier-than-thou and subsequently hated for it. I mean, nobody's perfect, and most Christians will never profess to be. These people on this show may be my "brothers and sisters", but they have a lot to learn about kindness and humility. They're flagrantly making fools of themselves in Jesus' name, which I find not only embarassing, but very sad on their behalf. I wonder if they'll ever understand how many people they've alienated from Christ because of their nastiness broadcast on national TV.
Another branch on this thought began from our church service on Sunday morning. My pastor was talking about judging others and using Matthew 7:1-7 as the basis for his sermon. He took his message a different direction than I was expecting him to go with it, but I loved it. He was talking about verses 6 and 7, about not throwing your pearls to swine or giving dogs what is sacred. He compared it to putting the Bible out for public ridicule and using it as an example when other people couldn't possibly understand what is really meant by its words. For example: why throw Bible verses into debates with non-Christians about certain issues, such as abortion? Someone who isn't a Christian isn't going to give a crap what the Bible says about it; they're just going to ridicule both the Bible and that person. I can't blame them for that. I probably would too if I didn't already have the faith that I have now.
There is no way any Christian can expect an unbeliever to understand the standards by which we live! Likewise, we can't expect an unbeliever to live by them, either. This is why I'm adamantly opposed to posting the Ten Commandments in courthouses and such. If someone doesn't know Jesus personally, then all of this Bible-verse-quoting about how they should live their lives is only going to push them away. It takes having faith in and a relationship with God before a person would have any desire to believe in what the Bible says. This is something I didn't always understand! In my younger years, before college, I am ashamed to say that I used to be one of those closed-minded Christians who couldn't comprehend how some people could keep screwing up and not care if I was waving a Bible in their face and telling them that they needed to make changes. I was alienating people and I didn't even realize it... I thought I was doing the "loving" thing. I would like to think that I've come a long way since then. Not because I'm trying to be all sensitive and "politically correct", but because God has graciously given me some wisdom through the years... I now see that people's troubles are symptoms of a hurting heart, the same as me. My role is not to preach but to just be gentle and show love. It's a shame that human nature takes something so simple and turns it into a complicated mess!
