A thoughtful and practical article from a USA pastor who is walking the walk in the Culture Wars.
Seven ways for Christians to love their neighbors even when we disagree
What does it look like to remain faithful to God while loving neighbors who passionately disagree with Christian convictions? If you’re looking for an answer that makes both God and everyone else happy, I can save you a lot of wasted time…it doesn’t exist (Romans 8:7).
Instead of trying to pretend that we do agree, we need to accept the fact that we agree to disagree and get on with evangelizing lost people.
So how do we avoid the ditch on the left — where we don’t call sin a sin — as well as the ditch on the right — where we are angry culture warriors battling unbelievers instead of evangelizing them? In my new book, “A Call to Resurgence: Will Christianity Have a Funeral or a Future?,” I offer the following suggestions:
1. Come to terms with disagreement. For the Christian, changing God’s laws in Scripture, by popular opinion, makes as much sense as changing God’s laws in nature — including gravity and the temperature at which substances freeze and boil. Non-Christians don’t need to accept these laws but tolerate them, if indeed they believe in tolerance, diversity, and inclusion, as they boast.
Christians and non-Christians disagree on a lot of things including what to do with our money, sin, and genitals. We won’t agree because we don’t agree. Instead of trying to pretend that we do agree, we need to accept the fact that we agree to disagree and get on with evangelizing lost people, defending our religious freedoms, and loving our critics while leaning over the plate to take one for Team Jesus.
2. Turn the other cheek. Both homosexuals and Christians are, curiously enough, organized minority groups.
If Christians war with homosexuals, we’re ignoring the majority — all the people somewhere on the continuum between the two groups.
As a general rule, those people in the middle are the very people we’ve been called to evangelize. If they see us as being mean spirited, they will be less likely to want to hear about the love of Jesus from unloving people.
Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, not because he likes it when we lose a fight, but because he likes it when we win people who are watching the fight (Matt. 5:39).
3. Welcome everyone to your church… The same Bible that talks about sin is equally clear about love. The church I serve as pastor includes people who are practicing homosexuals, as well as others who are struggling with same sex attraction to varying degrees.
They sit in service next to single people cohabiting, people who watch porn, adulterers — and the self-righteous religious people who look down on all of them.
We all start in a bad place.
When the Bible says that Jesus died for sin, he’s talking about evil people, like me. I was sleeping with a pastor’s daughter when I became a Christian and realized that worshiping God included my pants.
We are all works in progress. We do not expect people to get their sin in order before attending church any more than a hospital expects people to get healed before they show up.
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By Pastor Mark Driscoll Full article: here
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