As a Christian living in Canada, a Post-Christendom society, people constantly preach at me, and, ironically, not at church, I might add. In society today, people feel the need to push their beliefs upon others, whether they are aware of it or not. Culture tells everyone that they can have any opinion they want, until it's one people don't like. Society permits everything, except for believing that some practices aren't permissible.
Sometimes I wonder what people would say if I shared my beliefs with them as much as they share their beliefs with me. What if every time someone told me how happy they are that the Supreme Court started granting rights not under God, I shared how confused I was. If they are in fact in the business of granting rights these days, can't they take them away as well? How will that play out in the future with things like minor attraction and other rights they may decide to grant?
The other day I was talking with my friends over cheesecake and coffee, and we got on the topic of sharing our beliefs with people and they were commenting about how rude missionaries are for going into other people's lands and preaching at them and telling them what to believe.
Three things:
1. If you don't know a lot about what you're talking about, stop talking. It's better to have people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. (Harsh, I know, but that's how I felt).
2. Considering the fact that my one set of grandparents have been doing mission work in Papua New Guinea since 1963, you can understand my inner turmoil as I debated between disagreeing with my friends or going along with what they were saying, even though our life experiences differed.
3. They completely ignored the freedom of choice the people living there have.
So after our conversation, I began to wonder why they felt it was okay to preach at me, but heaven forbid missionaries tell others what to believe.
I'm not about to preach at you more than any other person on this planet does. I probably live my life differently than you do, make different choices than you do, see the world differently than you do, but that's what makes life interesting. You can live life the way you want to and I might not agree with everything you do, but I respect your right to make your own choices.
So here is my two cents worth:
"Everything is permissible, but not everything is good." -1 Corinthians 10:23. Yes, you can do whatever you want to. You can become a person of the opposite gender, heck, you can even not be a gender, or better, be both genders! You can kill a person if you really want to, or steal your neighbor's Lambo, but there will be consequences, and that is a concept our society doesn't seem to understand. Even if it's not against the law, everything has repercussions and consequences. People run around in the pursuit of happiness, trying everything, and everyone is unaware of the results. The scary part is, in life, the reaper is rarely the one who sowed the seeds. What happens in the next generation when kids grow up with no familial structures and no boundaries? Well, I guess we will just have to wait and find out.
