Do I Really Have to Love My (Liberal) Neighbor?

I have several times referenced the devotional blog, 843 Acres. It is published online five days per week, and includes a very brief devotional on a biblical text.  The devotional for February 12th gave me pause. I’d love to interact with it here, with our readers. In it, the question was asked: 

“How can we live together with people whose beliefs, practices, and views deeply distress or offend us? How do we relate to them, care for them, and even love them?”

We spend a lot of time on this blog dealing with ‘beliefs, practices and views’ which ‘deeply distress or offend us’. But we don’t spend a lot of time talking about how to deal with those beliefs as Christians, when we encounter them in the individuals of our daily lives.

The Word Police, and the Rights of the “Offended”

If you know your neighbor doesn’t recycle every last shred of cardboard and metal, does that offend you?

How about if they have a bunch of Green Peace stickers on their VW?

Offended yet?

What if your boss is an outspoken evangelical Christian, or if your uncle believes the Earth is heating-up faster than a microwavable Pizza Pocket®? If your local high school’s nickname was the “Indians”, the “Braves”, the “Chiefs” or (gasp) the “Redskins”, …would that offend you?

If you find any of these examples to be offensive, have no fear: we each have the Constitutional RIGHT to be offended.

What we don’t have is a Constitutional right to force those people to shut-up or cease their behavior simply BECAUSE we’re offended.

But the rise of Political Correctness, coupled with various lawsuits and speech codes, has effectively created a veritable Word Police in our society. And everything said or done is apparently fair game for them to find a potential “offense”.

“Diversity”, and other examples of Intolerance from the oh-so “Tolerant” Left

Since we are in the middle of yet ANOTHER illustration of this, courtesy of the New Diversity Enforcers, we’re re-linking this post from a couple years back.

It’s rather depressing to see just how little has changed since then, …and that what HAS changed, is worse. 

–JTR

——————————————–

Diversity has become a joke. 

What I mean by that is that diversity, as defined by the Left, is a joke. That’s because the Left has defined Diversity to mean only superficial or physical differentiations: race, skin color, gender or sexual orientation.

Yes, that is a type of diversity, but then they take it one step beyond. These differences are then brought and held together by stereotypical assumptions about who such individuals are and what they believe, solely BECAUSE of their race, skin color, gender or sexual orientation.

Which is a patently ridiculous (not to mention racist, sexist, and intolerant) view of diversity.

Conservatives have been pointing this out since what feels like the Beginning of Time, but still they persist. As a result, we’re compelled to continually highlight the Left’s unintentional irony and hypocrisy.