Haters to the Left; Haters to the Right

Two things I love about Facebook: 1) Connecting with far-away friends because I hate phone calls and I'm too lazy to remember to email and 2) perusing everyone's different views on current flashpoint issues.

Case in point: Duck Dynasty versus GLAAD. (To our friends in Africa who don't know that this is a thing - CAN I JOIN YOU?!? Google it, if you dare.)

This is big news! So big that it usurped the white Santa, black Santa debate. So big that it made the homepage of CNN.com, which is where I go when I want to learn what might actually be going on in the world. So big that I'm blogging about it at 6:28 am. (My son has been awake since 4:45 am, so he has long been ready for school with spelling words written and is content to watch the iPad.)

Christian friends whom I love and respect are firmly on the side of the Robertson family on this one. Links to blogs and articles supporting the Robertson family and their right to their Biblical beliefs/free speech popped up on Facebook almost immediately. These arguments make a lot of sense.

Christian friends whom I love and respect are firmly on the side of GLAAD on this one. Links to blogs and articles clarifying the fact that free speech has consequences and that Jesus loved the disenfranchised popped up on Facebook. These arguments make a lot of sense.

The comments and the vitriol have exploded on both sides. If you support Phil Robertson's comments, you are a right-wing hater. If you support A&E's decision to suspend him from the show, you are a left-wing hater.

We so easily and categorically put people's differing beliefs and opinions in a box marked IDIOT and ship it away without taking time to listen, to understand. You would think the 24-hour news cycle would allow for some reflective listening and conflict resolution. (It doesn't take that long. My elementary schoolers practice this.) But it is outrage and BIG OPINIONS that jack-ratings, not seeking to understand why one person might believe this way, why another might feel hurt by this belief, how we can find common ground.

And it's just easier, isn't it, to decide that the person who disagrees with you is a hater. To feel personally attacked by differing opinions, and so surround yourself with those who think like you.

I find it fascinating that Jesus had both a zealot (right-wing oppose-the-government hater) and a tax-collector (left-wing work-for-the-government hater) in his close circle of friends. Clearly, he wasn't bothered by differing opinions. My friend Scott Newland, a pastor with a monkey on his head (I'm not speaking metaphorically), wrote, "I think that a lot of people who disagree with teachings from the Bible would actually think Jesus was the coolest. After all, Jesus didn't condemn the people who did wrong things like X, Y and Z; he loved them. However he did condemn the religious snobs who rejected and looked down on those who did X, Y and Z.
 "I need to remind myself often not to just learn what he taught, but even more so to live how he lived."

It's hard to be holy. It's much easier to latch onto a list of rules.

It's hard to love your enemies. It's much easier to label.

Remember the Chick-fil-A, gay marriage kerfuffle that was all the news darling in 2012? Did you hear the rest of the story, in which Dan Cathy and LGBT activist Shane Windmeyer actually spoke to one another, IN PERSON? In which they BECAME FRIENDS?

I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happened with the Robertson family. If they met and dialogued with someone like Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD president.

The next time we find ourselves all fired on one side of a position or another, before immediately labeling the other side as bigoted, intolerant, agenda-seeking haters, let's first sit down and talk. Find out what they believe and why. Seek to understand. We may discover we have more in common than we thought.

One of my son's tutoring assignments is to write us a note everyday to improve his written fluency. (You'll see why in a minute.) Mostly the notes center around Spiderman. Today, this is what he wrote:

Translation: Jesus loves everybody how ever.
Jesus likes people how ever (their) skin
white, brown

Jesus transforms. Relationships transform. Vitriol and hatred enslave.

P.S. If you still have outrage and energy you need to expend, then by all means, jump on board: Stop Child Slavery, Pray for the Persecuted, Sponsor an Orphan in the War Zone…