This is my PSA

It amazes me how horrible so many Christians are at being aware of how they come across to the rest of the world.  It really shouldn't amaze me at this point, yet somehow it still does.

For instance, while I was home this past weekend, I spent some time in the heart of Bible-belt country near South Bend, Indiana.  It seemed like everywhere I looked, there were signs that oh-so-proudly proclaimed: "WE ARE PRO-LIFE!" and crosses which were dedicated to "all the dead babies."  Now, don't get me wrong, I really don't have any problem with people having a pro-life political position.  I really don't.  As much as I am not pro-life, I completely understand where they are coming from.  I get it, and it's ok.  But, really, what good could it possibly do to put up pro-life billboards everywhere you go?  Is proclaiming your moral superiority going to be the deciding factor in possibly one of the toughest decisions a woman can ever make?  Is offering your blanket condemnation going to help witness to someone who has previously had an abortion?  Do your billboards actually bring aborted fetuses back to life?

On a seemingly unrelated note: while I was home and therefore back in the land of the cable-having, I saw this new PSA which denounces people saying "that's so gay".  I can't really explain just how grateful this made me.  I know so many people (and I will freely admit that I used to be one of them) who say this phrase so nonchalantly.   I love that someone is finally stepping up and saying something about it.  For years, this phrase used to be a part of my every day vernacular.  I simply never thought anything of it.  Then came my freshman year at AU: I think I stopped saying "that's so gay" after about one week.  It's not even that I meant anything by it.  I just wasn't thinking about what it meant.  It was just a phrase.  Then someone pointed out to me that, at AU where a very large minority of people are, in fact, gay, this probably isn't the best thing to say.  It wasn't hard to change.  And I definitely don't miss saying it (because it didn't really mean anything, anyways).

So what is the point of all of this?

Well, besides my random desire to blog rant, I simply felt the need to say, to all my fellow Christians out there: think before you speak. It's not that hard.  It doesn't take that long.  And the phrases or words which you may have to cut out, you probably won't even miss them that much (if at all).

Think about how it sounds to the hurting and the oppressed and the searching when you spend so much energy denouncing the "murder" of all the "dead babies" and then nonchalantly joke about the "gayness" of this or that undesirable occurrence.

Now, even I find it ironic that I'm writing a blog asking people to watch what they say when I so rarely watch the type of language that comes out of my mouth (when it comes to swearing, that is).  But the fact of the matter is that me saying a four letter word every once and a while does little if anything to compromise the Message which I am striving to live out.  If I started to use language, however, which makes fun of how someone defines him/herself or which condemns an already hurting person, my Message would be not just compromised but utterly forsaken.

So if your greatest desire in life is to love the world around you and to reach out to the hurting and broken people, maybe you should focus less upon which four letter words not to say and more on how your overall message or your flippant jokes come across to the very people you're supposed to be reaching out to.

Oh, and one final note, in case that wasn't clear enough:

For the love of all things holy, if you go to AU, don't make fun of anything even remotely related to homosexuality!  Even if you hold the moral stance that homosexual acts are a sin, you still should not make fun of being gay.   You never know who standing around you, even if you're in a supposedly all-Christian environment, is struggling with this issue.  There may be a gay person standing next to you, or maybe just a straight person who is struggling with knowing what to believe about homosexuality in general.  So don't mock it.  Don't make jokes about it.  If you can't talk about it in a constructive manner, then just don't talk about it at all!

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox.