Friendly Reminder!

           I’m not quite sure of the exact date that this took place, but around December 18 (2013), the news that Phil Robertson had been banned from A&E went everywhere. Facebook pages supporting him were established, instantly acquiring several thousand ‘likes’. Articles, pictures, boycotting, and petitions are being tossed around, even now. The endless debates are dominating social media and have been for the past almost a week now. Of course, if you are reading this, you most likely know already about all of this and none of it is new information. This is one of the most touchy issue in the United States right now, and there is no sitting on the fence.

            
            So why do I write this article? What is the point? I’m never going to stop this debate. No one will. So what can I do? Let’s just say that I’m playing Jiminy Cricket right now and I’m just going to drop a little reminder here to Christians out there that are a part of this debate. We should be dealing with this issue graciously, and not be using hate-speech right back at who we would consider our “enemy”. It is wonderful that a Christian man can have several million Christian brothers who back him up when he is attacked unjustly, but there is a chance that we are being as brutal in our accusations as A&E was to Phil Robertson.

            1 Corinthians 13:1-3 reminds us that we may have great intentions, and we may be defending Phil because A&E was wrong, but if we don’t have love, nothing of those things matters. NOTHING we do matters if we don’t have love, so I believe that includes how we deal with non-Christians on this issue. I stand with Phil Robertson and in no way do I support A&E in their decision, because it is a violation of our freedom of speech, and is unacceptable. However, this doesn’t entitle me to a long rant on Facebook about how I’m boycotting the companies that use A&E as an advertising outlet, or how some companies are “sitting on the fence” with this issue, although those things may be true. We should be gracious but firm (yes, it is possible), and take this as an opportunity to be influential, not tear down non-Christians because they haven’t seen the light and understood that gay marriage is a sin. Thanks for reading, that was just a short reminder about how we should, as Christians, deal with this difficult issue.