in the name of tolerance
i just read the following pro-homosexual article about dobson's recent accusation that cartoon character, sponge bob square-pants is gay: click here for the full article.
it was a great non-christian perspective of tolerance. ironically, however, the author portrays a very intolerant view of dobson's position while accusing dobson of intolerance. it is pretty humorous nonetheless.
it brings up a great question though. scripture clearly tells us that there are times for us to judge and times we shouldn't. any thoughts on how we discern when to judge and when not to?
posted by ryan sutherland @ 6:56 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
See, I'd be the first one to tell you that some of the most intolerant people that I have met were liberals. This guy is just giving a critique of Dobson's position. It's an editorial. He is just proving the absurdity of Dobson's position, not saying that he has no right to believe it.
I mean seriously, do you guys not think that Dobson is a clown? Spongebob, Gay? Even if he was, then so what. Why not change the theme of the song to "we are family, and after all, we are all sinners". Do you think that the way to spread the Gospel is to get on TV and rage against any showing of people being sinful?
Now, here is where the whole sensationalism of the media comes in. It's so easy to do a story on this. You get the clown up there, he says his clownish stuff, and then you get a liberal reactionary up there to fight with him and say equally clownish stuff. This, to continue our conversation, does not make the media liberal, but sensationalist and lazy.
Great comments Charles. I agree that Dobson does not help his case here - he says some things that give them plenty of opportunity to bash him (and unfortunately, we Xians often interpret such attacks as "taking the arrows for Jesus" rather than on account of our own stupidity).
BUT...the gist of the article was that Dobson's a hypocrite because he doesn't listen to Jesus - Judge not lest you be judged, love your neightbor, etc. Which makes for a great sound bite, but really fails to take into account what Christ does say in the gospel.
The question we really need to be asking is: "What does Jesus say about homosexuality? What does Jesus say about sin?" (hmmm...been a while since I've seen someone in the media ask those things).
What is fascinating to me is how everyone wants to claim Jesus for their own (including the "liberals"!) but few people want to really talk about what he says.
So in this respect, I'm sympathetic w/ Dobson because I think he is trying to take God's teaching seriously (he's just not applying it to others very graciously)
Very good points. I hate how people who don't understand the Evangelical position try and quote the Bible to get Evangelicals on their side. It is pretty funny to watch though.
A few disconnected and brief comments:
First, and very importantly, if we're going to speak out against somebody, we need to make sure that the cross - the fact that Christ's death indicts all of us as deserving the death penalty for breaking God's laws - is the cause of offense, and not us.
Secondly, as Ryan said, we should recall that Jesus offended a lot of people and told his followers that the world would hate us. We should never be surprised at editorials like this.
Thirdly, the Bible definitely has a lot to say about judging others, but it would be important to understand these verses in context ... like Charles said, people who don't believe the Bible like to watch evangelicals squirm when they can't defend the use of Scripture against them.
Finally, I can't help but wonder what benefit it is to the Christian community to have "watchdogs" like Dobson looking out for things in culture that will potentially make Christians stumble, like gay cartoon characters. My initial instinct is that most Christians are not discerning enough to recognize some of these "dangers" on their own; but at the same time, this type of mentality quickly lends itself to legalism, isolationism, and it doesn't teach people how to be wise and discerning for themselves.
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