Thank you. Her full homily is so good. It should be convicting for all of us. If we don't have areas for the Holy Spirit to work on, why are we even asking for God to speak through those called?
Thank you for sharing. This is a very well thought out. I appreciate what you've said. I also appreciate her message and the courage it took for her to speak it. There are a couple of issues and concerns I have with a couple of points she made that I believe was not intellectually honest or fair as it pertained to the issues she was bringing up. That being said, I was disappointed in President Trump's reaction. He did not respond with grace or humility. I wish he would've shown her more respect as a person and if he didn't agree, maybe not saying anything would've been the right response. I believe as you said in your piece that many Christians and even clergy, unfortunately are aligning themselves not just with his policies, but also with Trump as a person and they take any push back as a political attack. It's ok to support a president's policies. Many Christians and clergy supported President Biden's policies. I think this is a matter of political perspective. But, I am disappointed with Christians or clergy who would blindly follow or support any president on everything they do. I also feel a sadness for the church that seems so divided now, mirroring the divided nation we live in. The role of the church and clergy by example is to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and to be an example to the world of what it looks like to love our neighbor and our enemies. The church show show mercy, compassion, and kindness to ALL. The church should welcome everyone into its fellowship. But there is a "but." The church cannot be blind to people who would threaten the safety of the congregation. If a sex offender was allowed unsupervised access to our children at the church, we would be considered criminally neglectful. If an armed gunman entered the church with intent to kill and we did nothing to stop that person, how would we explain that to the families of the victims and how do we anwer to God for that? In these examples, I have just described a parallel. Yes, the church is to show mercy and welcome to all. Yes, as Christians we are not to discriminate or classify legal or illegal. We are to minister to all, however the government has a different role. While clergy live by an oath and a calling of God, the government also took an oath of responsibility to protect the citizens from enemies foreign and domestic. So, how can someone tell a governgment official who has been charged with this responsibility to not take action against murderers, rapists, and thieves who are known to be walking free? How is that showing mercy or kindness to the victims or to the potential victims?
The government and the church have two distinct roles. Political issues cause their roles and responsibilities to intersect at times and at times the church lives in tensions with the government as it should. The church SHOULD speak out against power especially when that power goes against the teachings of Jesus, and is abusive or oppressive. But to say that people in the LGBTQ community are scared for their lives implies that President Trump will lead some campaign to execute them because of their sexuality. Or to say that good people are worried about losing everything, (which is true) but because of how she presented it, it completely white washes and ignores the many serious problems caused by unchecked terrorists and criminals who have been allowed free access to our country. Why haven't these voices who are speaking up now ever said anything about the negligence of allow dangerous people with harmful intentions unchecked access to our citizens?
As I said, her homily was good, I appreciated her heart and her message and I believe she spoke hard truths and said much of what needed to be said but I also believe that we can't ignore the "Do Justice" part of Micah 6:8. We love to focus on loving mercy and walking humbly with our God, but when the government is responsible to protect citizens from foreign and domestic threats and to try and spare the loss of life, it's really easy to stand behind pulpits or from our ivory towers and comfortable key pads and judge people who protect us every day from harm.
I think we need to be a little more compassionate and a little more respectful of the complicated challenges certain people in law enforcement face. Maybe we can show them a little more mercy and humility ourselves with the rhetoric we use.
I think we need to be intellectually honest with ourselves here.
TRUTH! Thank you for expressing it so beautifully!🧡🧡🧡
Thank you Brandon
Thank you. Her full homily is so good. It should be convicting for all of us. If we don't have areas for the Holy Spirit to work on, why are we even asking for God to speak through those called?
Whatever you think about her comments, both sides are getting a lot of mileage out of this.
Thank you for sharing. This is a very well thought out. I appreciate what you've said. I also appreciate her message and the courage it took for her to speak it. There are a couple of issues and concerns I have with a couple of points she made that I believe was not intellectually honest or fair as it pertained to the issues she was bringing up. That being said, I was disappointed in President Trump's reaction. He did not respond with grace or humility. I wish he would've shown her more respect as a person and if he didn't agree, maybe not saying anything would've been the right response. I believe as you said in your piece that many Christians and even clergy, unfortunately are aligning themselves not just with his policies, but also with Trump as a person and they take any push back as a political attack. It's ok to support a president's policies. Many Christians and clergy supported President Biden's policies. I think this is a matter of political perspective. But, I am disappointed with Christians or clergy who would blindly follow or support any president on everything they do. I also feel a sadness for the church that seems so divided now, mirroring the divided nation we live in. The role of the church and clergy by example is to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and to be an example to the world of what it looks like to love our neighbor and our enemies. The church show show mercy, compassion, and kindness to ALL. The church should welcome everyone into its fellowship. But there is a "but." The church cannot be blind to people who would threaten the safety of the congregation. If a sex offender was allowed unsupervised access to our children at the church, we would be considered criminally neglectful. If an armed gunman entered the church with intent to kill and we did nothing to stop that person, how would we explain that to the families of the victims and how do we anwer to God for that? In these examples, I have just described a parallel. Yes, the church is to show mercy and welcome to all. Yes, as Christians we are not to discriminate or classify legal or illegal. We are to minister to all, however the government has a different role. While clergy live by an oath and a calling of God, the government also took an oath of responsibility to protect the citizens from enemies foreign and domestic. So, how can someone tell a governgment official who has been charged with this responsibility to not take action against murderers, rapists, and thieves who are known to be walking free? How is that showing mercy or kindness to the victims or to the potential victims?
The government and the church have two distinct roles. Political issues cause their roles and responsibilities to intersect at times and at times the church lives in tensions with the government as it should. The church SHOULD speak out against power especially when that power goes against the teachings of Jesus, and is abusive or oppressive. But to say that people in the LGBTQ community are scared for their lives implies that President Trump will lead some campaign to execute them because of their sexuality. Or to say that good people are worried about losing everything, (which is true) but because of how she presented it, it completely white washes and ignores the many serious problems caused by unchecked terrorists and criminals who have been allowed free access to our country. Why haven't these voices who are speaking up now ever said anything about the negligence of allow dangerous people with harmful intentions unchecked access to our citizens?
As I said, her homily was good, I appreciated her heart and her message and I believe she spoke hard truths and said much of what needed to be said but I also believe that we can't ignore the "Do Justice" part of Micah 6:8. We love to focus on loving mercy and walking humbly with our God, but when the government is responsible to protect citizens from foreign and domestic threats and to try and spare the loss of life, it's really easy to stand behind pulpits or from our ivory towers and comfortable key pads and judge people who protect us every day from harm.
I think we need to be a little more compassionate and a little more respectful of the complicated challenges certain people in law enforcement face. Maybe we can show them a little more mercy and humility ourselves with the rhetoric we use.
I think we need to be intellectually honest with ourselves here.