Tricia did an awesome post called, “A Needed Reckoning.” She talked about many good things and poked fun at the notion of belonging to the Bad Christian Club, one of the “unforgiving ones” when it comes to covid lock downs and vaccine mandates.
Well, yeah. They disregarded people’s rights, locked us down in our homes, and violated the Nuremberg Code when it comes to medical experimentation on unwitting civilians who weren’t even granted informed consent. Don’t even get me started about the public health disaster caused by this horrific abuse of power. We haven’t even begun to survey the damage and take an inventory.
Also, I’m about 2 years into this stupid, “2 weeks to flatten the curve” crap and my county just voted to continue their emergency powers act for another year so as to well, continue their power trip. I ain’t forgiving nobody.
The issue of forgiveness comes up a lot in my Christian walk. I don’t pretend to understand it all, but I do have Someone inside who tells me when I am just holding onto foolish resentments and need more Jesus and when I need to knock some people’s heads together, kick them in them rear, and fight back. There are even times in life where forgiveness becomes immoral, like for example, just forgiving a pedophile and putting him back in charge of the children’s ministry. God never said, be so open minded your brains done fell out and all common sense just slithered out your door.
I’m really blessed to have grown up among and continue to be surrounded by atheists. I am laughing, but I was elected to the “Bad Christian’s Club” many years ago. There is no one so judgmental, so critical, so quick to point fingers as an atheist about to catch a Christian in some act of potential hypocrisy. It’s forced me to really lean into the Lord on issues around tolerance, forgiveness, unity, civility, and “as much as it lies with you,” getting along with others.
Hat is another faithful Christian with a completely different take, chatting about civility in general, politics, and does a post called, “Robert B. Talisse on “Civility” She links to his article and I think he makes some good points. There is no doubt the whole country is deeply divided and civility no longer rules the day in our political landscape. Sheesh, just last week a couple of women on TV decided to label my kind, “cockroaches.”
All in good humor here, but I now have the la cucaracha song playing in my head. Notice I said, “my kind.” I’m supposed to aim for civility towards those who don’t even recognize me as being from the same species? Never mind the silly TV women, the president of the United States also went and declared “my kind” to be a threat to our democracy.
It seems like amnesty, grace, and civility suddenly become very popular concepts when a reckoning might be coming and bullies could be held accountable. All this stuff about how “mistakes have been made on both sides,” just doesn’t seem to work for me, perhaps in part because I was never even allowed to have “a side” in the first place.
I think a huge problem in America today is that so many people don’t know what they believe or why they believe it. Quite a bit of our programming literally comes from programming and not from self examination and critical thinking. Flat out, not many people know how to think for themselves anymore. And like it or not, that is not an excuse for being a boorish bully who feels entitled to annihilate and destroy anyone who disagrees with them.
Also, we really have to learn how to relate to people as individuals and not as their labels. That part really is hard. Extremely challenging. The thing is, people don’t fit in tidy little boxes. Jesus taught us a lot about not looking at the outside of someone’s cup, the labels, the shiny exterior….or the battered one. Judas betrayed him. Peter momentarily betrayed him. You cannot find safety in your expectations of others and craft a perfect circle of people who will never let you down. Relationships are complicated and fluid and so you have to try to be true to yourself and lean into the Lord.
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Ain’t forgetting s#!t. Lol. But the true reckoning isn’t what we do here, but what God brings later
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Ha! Me nether, I ain’t forgetting nothing.
When it comes to genuine forgiveness, those who really do seek it, what they actually need is the Lord’s forgiveness, not mine.
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“It’s forced me to really lean into the Lord on issues around tolerance, forgiveness, unity, civility, and “as much as it lies with you,” getting along with others.”
Romans 12:18 has long been one of my favorite verses because it expresses the deep practicality of authentic Biblical teaching. As far as possible, as much as lieth in you, live in peace with everybody.
But, in this mixed up crazy world, there sometimes comes a point when we are forced to go Full Popeye, and say “That’s all I can stands and I can’t stands no more,” and reach in to our shirt and pull out our can of spinach and suck it down through our corn cob pipe and force Bluto to take his mitts off of Olive Oyl, as it were, so to speak.
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I highly approve of anything involving Popeye. 🙂
In my opinion a big part of our problem for the past couple of years hasn’t been our crappy leadership, but people unwilling to simply stand up and say no, this has gone too far.
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Now it’s about civility. They don’t want to release info on the vax. They want big pharma to be immunized against litigation. They want vaccine ID before you can go to a restaurant, but you’re a racist if one is needed to vote. Heck, they don’t want dead people taken off of the voter rolls. I’m all for civility, but I’m more for the rule of law. Let the gavel fall where it may.
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Ahh yes, the rule of law! I didn’t realize how much I long for that too, and the somewhat fair and equal application of it. Social media for the last few years has given a good demonstration of what “rules for thee, but not for me” looks like. The game has been rigged, the deck has been stacked, and injustice rules the day. That’s really immoral, so 3 cheers for anyone trying to pull this car out of the ditch and make the rule of law something we can believe in again.
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Amen !! The Holy Spirit’s guidance and direction MUST be followed ALL the time !!!!
I shared this link last night at the first meeting at Christian Sober House, in Westville, NJ… A place for addicts to find love and hopefully Jesus…
This is an excellent description of what walking in and by the full power of the Holy Spirit is all about !! Blessings in Christ, bruce
https://bible.org/seriespage/5-spirit-work-spirit-filled-life
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Amen, we have to walk in the Spirit! We can’t know everything, we can’t see everything that’s going on, and there are too many variables in life. We need a bit of Supernatural guidance lighting the path before us.
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“Also, we really have to learn how to relate to people as individuals and not as their labels.” Amen!
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Reblogged this on clydeherrin.
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Doesn’t our abandonment of the church guarantee governmental occupation of the bacancy, with very different motive? Pr rather, abandonment of God and His agents, such as they are. Aren’t we making that which we like to deplore? Re forgiveness, isn’t that a monopoly of the victim? Application of the term to use by any third party seems questionable on multiple grounds …
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“We just need to start getting along again.” Nah, I’m good.
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LOL! Right. Good one.
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““We just need to start getting along again.” Nah, I’m good.”
I know that I’m getting sick and tired of the wicked. Everyone has faults and foibles and shortcomings, but, I can’t be civil to murderers and such like any more. Especially now that such persons have taken over the world and are running amok.
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Thanks for linking to Tricia’s post.
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Thoughtful post IB and thanks for linking to my post. I love what you say about being able to discern when forgiveness should come in to play, or not. Also, this whole nonsense of being labeled a bad person because of political views, has been going on for awhile, but oh man has that become prevalent today. I have to admit being called a cockroach had me laughing, but seriously what kind of idiocy creates that thinking? We are awash in ludicrousness, which only makes our clown World all the more clownier.
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