The post talks about a push to refer to children with non-gender specific terms. I have no issue with this, however what I have an issue with is the concept of 'banning' the terms boy and girl or other terms which are specific. The article talks about not doing things and doing things in case people are offended, however this worries me. I'm worried that we as a society are going to reach a point where it becomes offensive to speak the truth and therefore the truth is hushed away. It's not the article itself, so much as the idea behind it, the idea of censorship and of getting rid of ideas which have biological backing without even questioning whether the idea behind this is as positive as believed.
The byword of the age is 'bigot', and it's a word which is unswervingly thrown at an individual whenever they express a belief contrary to the rest of society - particularly if that belief has Christian values connected to it. Ironically, those who use the term in such a way are themselves bigoted, given that by currency of the dictionary the term bigot is anyone who is intolerant to those holding different opinions. So guess what: we are all bigoted in some way, shape or form because at some point in our lives we hold to a truth unswervingly and we are intolerant of those who stand opposed to that truth.
Either way there is one common mistake I believe that Christians make in a world that calls us bigoted and denies our truths. That is, we attempt to impose our truths on this very same world. We condemn the world with our actions, calling out their sin and their every action as moral bankruptcy. Yet this is not what Jesus told us to do in the Great Commission whatsoever he didn't tell us to change the world from the outside, he told us to change it from the inside "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," Matthew 28:19.
Brian Houston said it well in a blog post of his own, "If God had wanted to condemn the world He would have sent a condemner. But He didn’t, He wanted to save the world so He sent a Saviour. John 3:17." However, it's because of this that sometimes Christians go the other way. We adopt everyone and endorse their worldviews and lifestyles when they enter the Church as perfectly acceptable Christian lifestyles. But again, the Church is not called to be the same as everyone else. We are called to be holy - righteous - sanctified. We are called to be set apart, to preach truths from the pulpit that aren't accepted by the rest of the world because deep down I believe everyone knows that they are not righteous, that they need salvation, that they aren't good enough on their own.
So here is what a Christian is to do in a world that rejects our beliefs: we endorse people but not their beliefs. We love people, but not their every action. We do not condemn a world that doesn't want our opinion or want us to meddle with their ways of life (would you tell your neighbour how to raise their children?) but rather we must stand out as holding onto a different truth and not just going along with the political correctness and lifestyles of the world. After all, we are here to guide people to salvation with love: we all need a saviour and how can we do that if we are as lost as everyone else?
