I had an interesting experience at church today. I am a Unitarian Universalist and we pride ourselves on being openminded and accepting of everyone. However, our service today ran counter to that philosophy.
Here is the story...at our church, our beliefs translate directly into action...and sometimes this action takes means political action. Therefore, every once and a while we have services that explore social issues that correspond with our values.
Todays service was called, "Standing on the Side of Love." And it was about equal rights for the GLBT community. My brother and his wife, who happen to go to an evangelical christian church were guests to our church today.
During the service, words like intolerant, bigot, ignorant, and wrong were used and I found myself in a quandary. Evangelical christians have a set of beliefs that they think are right for whatever reason.
If we were open minded, wouldn't we be able to deliver our message without denigrating those beliefs? Is there a way to change our message so that is respects everyones beliefs and still accomplishes what we want it to?
If we expand the context of this situation to society in general, the question becomes, "should we be tolerant of those we consider to be intolerant?"
upnorthkyosa
Here is the story...at our church, our beliefs translate directly into action...and sometimes this action takes means political action. Therefore, every once and a while we have services that explore social issues that correspond with our values.
Todays service was called, "Standing on the Side of Love." And it was about equal rights for the GLBT community. My brother and his wife, who happen to go to an evangelical christian church were guests to our church today.
During the service, words like intolerant, bigot, ignorant, and wrong were used and I found myself in a quandary. Evangelical christians have a set of beliefs that they think are right for whatever reason.
If we were open minded, wouldn't we be able to deliver our message without denigrating those beliefs? Is there a way to change our message so that is respects everyones beliefs and still accomplishes what we want it to?
If we expand the context of this situation to society in general, the question becomes, "should we be tolerant of those we consider to be intolerant?"
upnorthkyosa