Rude Awakening
As a mother, it's hard to stand by and watch your child get a rude awakening...no matter how old they are.
We consider ourselves Christians and brought our daughters up that way, but with a lot more open mind than many of the more vocal 'Christians'. We believe the "Love your neighbor as yourself" part and that colors our view of everything else. I've told my daughters that we're a little more liberal than most Christians they'll run into, so, intellectually, they know to expect that.
My 18 year old daughter has been talking to a young man she met online who says he's a Christian. They've been talking about everything and nothing, but the other night, somehow, they got into a conversation about which church is the 'right' church, or if you need a church at all to worship God (my daughter believing that you DON"T need a church to do so). This young man had VERY definite views (basically his church's views are right and everyone else is wrong). The conversation went down hill with the young man saying some very hateful things about specific groups of the general population. When my daughter argued that if you accept "Love your neighbor", you can't seriously say all these hateful things. The arguement got even more heated until he finally told her not the contact him anymore.
Now, this was just a 'friend' in her mind. She didn't have hopes of a long term relationship or anything, but it still felt like a 'break up' to her and she's still reeling over WHY! Because he wants to use God's word to hate and she wants to use it to love. The first of many such revelations, I'm sure, but it hurt to see her so hurt.
How do you explain to your kids (even grown ones) that people who claim to be Christian can be so cruel an close-minded?
We consider ourselves Christians and brought our daughters up that way, but with a lot more open mind than many of the more vocal 'Christians'. We believe the "Love your neighbor as yourself" part and that colors our view of everything else. I've told my daughters that we're a little more liberal than most Christians they'll run into, so, intellectually, they know to expect that.
My 18 year old daughter has been talking to a young man she met online who says he's a Christian. They've been talking about everything and nothing, but the other night, somehow, they got into a conversation about which church is the 'right' church, or if you need a church at all to worship God (my daughter believing that you DON"T need a church to do so). This young man had VERY definite views (basically his church's views are right and everyone else is wrong). The conversation went down hill with the young man saying some very hateful things about specific groups of the general population. When my daughter argued that if you accept "Love your neighbor", you can't seriously say all these hateful things. The arguement got even more heated until he finally told her not the contact him anymore.
Now, this was just a 'friend' in her mind. She didn't have hopes of a long term relationship or anything, but it still felt like a 'break up' to her and she's still reeling over WHY! Because he wants to use God's word to hate and she wants to use it to love. The first of many such revelations, I'm sure, but it hurt to see her so hurt.
How do you explain to your kids (even grown ones) that people who claim to be Christian can be so cruel an close-minded?