Since I finished up work early today, I decided to take some time to do some reading, follow some more people on Twitter, and catch up on news.  I came across a new blog from CNN called the belief blog.  This blog is not a Christian blog, but dives into the “religious” views on big news stories as you can see by their own description:

The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day’s biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers’ lives.

Scanning through some of the posts I came across a post written yesterday by Jennifer Knapp called My Take: On fear, faith and being gay.  I had to take a double take.  It just goes to show how disconnected I have been to news seeing as she “came out” last month.  My initial reaction was one of confusion since Jennifer Knapp was one of the few female artists I actually listened to as I was finishing high school and moving on to college.  As I read through her blog post, I began to understand some of her difficulties on the road, singing for every denomination under the sun and trying not to offend any one of them.  Then there was the brief paragraph where she mentioned being gay and I saw where her fears went head-to-head with the compassion of the church that she wanted to lean on.

As I’m sure you can imagine, everyone with an opinion has come out in full force either against her, against the people who are against her, or just plain supporting her.  Between three different pages I read, there were nearly 10,000 comments, and most of them were full of endless arguing and finger pointing.  That’s the point when I got frustrated.

My frustration started with the Christian commentators.  With any controversial post or article, they are always the first to cast the proverbial stone and post comments casting judgment and saying things like all sins are equally bad but God especially detests yours.   Then there are the extreme responders that seem to only want to start an argument when they say that god is dead and christians are dumb and religion is a money making scheme.  Sprinkled in between all the hate are a few Christians that cast stones in a passive aggressive manner.  They’re the ones that say we should love everybody and, by the way, you should take the plank out of your own eye before you tear up someone else for the speck in theirs.

I personally don’t condone her lifestyle.  We are all given free will and when it comes down to it, God has the final say in everyone’s eternity.  I’m not one to try to force Christianity down the throats of the lost, or even make a strong stand on specific issues.  That being said, I can’t stand the argument.  I understand that people have strong convictions and they want to share them, but at some point it’s all been said and repeating it all 6000 times on the same site isn’t going to change anyone’s mind.  The un-Christians can misquote the Bible out of context just as good as any front row Christian and it goes back and forth until everyone is blue in the face.  The argument usually ends with the Christian feeling discouraged and frustrated and the non-christian feeling as though they won.  An online argument will not bring anyone into a relationship with Christ.  On the contrary, it is more likely to turn anyone who is struggling with religiosity off to the church all together.  Life change happens through relationships and only God can soften a hardened heart.

I’m not saying that Jennifer Knapp has a hardened heart, but I’m sure she’s heard everything in those comments before.  She has said that she struggles with the church as a whole more than her lifestyle.  It’s not hard to see why.  She is on a journey, and like anyone else she’s not done yet.

If I am in any way unpleasing in his sight, I can only hope and pray that he gives me the opportunity to find who I am supposed to be. (Knapp via CNN)

When the sins of others become public, it should cause us to look at our own sins rather than give us a soapbox to preach from.  I have my own sins just like anyone else.  I choose at times to continue in those sins knowing full well that they are wrong.  It’s a constant struggle.  Sometimes by the grace of God I win.  Other times I fall hard.  I pray that He helps me overcome them.  I also pray that others can overcome their sins by His grace.

Isaiah 53:5
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.