Neighborhood Bully

Nobody likes the neighborhood bully. The one who is constantly tearing people down, telling them they are wrong, and beating them up, both physically and verbally. Everyone tries to avoid this person and eventually the tables turn and the neighborhood turns on the bully. Bullies are eventually kicked out of schools, end up in juvenile detentions and hated by society. 

When we think of a bully, we think of people like Biff Tannen from Back to the Future. His catch phrase "HEL-LO...McFLY" is still a common catchphrase when pointing out that someone is too slow or 'stupid' to understand something. We think of Nelly Olson from Little House on the Prairie who never had anything nice to say to anyone. She was incredibly selfish, physically violant and demanding. It was her way or the highway and when she didn't get her way, she would destroy everything in her path, including people, until her parents (usually her dad since her mom was already on her side) gave in to her demands. 

And what about one of our favorite bullies? Simon Cowell! He seems to enjoy cutting people down to a pile of ashes, smashing every hope and dream along the way. He tells them they are pathetic, says things like "Did you really believe you could become the American Idol? Well, then, your deaf" or "If you sang like that 2000 years ago, people would have stoned you".

Sometimes I think that we as Christians have become the neighborhood bully. We want rules and regulations. We want to make sure that everyone lives by "our" set of rules. I could make a list of these rules, but you already know what they are. We expect that everyone live like we do, despite them not believing in the God we serve, having the morals we have and following the Bible we read. Anything that is different than us is bad and our morals are bad. 

Many within the Christian world look at Islam as an angry and violent religion. They point to extreme acts of terrorism and talk about how the Muslims want to take over the world. They forget that Christianity has the same agendas. Look at all the religious crusades, the Salem Witch Hunts and how we try to create laws in the US based on our religious ideas. We are trying to force people into our way of living instead of looking to see how our beliefs affect the overall community as a whole. We can't force anyone to embrace our way of thinking and by trying we are creating enemies. We are attempting sin management instead of working to bring people into an understanding of what it is we believe and why we do it. 

The Bible tells us that we will be 'persecuted' for Jesus namesake. What does that mean? Many believe that we are being persecuted now 'in our own country'. They feel that religious freedoms are being taken away. I point out that maybe it's a balance of religion, as I believe the nation was originally intended. It gives everyone a chance to worship how they want, or to not worship at all. And we aren't willing to work together to find a compromise. We continue to be the neighborhood bully. An example that comes to mind is in Dearborn, MI. There is a large Islamic community there and everyday, the call to prayer plays out over the entire city. Many people fought hard in an attempt to stop it. They tried to chase it out of the city. They were bullies. While it's an inconvenience for the non-muslims in the neighborhood, and I agree that it's not what I want to hear everyday, being angry and trying to simply ban it with a law isn't the way to go about it. We are forcing our beliefs, just as we feel they are forcing theirs by making us hear it. We are talking about the sanctity of marriage ...while we are getting divorced in record numbers or our leaders in the pulpits are having affairs. We are talking about abortion.....while we are arguing about not taking care of the kids that end up in the 'system'. We snub our noses at alcoholics or drug addicts....while we sit addicted to our tv, our ice cream or our Diet Coke.

Times in the US are changing, but I would challenge that we are not being 'persecuted for Jesus namesake'. We have been the neighborhood bully and people are beginning to fight back. We have reduced others rights and now there are those trying to reduce ours. Same sex marriage  while we may not agree with it, does not hurt OUR rights. Marijuana legalization does not hurt OUR rights. None of these things really affect us and our right to worship God the way we want. Even removing the 10 Commandments from public business doesn't change our ability to believe and worship and does not limit our rights in the least. It's time we look to Jesus and stop playing the Christian Victim card. Stop being the neighborhood bully and do as we were commanded to do "Love our neighbor as ourselves". If we have truly loved as we want to be loved, we are now reaping the same 'love' we sowed. 



Moving forward, I would challenge you to listen to how you portray your faith. Are you trying to create sin management in the people and community around you? Are you coming off as arrogant and self centered in your approach? Are you making others feel that if they don't agree with you, they are inferior, or better yet....sinners? Evaluate just how Jesus really WOULD have handled the situation. While he told sinners to 'go and sin no more', he walked in love with them. He brought them to an understanding on himself and his heart and love for them. He challenged them to go to the next level, THEN challenged them to go and sin no more.