Legalism Vs. Love and Truth
My heart is saddened a bit this morning. Several weeks ago I contacted an online Christian women’s magazine about placing an ad directing believers to my website to get free daily Christian meditations. After a week with no response, I sent a follow up email and this is the reply I received.
Thank you for your letter. I held on to it to check with a few others and so it took me a while longer than usual. Personally I think the site looks great, but because we have such a legalistic section of an audience I feel that I should avoid websites that may spark controversy among some of the readers, who may misinterpret it as new age. For this reason we have decided that we have to decline. Live Well!”
I have underlined several passages of this letter that I would like to address. First, it is still beyond me why so many Christians are “legalistic.” If anyone should be tolerant and compassionate it should be us! I don’t mean tolerant of sin, but tolerant of our brothers and sisters as well as the unbeliever. Jesus said love your neighbor as yourself. That doesn’t imply to love him only if he thinks like you, acts like you, looks like you, or is a Christian like you. Your neighbor may be the gay couple with 6 adopted kids! I know that will make some Christian’s cringe. Maybe if we stop being so judgmental we can actually love some people into a relationship with Christ by being a reflection of God’s love.
