Over at Think Christian a few days ago, we started a bit of a discussion about some problems with Yahoo's Search Assist feature. It seems when one searches for "Jesus", Yahoo suggests that perhaps one is looking for "sweet jesus i hate bill o'reilly". More surprising to me than that was a response and followups (1, 2) by one of the readers on there. This is my overly long response to her, saved from cluttering the comments on the TC page.
Hi again, Christiane, [Ed: of course, this is directed toward all of you, dear readers, at this point.]
You are, of course, free to ignore my questions and "answer" with questions of your own. I will choose not to ignore your questions and will answer them here.
1. Unbelievers have no more responsibility than the law requires of them. If the law does not prohibit an unbeliever from saying "sweet Jesus", the unbeliever has no responsibility to forego saying it.
2-4. These all deal with names universally reviled (at least, NOW they are) for the oppressed and downtrodden in society. They are people that, at least historically, have had no power with which to defend themselves. Are you oppressed and downtrodden when an unbeliever says "sweet Jesus"?
Now, I know what you'll say: we have to defend Christ's good name! And I'd even cautiously agree with you on that, though I suspect we'd disagree on the method by which we do so. I'm not going to get all hot and bothered and puff out my chest accusing those who DON'T get offended of having "moronic ideas" (even after I gave you the chance to retract!). Frankly, if you get offended about every "sweet Jesus", feeling like you need to defend the God who refused to even defend himself when faced with much more than an unkind word, you're going to come off as a shrill decrier of every slight, large or small, real or perceived. And you'll be INEFFECTIVE; if your goal is to actually reach the people to whom you're responding, you will defeat yourself.
To summarize my response to 2-4: you are confusing words against the downtrodden that frequently accompanied violence against those same powerless people with a flippant remark using God's Son's name. Also, you're invoking Godwin's Law so I don't suspect we're much longer here.
5. It's easier to bear the cross of Christ (at least in some part) by justifying those who spit on Him. I get the feeling that I missed your point, if one existed, with #5.
Finally, let's not get into "rah rah, America used to be so great when everyone liked Christians". All of your previous points, especially those concerning American blacks, are pretty hollow when those same Christians (who sure knew not to say "sweet Jesus") were enslaving and murdering men, women and children for the color of their skin. So... when did everyone understand that respecting your Christianity was the reference point of free civilization? They sure didn't respect even THEIR OWN Christianity enough to stop slavery, much less the Christianity of their slaves.
To summarize my entire argument: to get needlessly offended does not accomplish the goal that we are given with all nonbelievers. We are called to love, serve and reach them. This does NOT mean we coddle them; part of loving them is certainly speaking truth in love. Being shrill complainers about seemingly everything, especially when those to whom you're complaining have no internal understanding of why you're even bothered by "sweet Jesus", does not demonstrate love to them. It demonstrates that you're easy to rattle — it will only turn them off and get yourself branded as a whiner.
Now, if you don't have answers to my previous questions, I'll go ahead and bow out of the conversation. You can even have the last word. [Ed: Yes, you can even have the last word on my own blog; if you, Christiane, continue to not answer my previous questions, you won't elicit a response from me.]
Posted by pcg at October 9, 2007 9:00 AM