Is it important for Christians to consider the words they use? (Out of left field)

I’m not saying I necessarily agree with everything about this organization, but this commercial made me think:

Should Christians be careful with their words too?

In general, if someone said, “That’s so ‘jock who can complete a pass but not a sentence'” (the website‘s example), isn’t that just as mean as saying “That’s so gay”? Let me put it differently. If someone said “That’s so autistic,” for example, would that make you uncomfortable? If so, why would equating autism with displeasure be more offensive than equating a specific lifestyle with displeasure? This is not the arena to discuss views on homosexuality; my point is simply this: Do our words have the potential to be unloving?

I’m kinda frustrated that we Christians are still dealing with this issue. This ad campaign is aimed at school children, yet we still hear these derogatory terms while hanging out with Christian friends – I’m 21 and in college, and hear it in people my age and even sometimes Christians much older than I, including a pastor once – and worse, in our churches. Not that I think churches are somehow holy ground, but if there’s one place we should be thinking, “How would my Savior want me to act?” it’s in the place where we come together to worship Him. Even if you disagree with the lifestyle, is there anything loving about bringing harm to someone who adheres to said lifestyle with your flippant words? Yes, I’ve heard gay friends say people using homosexual slang as insults doesn’t bother them. But consider, if someone were to call me a communist right now, I would laugh and say “thank you.” In 1950s America, however, them woulda been fightin’ words. Similarly, I’ve also heard other people of similar orientation say it does bother them. One friend said that he hadn’t thought much about it, but in considering it he discovered that it made him feel looked down upon, though he had never really noticed it because these slang words are so prevalent.

What does Scripture say about subtly condemning another person, even for something you believe to be wrong? Doesn’t God’s Word instruct us to be agents of love rather than condemnation, even (if not especially) toward others who hold different beliefs? Jesus says in John 13:35, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” His disciple John very plainly expounds upon how we’re to show love in 1 John 4:8-12: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

I’m not trying to tell anyone what to do, as that’s the Holy Spirit’s role – to deal with your heart individually, and work through you to bring you in line with how God would have you act and think and speak. I’m just bringing the issue up so you can think about it. That’s my job – providing wacky rants out of left field to bring issues into your consciousness.

Please don’t take this as a passive-aggressive attempt to call any specific person out; it’s simply a reflection on a trend I have noticed among even believers in the almost four years since I became one, brought on by seeing this commercial and realizing that I’ve noticed it a good amount in Christians’ conversations in the past few months. Trust me, I’ve used many a potentially hurtful term to mean “bad” or “unpleasant,” and it’s still sometimes difficult to restrain myself from using the r-word when I mean I don’t like something. But I think the first step in correcting what may be an issue in our own lives is noticing it when it happens, and then God can choose to help us change our actions from there if He so desires.

What are your thoughts?

Leaving Miami, heading for Texas and HM Magazine

Well, time to say goodbye to MillenniumBeat and I’m hitting the road for Texas in a few hours (literally) for my HM Magazine internship this summer.

I’ll continue to update here as well as my intern blog for HM, which I’ll keep you posted about. This project will look a little different but hopefully you all will enjoy it.

Blog reader ADD

Tonight, my beat reporter friend and I discussed a topic I’ve found intriguing for a while: blog reader ADD.

For those not familiar with the concept, it’s the idea that frequent readers of blogs won’t bother to read posts longer than a browser page long. In other words, if they have to scroll or, heaven forbid, click to read more they won’t bother and they’ll just keep surfing.

Of course there are devoted followers that might actually read the whole thing but those are the cave dwellers you don’t want commenting on your stuff anyway, right?

This raises a large problem of how to make a concise point in approximately 200-400 words, depending on how severe your handicap of having to hit enter after every line is, like mine or this guy’s. Though it’s a good quality in Patrol’s case.

I had a severe case of reader ADD tonight when I came across this post on Politico. Politico will always greatly overshadow anything I attempt in this profession, but they fail on the reader ADD test.

Which brings me to my question and a challenge: All kidding aside, do you find yourself only actually reading (skimming the first and last words of each paragraph does not count) blog posts that are longer than a browser page long?

Now my personal challenge: Get this post to approximately a reader ADD-friendly length without cheating and previewing it. I need to learn to write a compelling post and just stop before it goes over the edge of readability.

I’m going to guess I failed.

*EDIT*: Turns out I made it, but just barely. Not too shabby for a whole post in which I neglected to make an actual point. Oh well, I’ll start with length and figure out that whole content thing at some point.