A Thought For The Week Of November 14, 2016

"For God wants you to silence the ignorant talk of foolish people by the good things you do." (1 Peter 2:15) I've noticed that most of the time when disagreements come up we have a tendency to try to outshout each other. That doesn't work of course, especially when the disagreements are passionate. Passionate people believe passionately in what they believe! They believe that those who don't agree with them are wrong at best and foolish at worst. That makes it easy for us to begin to disrespect those who disagree with us. The end result is that we look foolish, as we try to first yell at each other and then yell past each other. All that happens is that those we're trying to appeal to look upon us with increasing disdain or even contempt. I'm thinking about this verse in the light of the protests that have been occurring in the United States (and, to a lesser degree, in Canada) since the election of Donald Trump as president a week ago. I have nothing at all against peaceful protests, but I'm not sure that those who are taking to the streets to protest the results of a completely free and fair election are helping themselves, or making their message respectable. This verse from 1 Peter seems to point us to a better way. Rather than yelling and shouting against what we see as foolishness, we could set an example by acting as God would have us act: by standing for what we believe but doing so in a way that demonstrates that we are the children of God. I'm not saying that people shouldn't protest. When we feel strongly about something then protesting is a right we should cherish and claim. But if shouting (and, in a few cases, rioting) are all that we do, it's going to be of little use. We can't simply stand against something - which is usually what protests do. We have to stand for something. As the children of God we have to stand for the way of God - revealed by Jesus: a way that seeks to change hearts by persuasion and not coercion; a way that seeks to change the world by transforming people rather than by ranting against them; a way that leads people into love and hope rather than leaving them in anger and despair.