If someone were to put out an announcement requesting volunteers to tell them why I'm not perfect, I'd be at the front of the list. And I'd have a list so long the rest of you wouldn't even be needed.
One of my biggest flaws in my inability to channel my passion in a productive way. Instead of being a steam-powered engine I'm just a giant pot of trapped steam that eventually explodes when one of my hot topic buttons get pushed. Luckily the buttons have gotten fewer over the years and they're usually rigged to only explode when fellow Christian poke them, but explode they still do.
And so, in the spirit of asking for trouble, my hot topic buttons:
1. Homosexuality and God. Yep, it's a sin. Yep, if you don't repent of your sins and accept Christ as your savior you're headed to hell along with anyone who ever lied, or rolled their eyes at their parents, or stuffed themselves at Thanksgiving, or looked the other way at a homeless person on the street. The point isn't the sin, it's that you couldn't stay perfect. No one can and we all have different weaknesses.
That said: the people who picket or shout at passerbys that they're going to hell (I've never seen anyone offer any hope [i1Peter 3:15] after such a scene) make me want to take their picket sign and beat them over the head with it. Seriously, if you ever wave your "God hates you" sign in my vicinity, you might want to make sure it's not attached to a stake that's gonna tempt me to go all Vampire Slayer on your backside.
2. The poor/homeless. Yes, they will always be with us, you will never end poverty. You'll probably never end AIDS either (it mutates more often than the Flu virus and you've seen how well we have that under control) but that doesn't mean we just line them up and send them to their deaths. And the majority of them have psychological issues, many of which have led them to substance abuse, but that doesn't mean you leave them hungry, cold and alone on the side of the road.
And if I hear you say "they should just get a job," be prepared for me to get you slobbering drunk and dump your butt off downtown after I take your ID, money, phone, and coat and cover you in mud. And you'll be thanking your lucky stars that I don't want my hands covered in rat feces...
3. Abortion. I don't think Roe v. Wade will ever be reversed. I know people on both sides who think it could be. I think they are silly and possibly brainwashed. I don't agree with people attacking girls and women outside clinics, I certainly do not advocate bombing clinics (hello! I knew that was wrong when I was 6 and heard about it the first time. Ingrates.), and I do not hate women who have had abortions. (I have issue with those who use it as their only form of birth control, but so do a lot of pro-choicers.)
However, to tell me I have to assist in performing an abortion? No. Do you really want me to give up my morals and ethics because you or a doctor told me to? Do you have any idea what that could lead to? The moment you give an inch in your ethics as a nurse, you might as well give them up completely because you've just set yourself up to be bullied into doing it again and again on different issues. Do you think the Nazi nurses agreed to go along with killing the Jews straight out? I bet they gave up little pieces of their consciences bit by bit along the way.
And to tell me I can't work in an ER if I won't assist in abortive surgeries? Are you serious? Do you not want me to pull over to the scene of your accident while you're bleeding to death either? You're ridiculous. There will always be a nurse in the ER willing to trade me patients. If there's not, that's not a cooperative hospital and I'm outie. So don't worry about your right to choose, you're still getting it.
And so am I.
4. Christians treating non-christians like dirt. (This should have a higher number.) Now, unless this person happens to be in the middle of a violent crime there's absolutely no reason to be nasty to them. "They were nasty first." Are you 6 years old? "They are blaspheming God." Yeah, well He's willing to forgive them, and you're supposed to be like Him. "They are offensive." And you're offending me, them and God, so get off it. "They need to be taught a lesson." What are you, the thought police? Please. "God said to!" God said nothing of the sort. What did you do, take a red pen and fill in some words of your own to the Sermon on the Mount?
5. Christians letting other Christians treat non-christians like dirt. Has no one read the continual commands to hold one another accountable? "Let he who has no sin cast the first stone"? That was about the religious officials (or Christians today).
There are more, but those are the biggies. The ones pushed most recently.
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