I so often bash the Southern Baptists, a denomination that has degraded itself to the level of a cult of self-abasement since the Fundamentalist Takeover, that it’s a pleasure to occasionally encounter a Baptist who isn’t crazy and single-mindedly devoted to the degradation of others. Today, we have an example of that in this piece in the Dallas News by a pastor associated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Contemporary calls for religious freedom legislation or presidential executive orders or city ordinances mostly run afoul of the First Amendment because they forget the Golden Rule. Most often, these are attempts to prevent me from having to do something for you that I don’t want to do while still demanding that you be required to do that same thing for me. There’s another simple word for this: Selfishness.
Both the Golden Rule and the First Amendment call us to selflessness instead. My freedom is only as secure as your freedom. Even if I disagree with your religion or if my religion causes me to be suspicious of your sexual orientation or gender identity or race, I am called by Jesus and the Bill of Rights to walk the extra mile with you.
Well said. I could probably sit in that church without feeling I had soiled myself.