The Noise Comes from All Sides

 

This past summer during the Third Saturday Sunset Antique Car Cruise-In, a man and woman stood on the roadside at Fifth and Gault armed with a bullhorn and told people walking past that they were going to Hell. Women inspired particular scorn for having the audacity to wear shorts in the August heat. I heard that a bride getting married inside the Coal & Iron Building was not appreciative of their effort to save souls by barking hellfire and brimstone at her guests loudly enough to drown out her exchanging of vows. 

I walked up and gently suggested that they might be more successful in winning souls to the Lord if they weren’t so, well, direct about their contempt for everyone else. The woman smiled back and said, “Oh, if anyone has a problem with what he’s saying, they have bigger problems than him saying it, because they’re going to hell.”

 

M’kay… 

Street preachers aren’t specific to Fort Payne. During a visit to Nashville this summer, there were proselytizers with megaphones holding big signs displaying mutilated fetuses while name-calling and slut shaming random bachelorettes walking past in their matching cowgirl attire. They claimed that their message was the crowd’s only hope at redemption, and accused everyone of not going to church, even though several people walking by said they had family members who were pastors. 

It appears fruitless to try and counter the incendiary rhetoric from these bullhorn prophets with Bible verses saying God is the only one who can judge or by sharing verses saying that sinners shouldn’t judge other sinners. As long as there’s free speech, we have to tolerate messages from each other that we may find offensive. It’s a two-way street, and we don’t get to rant about how our perspective is being censored while simultaneously condemning what others say because it offends our sensibilities. 

Anyway, talk is cheap. Blah Blah Blah… 

SHOW me what a good Christian you are, don’t TELL me. Show me how moral you are with displays of compassion and exhibitions of mercy. I proposed that the example set by Marked for Life Ministries, as one example, has won more souls to Christ by sharing God’s grace than a thousand street preachers screaming insults through megaphones. 

I don’t mean to pick on Christianity. Most people I know are good, decent folks just trying to get through another day with fewer headaches and a little change left in their pockets, but someone who’s convinced he’s infallible-by-proxy is just a target-rich example of speech requiring patience. The only choice is to be converted or keep on walking. 

My faith is a deeply personal thing, not some designer brand I flaunt so everyone knows I’m a member of God’s country club. The minute you put yourself on a pedestal claiming to be just one notch below Jesus, you invite comparisons to all the ways you aren’t even close to emulating the creator and redeemer. 

The same concepts apply to people who get eye rolls for being “woke” because they can be guilty of the same intolerance they rally against while virtue signaling. 

I honestly could care less if two consenting adults want to get married (is promiscuity preferred?). But “gay pride” parades can be reasonably interpreted as a bit “in your face” and honestly seem counter-productive as LGBTQ+ people finally gain more acceptance for lifestyles that feel more natural to their inclinations behind closed doors. 

Of course, some portion of society is going to greet such provocations with apprehension. In the 1950s, television showed Lucy and Ricky Ricardo sleeping in separate beds because it would be too shocking to imply that a married man and woman touched under the covers! Now we see TV ads showing men kissing and announcers reciting a list of the side effects of the latest drug on our erections. 

I was in college when Aerosmith released a hit song making fun of a man with an effeminate appearance who’s mistaken for a woman. Seems like a lot of the stuff I grew up with in popular entertainment is now criticized by youngsters as “problematic” in today’s world of thin-skinned condemnation of inappropriate humor. 

I mourn the loss of irreverence because life is taken way too seriously. Some teenagers today feel like they need to label their sexuality, the pronouns, their whatever… And while I support their right to live their lives the way they want to without having to get my stamp of approval or yours, so much of what’s said now is stuff that there’s really no need to declare in a mission statement and wear prominently on their sleeves. 

Unless there’s some practical necessity for other people to need to know that you don’t identify as a man or a woman, feel free to keep that to yourself. 

In school, the principal would push teenage lovebirds away for the crime of P.D.A. I can see the benefit of not having to watch the head cheerleader and the quarterback French kiss in the hallway, just as I’m happy to not make a big deal of it and go on with my life if I happen upon two dudes holding hands or a mother with her breast exposed for her newborn to feed. It's going to take me some time to adjust, though. 

Can we all just not get our panties in such a wad? 

This goes back to what I said earlier: Don’t tell someone they can’t say or do something in the privacy of their own space while insisting that no one had better try to censor you. 

 From the left, there’s a tendency to push the idea that society needs to hurry up and become radically more accepting of change. I hate to tell them, but grandma is never going to be a cheerleader for things she grew up being told were wicked, immoral and, well, kind of insane. 

The generation to follow may be more accepting. Time will tell, but patience is required in the meantime to tolerate those who’ll dismiss any growing acceptance as indoctrination. Some people will never accept change until they’re confronted by it in the form of someone they personally know and care about; otherwise, people touting something that feels strange will be easily dismissed as perverts and weirdos trying to steamroll everyone else with radical agendas. 

Yeah, it’s going to take time for neighbors to accept that Danny next door is now Danielle and wears high heels. A certain segment of the population is never going to view that as anything other than mentally ill or dismiss it as a phase or a stunt to rebel against or punish a parent. It's natural to wonder why someone would put themselves through that kind of a spectacle. 

Perhaps one day the street preacher and the drag queen will find a way to co-exist in harmony without declaring each other as evil incarnate. Both anticipate the other will find Judgment Day deeply disappointing from expectations. My idea of paradise is no longer having to listen to either of them rant. 

For now, we have to ways to live as peacefully as we can, achieve a base level of human empathy for others, try to find some happiness as we define it, and, most importantly, mind our own damn business.