I am ashamed of myself.
I let partisanship ideology and the media interfere with my appreciating an individual and her contributions.
What I knew about Ruth Bader Ginsburg before her death was minimal and centered around the decisions I disagreed with. But I am now realizing that there was so much more to the person and her contributions. Justice Scalia knew this. But somehow I, and many others like me, didn’t. Or lost sight of it. We put Justice Ginsberg in a very small box and set her aside even though a lot of her decisions helped us personally.
This is just another example of how micro-focusing on one issue and disregarding everything else further divides of our country. Where a disagreement on an issue justifies discounting the entire individual.
Yes, as Christians, we are to be discerning, adhering to Godly principles and standing up for Christian values, but at the very core of the Christian life is Christ himself, who loved the world--all the lost—so much that he willingly died for all of us. We are asked to love not kill others with our rhetoric, animosity, or self-righteousness.
So we can never stray from Jesus’s answer to the Pharisees when they asked him what is the greatest commandment. They wanted to trap him, to prove him wrong, or catch him in a contradiction. (Sound familiar to anyone?) His answer cut through it all.
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-38).
I have attached Josh Wilson’s new song “Revolutionary.” It captures what is happening in our country, Jesus’s command to love, and a way to move forward.
I let partisanship ideology and the media interfere with my appreciating an individual and her contributions.
What I knew about Ruth Bader Ginsburg before her death was minimal and centered around the decisions I disagreed with. But I am now realizing that there was so much more to the person and her contributions. Justice Scalia knew this. But somehow I, and many others like me, didn’t. Or lost sight of it. We put Justice Ginsberg in a very small box and set her aside even though a lot of her decisions helped us personally.
This is just another example of how micro-focusing on one issue and disregarding everything else further divides of our country. Where a disagreement on an issue justifies discounting the entire individual.
Yes, as Christians, we are to be discerning, adhering to Godly principles and standing up for Christian values, but at the very core of the Christian life is Christ himself, who loved the world--all the lost—so much that he willingly died for all of us. We are asked to love not kill others with our rhetoric, animosity, or self-righteousness.
So we can never stray from Jesus’s answer to the Pharisees when they asked him what is the greatest commandment. They wanted to trap him, to prove him wrong, or catch him in a contradiction. (Sound familiar to anyone?) His answer cut through it all.
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-38).
I have attached Josh Wilson’s new song “Revolutionary.” It captures what is happening in our country, Jesus’s command to love, and a way to move forward.
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