Offended others?

A recent article in the Chicago Sun Times (not necessarily a paper I read, but I found the article on the web) poignantly points out a problem with our politically correct culture. The article is about Heidi Zamecnik's attempt to wear a T-shirt that didn't support the gay lifestyle. On the day after the "Day of Silence" in 2006, Heidi wore a T-shirt that said "BE HAPPY, NOT GAY". The Dean of Students at her school told her to remove the T-shirt of leave because her message "offended others". Whoa... Apparently it is OK to offend Christians by promoting a lifestyle counter to God's command, but possibly offending other students is not OK.

Face it, Christianity is an offensive religion, at least in the eyes of the world. This has been true since Christ started his ministry on earth, and is just as true today as ever before. Now that the hair on the back of your neck is raised if you're a Christian, or you are chuckling to yourselves if you are not, let me explain. Christians believe that Christ and only Christ can redeem us from our sins and that he died on a cross to pay the penalty for our sins, past, present, and future. Christians believe that only a personal relationship with Christ can grant us everlasting life. I would imagine this is pretty offensive to the current culture that believes anything goes as long as it doesn't hurt someone.

The difficulty with that view is that how can you know whether you've hurt someone (including yourself) or not? To know whether you've hurt someone requires omniscient knowledge of the results of your actions. Unfortunately that isn't something we as humans can ever know. Almost by definition we can't be omniscient. We can't see into the future and see the results of our actions. Only an omniscient God can see the impact our decisions and actions make upon ourselves and others throughout all time.

Although there is almost universal belief that harming someone else without "cause" is bad, that belief is likewise faulty in that it assumes something about what is "cause" or "just", what is "bad", and what is "harm". The only way to have a real understanding of what is appropriate "cause" or suitably "just" or to really know whether something is harmful or not is to have measuring stick. If one uses the culture's measuring stick that is relative to one's background, feelings, belief, experiences, etc., then we can't know what is "just" or causes "harm" for someone else because it is all relative to what we believe and value. This is why we need the absolute truth of God to help us discern what is "just" or "bad" or "harmful". Again, only an omniscient God can know those things for everyone.

What does all of the above rambling mean? Well first that the relative truth of the world will only lead to conflict or sin as it ultimately leads to the conclusion that everything is truth, which obviously can't be the case. That to know what is really truth requires an intimate relationship with our creator who ultimately knows what is right and wrong or what is truth and what is lie. This is why Satan is referred to as the great deceiver as his "truth" is really a lie and he deceives us into believing that he has the truth. This is certainly going to "offend" those that believe anything goes as it means they are wrong.

What is really sad in the action taken by Bryan Wells, Dean of Students at Heidi's school, is that it is apparently OK to offend Christians by promoting a lifestyle that is offensive to God, but that it is not OK to offend those same people by advocating a different lifestyle. As Christians, we have been put on the defensive. The culture says it's OK to espouse Wiccan ideology, Satan worship, Scientology, or any other loony belief system, but promoting Christian beliefs has become "offensive" and doesn't deserve the same level of tolerance or acceptance that these other belief systems now receive. How sad is that.