A few weeks ago I went to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I’m a fan of Elizabethan and Tudor history… if nothing else than for that fact that it’s so fascinating. So much drama, marriages, beheadings, affairs… and of course: religion. In Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Queen Elizabeth I is challenged by King Philip II from Spain, “who is building a sea-dominating armada to ferry his powerful army to England and restore the country to Catholicism.”
As I watched the movie, I wondered how often Christians went to war with each other. I wondered how many of them followed the teachings of Christ and yet criticized one another, or worse, persecuted them. And I wondered how God felt about that.
I wonder how many of us do this to each other even today. How many of us are one religion but criticize others who simply aren’t the same religion. They’re followers of Christ, they are Christians in every sense of the word, but they pray in a different location and thus how many of us declare them “wrong?”
I’ve had this happen to me. As a lifelong follower of Christ, I’ve had another Christian, who didn’t know a thing about me, tell me that my beliefs were wrong. This person obsessed about it… criticized me, quoted the Bible at me, and badmouthed me to many other people simply because I went to a different church.
And I have to wonder: Is this what God wants us to do? Is this what He wants us to focus on? Wouldn’t He rather we tell non-believers about Him? Wouldn’t he rather we live our lives as examples of what the Christian life can give to people? Peace, contentment, and a sense of right and wrong. Didn’t He say that HE’LL be the one to judge us all, when it’s all said and done? So why, then, do we judge each other? Why do we attack? Why do we have to shove someone else down to make us feel strong?
God gives us all the strength we need. He also gave us diversity. Shouldn’t we look to Him as the example of how to treat each other? No one is perfect. We all know that. And there is enough in the world to drive us apart. But should a follower of Christ try and separate his or herself as “better” and “above” another follower of Christ? Shouldn’t we just embrace this one commonality: that we love Jesus and we follow Him to the end. Why waste time looking for differences, when we have the most important thing in common?
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