One of the hardest things for me to do as a child of God through Jesus Christ is to face attacks and false accusations about Christians without taking them personally and becoming angry. But Jesus tells us that we should be glad when that happens instead of angry or upset. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11-12)
I have more than 200 friends on Face Book whose level of faith range from devout Christians to avowed atheists. I expect a snide post occasionally from non-believers, but I am caught completely by surprise when a member of my church and someone I believe to be a Christian posts something negative. That happened recently when a friend from church with darker skin pigmentation than me posted a very negative post about Evangelical Christians. I responded that I thought he was one and he reacted with a laughing emoji.
Evidently, someone taught him that evangelical was a code word for “white racist fake Christian”. I then commented that I have been an evangelical Christian for 67 years and my experience does not match his definition. I explained that my definition of evangelical Christian is a born again child of God who wants to share their faith with others. I have never been fake in my Christian faith or racist and I never met any true believer of any race who was fake or racist, even in the segregated church I grew up in during the 1940s and 1950s,
I understand the stereotyping that caused him to believe that. Extreme racists in the South back then joined the KKK and claimed to be Christians, but their use of a burning cross to instill fear instead of love and their violent tactics were evidence the Holy Spirit was not in them. Those “white Christians” were lumped together with me and all true believers with light skin pigmentation. That is the reason all stereotypes are false. Skin color has nothing to do with the Christian faith or character of a person. After all, color is only skin deep. As you can see, I don’t like to use white or black when it comes to describing race unless it is in quotes. Those adjectives are designed to divide and make us believe we are as different as night and day; of course we aren’t.
How should we react to such harsh, negative and untrue statements? First, we should rejoice that we are worthy of the same treatment Jesus and the prophets faced. Then, we should follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit. We should simply state our true position without anger, accusation or argument or ignore it and move on as the Holy Spirit dictates. What we should not do is take it personally, even when they try to make it personal, or get into an argument, which is exactly what they want. We have God’s Holy Spirit to guide us in every situation . As long as we obey Him, we can’t go wrong. . .