"Do you know that Jesus wants us to be kind and good to one another?"When I heard that I was struck with the paradox of Fox News. We have removed it from our house for exactly that reason.
While she is an extreme example, the titles of the works of Ann Coulter come to mind, when she belittles a whole category of people (broad-brushedly called "liberals") with a mean-spiritedness that astonishes me. The same sort of thing comes from Limbaugh and others on talk radio, as well as on Fox News and, particularly disturbingly, in emails that get forwarded endlessly by people whose participation in propogating such hate speech is truly disappointing.
Do we know that Jesus wants us to be kind and good to one another?I want our children to know and act accordingly.
When I'm helping my parents with their email and I see forwarded "Liberal"-bashing emails in their inbox I wonder, "If the sender had Jesus' email address, would He be on the distribution list?" What about repudiation? When is it incumbent upon us to stand up, hit "reply all", and say "That's not OK!" Should we actually be kind and good to one another, or does it not count when we're talking about "them?" There are many different kinds of them. Which ones are OK to speak unkindly about? Which are subhuman? Which deserve ridicule?
That's part of why you can't see Fox News on our TV. It's not OK in our house to be cruel and unkind and unfriendly, and that's how people like us get treated by that network. We happen to believe in some of the ideas that would have us branded (I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some people would support the use of branding irons for this) as Liberals. And we think that it is a good idea to be kind and good to one another.
