Oh look an atheist trying to tell me how Christians should be. Yes I do judge people who have multiple babies by different people and nope I wouldn’t associate with them as long as they are living a sinful life.
Goodness. Are you familiar with Mark 7:14-23? Christ told sinners to go and sin no more, but He also sat with them, ate with them, spent time with them. He did so not to condone their sins, but to show them how much He loved them. After all, that’s why He came: because He loves us, and wants us to come to Him.
My husband and I have many friends who have lived together before marriage or are currently doing so. Do we think that what they are doing is right? No, certainly not. Likewise, I, who spent my academic career in the music world, have a number of gay friends, some of whom are living that lifestyle. Again, do I think that that is the right thing to do? No.
The goal of a Christian’s life, however, should be to bring himself or herself to Christ, and as many with him or her as possible. One does this through reflecting to the best of one’s ability the love that Christ has for us to those around us. Now, we
could be nasty to these couples, or shun them. The Pharisees did that to the prostitutes and tax collectors. I fail to see what that would accomplish, though, except to land me in the confessional to yet
again accuse myself of actions against charity.
We prefer to invite them to dinner, to listen when they’ve had a rough day, to bring over a pot of soup when they’ve been ill. Why? Because they might be sinners, but so are we. If Christ loved us so much that He suffered and died for us–
all of us, from the greatest saints to the most terrible sinners–what can we do except try to emulate His actions?
Please note that being a person’s friend does not mean that one approves of everything that that person does. Sure, my husband and I didn’t live together or have sex before we were married, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t sinners! It just means that we didn’t commit that particular set. I doubt that if asked, our friends would “approve” of our pet sins: laziness, or lack of kindness, or sarcasm, or gossip. Friendship means that we try to see the person as Christ sees them: as a child of God (as we all are) who ought to be cherished. If they asked directly, we’d explain why we believe what we believe about marriage and God and so forth, but we believe that actions speak much louder than words, so we try to live our marriage and life in a way that shows what we believe. God also believes that actions speak louder than words. See Matthew 25:31-46, and note that Christ said nothing whatsoever about the righteous person inquiring about a person’s living arrangements, number of illegitimate children, or general sinfulness. Instead, he simply saw a need (“I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; etc, etc”) and filled it, showing that person the love that should be shown to every person, and thereby, perhaps–who knows?–opening that person’s heart to the love that Christ has for us.
Look at the saints, and you will find in every instance a person who loved all those around him or her without confirming sin. Mother Teresa didn’t ask if a woman dying of AIDS was a prostitute or a married woman whose philandering husband had infected her; she simply took the woman in, fed her, bathed her, and listened to her. Father Damian of Molokai didn’t ask a leper if he’d had illegitimate children before bathing his wounds and giving him medical care. Even if the woman was a prostitute, or the man the sort of person who’d had a dozen illegitimate children for whom he’d never taken any responsibility, they were still children of God, children who might have needed to be brought back to God. Showing them kindness didn’t mean that Mother Teresa thought that prostitution wasn’t wrong, or that Father Damian thought that sleeping with many women and discarding one’s children like so many bits of garbage was right. It meant that both saints recognized those people as children of God, and acted upon that, and showed them the way to God, which is, after all is said and done, love. As our beloved Pope Benedict said,
Deus Caritas Est: God is loving-charity!
(“Charity” as mentioned throughout this post is meant to describe the traditional attribute of love and concern for one’s neighbor, not the rather unpleasant American connotation it has developed in the last century or two of being something grudgingly given to an “inferior” person to show how “superior” another person is.)
