How about: “You don’t have to, mom.”How do you be a good witness of your Catholic faith to people who seem to think you’re living in sin? Just people who see your behavior and think that you are acting in ways they consider unchristian or unbiblical. And then they point to your “sinful actions” to say, they can’t listen to someone who lives like that on matters of faith.
Or how about, “So how many gay people have you saved by not talking to them, auntie?”Even my mother aside…this is one of the big struggles coming out of fundamentalism. To the people you’ve left behind you’re living a life of sin, and how can they respect you and your faith when you live like that? You drink and you spend time alone with the opposite sex and you wear pants and that satanic black nail polish and sometimes you even talk to gay people! Why you’re barely different from the world!
Several. Of course none of them ever came to church afterwards or got baptized or anything. But they said the prayer!Or how about, “So how many gay people have you saved by not talking to them, auntie?”
Correct, but not terribly relevant here. Do we have a responsibility to be a good Christian witness? If so, what do we do when people look at our lives and say we don’t look any different than the world?Well, we’re all sinners. That’s why we need God’s Mercy.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”Seriously though…am I missing something?
Growing up, “testimony” or “Christian witness” was a huge deal. One of your primary responsibilities as a Christian was to make sure people around you saw your Christian life and knew that you were living for God.
**I think this prioritizes looking good way too much over being good. I think that it may be a peculiarity of your religion of origin. It’s certainly not typical of North American Protestantism as a whole.
**
Is that still the case? How does that work in Catholicism? And what do you do when people look at your life and say you’re just so full of sin they can’t possibly believe you’re trying to live for God at all?
“We’re all sinners, auntie,” isn’t bad as a response.Correct, but not terribly relevant here. Do we have a responsibility to be a good Christian witness? If so, what do we do when people look at our lives and say we don’t look any different than the world?
You can presume that they’re not saying it quite like that. It’s more things like, in a shocked voice “is this a picture of you wearing pants in church?” Followed up later by some commentary on how they can’t believe how blurred gender lines are and they could never attend a church that is ok with women acting like men.“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Anybody who talks to you like that is pretty toxic, by the way. I wouldn’t say that to the worst person I know.
“I can almost always tell the difference between men and women, grandma.”You can presume that they’re not saying it quite like that. It’s more things like, in a shocked voice “is this a picture of you wearing pants in church?”
"Yes, grandma, they’re ladies’ pants, and they’re nice and warm for winter months when I have to walk long distances outside in the cold and take public transportation. I don’t usually have a ride to church, you know."
Followed up later by some commentary on how they can’t believe how blurred gender lines are and they could never attend a church that is ok with women acting like men.
I get that your situation is really quite extreme. But what I meant is using that phrase to toss the ball back into their court. After all, the Bible says that all have fallen short of the glory of God…Correct, but not terribly relevant here. Do we have a responsibility to be a good Christian witness? If so, what do we do when people look at our lives and say we don’t look any different than the world?