Selective Outrage

There is no one I find more disingenuous than the practitioners of selective outrage. Their overly dramatic reactions are so tiresome and off-putting that I would rather someone slap my face repeatedly than listen to one more self-important blowhard spew their rhetoric.

No, this does not promise to be a spiritual post, but I’ve just had my fill of people being outraged over a pastor saying the practice of homosexuality was sinful, while simultaneously, the selfsame people have no qualms about killing a helpless human being because its being born into the world would somehow inconvenience them.

Get off the high horse, burn the soapbox, you don’t have a leg to stand on and you know it!

As long as we allow the enemies of the cross to twist the narrative, and bait us into illogical arguments absent the basest of reason, we will always feel as though we’ve wasted our time and effort in attempting to elucidate a certain topic or point of contention.

The big secret is this: the world doesn’t want their minds changed, and they don’t want to see another point of view in regards to their preconceived and tightly held notions. They want to be validated. They want everyone to agree with the foul perversity of their argument, and if someone dares to disagree based on logic and reason and decency and common sense, then the tolerance runs out, and freedom of speech no longer applies, and you are now and forevermore labeled a hatemonger.

We have grown so disillusioned and have become such a self-loathing people, we go out of our way to take offense and find something to be outraged about. Once we have been thoroughly outraged, we then feel so self-important we are subsequently compelled to tell everyone within earshot we’ve been offended. Well, I take offense at your offense, and am outraged at your outrage.

I don’t mind people who are consistent in their outrage. If you hold to a certain viewpoint and do so consistently, then at least you are constant. It’s those who expect me to bend over backwards and betray my most fundamental of beliefs in order to understand what they’re going through and walk a mile in their shoes, yet who will allow for no such reciprocity when it comes to their own convictions.

What’s worse is that many Christians have caught this malady from the world, and they themselves are beginning to practice selective outrage when it comes to certain doctrines, dogmas, or denominational edicts. It’s no longer about who is Biblically correct; it’s about who is brasher, who can scream loudest, and who can bully others into silence.

I don’t know…it’s just one of those mornings with heavy snow falling outside, and a dozen e-mails to answer, all dealing with some finite aspect of doctrine or dogma, and how I’m wrong for encouraging people to seek spiritual gifts, because some preacher in California said they weren’t for today, so I must be delusional after all.

I think I’ll take the weekend, and go play in the snow.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.