Flying called something else

Samantha Sophia

The other day someone said to me (via Facebook) that she apologized for sending me a long email to send to all my friends. I asked to stop sending her rantings. She apologized because she thought I was a Christian. So she did not apologize the convoluted message. She did not apologize for sending me a chain message. She apologized because she thought I was a Christian.

That stopped me cold. My faith has never been questioned. And it should not have been questioned by someone who does not know me. But that is what happens. People we do not know see/hear something and immediately they launch into all sorts of judgments.

This woman jumped to her incorrect conclusion because I refused to forward her email asking for prayer because (I am paraphrasing here) same sex marriages, abortions, and a host of other things are the cause for our decaying society. I refused to forward it and told her to stop sending me private messages like that. So that is what makes me (in her eyes) not a Christian.

Of course I do not care what she thinks of me. She is not someone in my real life. But the lesson I learned is that I also need to be cognizant of the judgments I am making about people I do not even know based on one something that I saw/heard. Not that I am equating my refusal to perpetuate her venom a reason to believe that I am not a Christian. I just need to be careful. I need to attempt to get the full picture of a person before I decide anything about that person. It's only fair. I also need to watch the flinging of labels  because people have been called many things and some of them dangerously wrong.

I guess Christianity has many flavors. I guess mine just did not gibe with hers. I have not looked, but I doubt I will find anywhere in the Bible where it says that we should judge a group of people because their beliefs are different than ours. No where does it say (I am just guessing) that it is our duty to perpetuate lies and hatefulness about others.

I am quite sure about that, but I will dust my Bible off and read it just to make sure.