Social Media Arguments: The other reason I am trying to stop

By now you've probably all read a certain blog post by a member of my church about her opinion on what the movie Frozen was about. Now I disagree, respectfully, with her view. And a lot of other people do as well. But what ensued is another BIG reason I have been trying so hard to avoid any sort of disagreement or discussions on social media.

As I am reading the responses, while many respectfully disagreed and stated their own opinion, so many others were hateful.

They were hatefully accusing her of hate. And a lot of these hateful comments were coming from members of the church as well.

The hypocrisy of it all is disheartening and not who I want to be.

 If we are to believe the Bible to be the Word of God, then we must believe that on the Sermon on the Mount, Christ said, "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."

I'm not going to write a post about how we shouldn't ever get angry. Mainly because I feel some great ones have already be written here, here, here and here.

But what I do want to write about is this:

Can we fight hate with hate?

Martin Luther King is someone who many could quite justifiably be hateful. But instead he said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

And this:

“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies. "

Robert D. Hales said:

"When we do not retaliate—when we turn the other cheek and resist feelings of anger—we too stand with the Savior. We show forth His love, which is the only power that can subdue the adversary and answer our accusers without accusing them in return. That is not weakness. That is Christian courage."

We can't fight hate with hate. It doesn't matter whether you are on the right or wrong side of a discussion because if you say mean and hateful things, you are a bully.