There was a time, not long ago, that if you disagreed with someone it was on the basis of their argument and not on their personality. Today it seems all the rage to not only disagree with someone now it is all the rage to destroy them as a person. I front runner for the nomination for President of the United States (I will not mention his name but I believe you know who it is) has made a sport out of saying what is on his mind. Many have championed his kind of “speech” and it had made him very popular with a segment of the population. Sadly, this seems to be the way of all things.
Jesus addressed this sort of; say whatever comes to your mind, in the Gospel of Mark, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness” Mark 7:20-22.
Coming out of the Buddhist tradition is this sense of mindfulness. “Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment.” I would take this a step further and say that we should be mindful of how what we are saying will affect the other person. Some might call this political correctness, but I call it being a Christian and always being conscious of how what we say will affect the other.
It seems that things like compassion and thoughtfulness have all been reduced to this sense of political correctness. I am not sure when these virtues were corrupted by the political process and seen as weak, but it is time that we, right believing Christians take it back. It is hard to “love your neighbor as yourself” when you try to destroy them.
