January 8, 2021

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor:

Susan Shaw has no reason to “call me back” to my faith. While I have supported President Trump, and still do, I never once felt like I had to leave my faith behind to do so. As a matter of fact, my faith is the reason I voted for President Trump over Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

My faith would not allow me to vote for someone who supports abortion, transgenderism or socialism. I appreciate Ms. Shaw’s concern for “love, truth, justice, peace, hope, and welcome” — all advocated by Christ himself. Christ never compromised on what God has always called, and still calls, sin.

If she is calling me “back” to the faith she seems to promote, I would rather not go back, although, I am not sure I have been there to begin with. “You taught me to love the Bible and read it because God could speak to me through its words.” At what point was she taught to compromise and twist those words to accommodate her lifestyle and unbiblical beliefs?

“You found a way to accommodate difference when it was up close and personal and love people who were unlike you— the lesbian aunts the agnostic friend, the weird kid, the deaf neighbor, the immigrant co-worker.” It is true, God has called us to love everyone. But we are not to compromise his standard in his word to support and accommodate sin.

I do not hate anyone for sinful choices they make. I do not believe there are people God cannot, or will not, save — if they confess their sin, repent of their sin and turn to Christ to be their Lord and Savior. Gays, murderers, rapists, or drug addicts will not get an automatic pass to hell because of their choices; God is forgiving. Anyone, regardless of what sin they have committed—and we are all sinners, —will end up in hell for eternity because of sin, if there is no confession, repentance and seeking Christ.

While you may consider this too harsh and “hateful” for publication in your letters to the editor, I was appalled and deeply offended at the condescending tone of Ms. Shaw’s article. “Our Trump-supporting evangelical siblings are lost.” That is a judgement call she has no insight or right to make. That is God’s call.

She likes to invoke Christ, well he said, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17) Maybe she should judge less.

Chris Chambers, Lebanon, Tenn.