You have probably heard of a Christian organization “Focus on the Family.” You may have also heard of another organization the “Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).” These are two groups with different purposes, but I think most of us would agree that the intentions behind both organizations are good. Both groups want to help people who could use their help.

“Focus on the Family” gives direction and advice to families, from a Christian perspective. The name “Southern Poverty Law Center” explains itself. There are many groups, religious groups and charities, that work hard to help other people, and these are two of them.

There is a wrinkle in this story. The SPLC has declared that “Focus on the Family” is a hate group.

If you want to know more about this disagreement, it has been reported in the news: 

• READ: Focus on the Family’s Jim Daly rejects SPLC ‘hate group’ label: ‘This isn’t hate, it’s the love of Christ’

There are a few lesson here for us all, for example:

• Values can be complicated, good people don’t always agree.
• We have to know how to be negative without hating.
• We can’t make the rules if we don’t play the game.
• We are looking at our own future.

I am writing as a Christian and I know that religious people can have different values, but most of the time we can live together, in peace. The Bible tells us “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12: 18). 

That is clear.

We are also told. But we are also told “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3: 12). 

We only live in peace, as far as it depends on us. Other people will take a very different direction. 

Apparently, the issue that divides the Christian organization and the secular charity, is opinions about trans-sexual identities. The Christian group, that wants to help families, sees families as one husband and one wife, married, and probably with several children. 

That is easy to understand.

The secular, legal charity has a very liberal view of people, and sexual orientation. That is also easy to understand.

We might also understand how the secular group could declare the Christians to be a hate group. We can understand without agreeing, and I know I don’t agree. I’m sure that Christians who try to help families are good people. 

In the Bible, a man named Jesus asked people to follow him. Those people, and us now, were never asked to follow some religious rules. We are given a way to start a new life, and the rules apply to those of us who first made the choice to follow Jesus. 

It is impossible to impose the rules of Christianity on people who have not chosen to follow Jesus. The first step must come before the second. It easy to understand how people who have chosen a different path will arrive at different conclusions. Without a detailed analysis of modern issues like transsexual identities, we can understand that modern people can travel in radically different directions, with their lives. That means we arrive at different conclusions.

Jesus understood that. He was arrested and executed on a cross, by religious people. When we take different roads, we come to very different places.

We all need to know that. Jesus gave his followers a road to travel on:

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16: 13 to 15)

It may be shocking, but we were taught what will happen when the world confronts the true followers of Jesus. The differences are extreme, if everyone honestly follows their own path.

Hopefully, this recent assault on a Christian group will be resolved, but we can expect more. Oil and water do not mix, and we are told in the Bible, light and darkness don’t belong in the same space.