CHRISTIAN COMMENT: Compassion is better than political correctness
I READ with interest in a daily newspaper recently, that overweight children should no longer be referred to as "obese".
Whitehall health chiefs prefer the term "very overweight".
That is better, I suppose, than "physically challenged", but how far is this culture of correctness going to proceed?
Is it bringing enlightenment to the ignorant or imposing a straight-jacket upon us all?
How far is it an expression of Christian social concern for the individual?
It is unquestionably better to speak kind words than to promote negative stereotypes, but the gospel of Christ is addressed to the heart of a person, so the revolution it brings works from the inside out and not the other way around.
When Jesus noticed a tax-collector named Zacchaeus, who had climbed a tree to gain a view of him as he was passing, he did not launch into a sermon about the evils of greed and covetousness but honoured him by dining at his home that evening.
Zacchaeus was so moved by this gesture he sought out and generously reimbursed all that had been the victim of his excess.
"Salvation has come to this house," Jesus exclaimed.
Attempts to inflict change upon people who are not persuaded of its validity (which has sometimes been done in the name of Christianity) amount to suppression and are doomed to failure.
The mystery of winning a persons will on the other hand, produces a passion for self reformation that can never be exacted by the demand for political correctness.
You may achieve a measure of conformity or "good behaviour" by making it illegal to express certain views or act in a particular way but you will not change peoples' attitudes.
"If the root of a tree is good so will its fruit be".
I would like to make a case for the kind of attitudes which come about as a result of an encounter with Christ, as in the case of Zacchaeus.
Political correctness is a poor substitute for compassion.
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Wednesday 30 May 2012
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