{"id":18901,"date":"2013-11-06T11:05:48","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T16:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=18901"},"modified":"2013-11-06T11:05:48","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T16:05:48","slug":"accepting-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/11\/accepting-others.html","title":{"rendered":"Accepting Others"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yaholo Hoyt wrote a post about \u201cGod boxes\u201d<\/a> and this part really jumped out at me:<\/p>\n

I have met many Christians who feel like accepting others \u201cas they are\u201d without converting them is somehow betraying what they believe. But what good are your beliefs if they simply keep you away from others? If your beliefs do not empower you to love others, then they have no value at all, no matter how \u201cright\u201d they are. Accepting others does not invalidate or cheapen your beliefs, it is your ability to love which proves their merit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Click through<\/a> to read the rest. It strikes me as particularly related to the way some Christians approach Christmas, which I posted about earlier today<\/a>. See also Hemant Mehta\u2019s post<\/a> about a Christian university which is genuinely welcoming of all, without feeling that its identity is threatened.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yaholo Hoyt wrote a post about \u201cGod boxes\u201d and this part really jumped out at me: I have met many Christians who feel like accepting others \u201cas they are\u201d without converting them is somehow betraying what they believe. But what good are your beliefs if they simply keep you away from others? If your beliefs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":18902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[1340,1848,4005],"class_list":["post-18901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianity-religion","tag-box","tag-christians","tag-god"],"yoast_head":"\nAccepting Others<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yaholo Hoyt wrote a post about "God boxes" and this part really jumped out at me: I have met many Christians who feel like accepting others \u201cas they are\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/11\/accepting-others.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Accepting Others\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yaholo Hoyt wrote a post about "God boxes" and this part really jumped out at me: I have met many Christians who feel like accepting others \u201cas they are\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2013\/11\/accepting-others.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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