#and I'm pretty certain I'll be ok test wise

[a-path-beyond84]

Hey I'm the anon from a while ago that commented on the shunning people who support abortion thing. As answers to your questions 1) I mean, I try to maintain a consistent standard, but I'll have to be honest, I've never met anyone irl who advocates for legalizing pedophilia (and as I'm a minor, that wouldn't be the safest situation for me to be around a person like that, so not really for that one). However, quick note on this, pedophilia is different than people who support abortion... (part1)

(part2) Pedophilia is not common, and it's not something that a ton of people support. It's a radical, disgusting minority of people, and also it's illegal and extremely frowned upon. Pedophiles and pedophilia advocates are told all their life that pedophilia is wrong, and yet they abuse children anyways. That's a lot different than people who support abortion, or have abortions, who oftentimes grow up in cultures that say that it's ok to have an abortion, and sometimes may not know any better

(part 3) If I were to shun everyone who supported abortion, I would have to cut off contact with half of my relatives and virtually everyone except a handful of people at my school. I would have to shun my teachers, administrators, childhood friends, and nearly everyone in my classes. All of these people don't understand why pro-life people think abortion is wrong. They only see pro-life people screaming at women at abortion clinics and holding up bloody pictures of dead babies.

(part4) This is the culture in my region. If I were to shun these people who support abortion, they may never talk to a pro-life person who is kind to them and who will calmly explain their beliefs for years. As for the question if I would shun a white supremacist, the answer is probably not, and here's why. I have a couple of friends who don't like white people very much. There are countless stories of racists who changed views after meeting someone who will talk with them, and listen to them.

(part5) I have had friends who tell me that white people are responsible for every bad thing that has happened in the world, in complete seriousness. I listen to them, I let them talk, and I show them with my actions and words that white people aren't all terrible. I would do the same thing for a white supremacist. Listening to what people have to say and being rational and kind does more to change bigots than shunning ever does. Even the most disgustingly racist person can be eventually change.

(part6) So yeah, I try to keep a consistent morality. But keeping a consistent morality means not refusing to listen to people who oftentimes have been hurt in the past by members of groups that they hate. Just because someone doesn't repent right away doesn't mean they won't in the future. Abby Johnson said somewhere that she was considering leaving PP because of a kind advocate, but she changed her mind when people showed up condemning & screaming. It look her a lot longer to leave after that

(part7) In Paul's time, the church was young, it was persecuted, and it was new. They were also in a much different culture then. Their culture was focused on honor. Reputation was extremely important. It mattered to almost everyone what the community thought of you, so if you were excluded from the community, you'd get the message real fast to change or lose your reputation. Not everyone knew where the church stood on different issues & had to publicly say who they were/weren't affiliated with

(part8) In our culture, it's almost admired to be disliked by a lot of people. Rebellion is seen as cool, so when people see that christians and catholics are shunning them, they think "oh hey, look we're making them mad! reblog to piss off a christian!" and stuff like that. By giving a huge, dramatic reaction like shunning, you're pretty much just fanning the flames and encouraging them. It isn't encouraging them to change their minds, it's making them more set in their ways.

(part9) Also, might I add that you don't seem to be sticking to your rule of shunning people who support abortion? I mean, you're still talking/arguing with people who are clearly very pro-abortion, shouldn't you have blocked them if you really believed that? Of course we want people who support abortion to repent, but shunning them won't help. And women who have had abortions are oftentimes desperate and misled, and if you go straight to attacking them they'll automatically go on defense.

(part10) Condemning and attacking others doesn't help change minds. Especially people who have had abortions. Yes, it's terrible and tragic, but you have to understand that for many of these people, literally everyone and everything around them was telling them that abortion was the right choice. It's the same with racists. These people are often raised in cultures that tell them that their terrible views are right. You don't know the future. You don't know if they'll repent eventually.

Thank you for your comments.  I’ll do my best to address them, and express agreement where it can be found.  I’ll admit I haven’t fully formed this view - I’m sort of testing it out via Tumblr.  

Pedophilia is admittedly not common, and one of the major reasons for that is that people react viscerally against it.  There are people who advocate for it - I would suggest Googling it, though that probably isn’t the most wise thing to do.  Trust me on this, rather than searching for that on the internet.  I must say I doubt by mid-century that will be the case that pederasty will face the scorn it does today.  The animus against pederasty is a holdover from a previous Christian culture and has no intellectual foundation in the current culture which focuses on consent.  In our time, the culture rationalizes its animus against pederasty by presuming a person under age 18 can’t really provide consent, but I fully expect this to be successfully challenged.  In cultures without Christian influence, such as ancient Greece, pederasty becomes more or less a fact of life the way abortion is with us.  Recall that only 44 years ago, abortion was a crime in the United States.  Anyway, the point being is that abortion, which is murder, is at least as bad and arguably worse than pedophilia/pederasty, and thus we should have similar attitudes towards both.    

I agree with your comments about screaming at women at abortion clinics as being ineffective.  Being shouted at by strangers rarely changes minds and so I wouldn’t recommend it either.  In like manner, I would counsel discernment generally speaking, and if you are in a tiny minority shunning would not be effective at all - you’d be more or less shunning yourself.  Especially in your situation as a minor, I wouldn’t recommend it.  

I do speak about the subject with supporters of abortion on Tumblr, but keep in mind that we are personally anonymous to each other and thus shunning isn’t a live option.  Moreover, I wouldn’t advocate shunning without patient dialogue preceding it, and being clear about the reason for shunning when it occurs.  The point also is to reject the most serious advocates - it really isn’t directed at women who have mixed feelings about what they did.  I would not condemn a woman who committed five abortions but regrets it (or is even uneasy about it), whereas I’d have serious problems with a person who never had an abortion yet strongly and publicly affirmed it.  The point is not to cast stones at sinners but to help reduce popular support for an evil practice, thereby protecting people from ever considering committing abortion in the first place.  

I don’t agree that our culture isn’t as focused on honor and public status as it was in the past.  Our culture is quite vain and people want to be seen as virtuous  - hence virtue signaling.  This is why there are public campaigns to eliminate shame in certain circumstances (with abortion, fat-shaming, slut-shaming), and why words are created specifically to shame political opponents (homophobia, transphobia, etc).  And yes, it’s easy for a person to ignore the shunning of a complete stranger, such as on Tumblr.  It’s another thing entirely when people close to them IRL refuse to associate with them.  

Some, like Abby Johnson, take a long while to repent because they consider their opponents too harsh.  Others take a long time to repent, like me, because they don’t consider Christians to take their own views seriously.