Today the following appeared on my facebook feed and it made me stop and think:
“We may be quick with rebuttals in the public square, but we must be quick with a listening ear in the neighbour’s kitchen.”
The thing about public rebuttals is that they are loud and have a large audience and can drown out any invitation we want to offer to our neighbour to come to our kitchen table.

But I’m also challenged by Isaiah to 

“Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast. Shout aloud! Don’t be timid. Tell my people Israel of their sins!”

Isaiah 58:1

So how do I speak and shout and offer public rebuttals (often to public rebuttals!) that call out the unjust and uncompassionate words and deeds I see but without becoming yet another clanging gong, responding loudly but with no love?

Often when there are systemic or structural sins to cry out over, those who would lament them loudly are urged to be “gentle and soft” with their words, to seek unity and not to be divisive. This happens particularly in the (white middle class) church, where politeness and the appearance of peace is valued so highly.

I guess I have to try and do what is called for here, to use my voice most loudly to call out the sins of the most powerful and the most listened to and the most noisy – in order to help “loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke.”

And there are many ways to use my voice loudly for this, not least of which is shutting up and placing a megaphone in front of the most powerless and the most silenced and the most ignored, if they want it.

The post which talked about public rebuttals and neighbour’s kitchens was urging Christians to “challenge the ideologies behind ‘transgenderism.'” I’m still learning so much about and from transgender people and working through things I have learned and accepted about identity and gender and God. (It’s another unearned privilege of my life that I’ve not had to personally wrestle with this before, and in no way compares to the struggle transgender people face to claim and live out and be valued for their personhood!)

So this is me, loudly saying that the way we (the majority church) talk about transgender people is harmful and dangerous. And this is me, shutting up and going to listen to the voices of those we often ignore in these discussions and inviting you to join me.

Here or here might be good places to start.
[The image I used here is Megaphone by Gilberto Agostinho/CC/Flickr.]