Shoutout to my haters

There are two life lessons I have learnt from Beyoncé - every girl needs a good freakum dress, and you should always love your haters.

I get a bit of hate for my blog, it just goes with the territory of having an opinion about something and putting it on the internet. This year I have been called Islamophobic, ungodly, unchristian, a liar, and a bully, among many things.

This blog is dedicated to everyone who has contacted me about the blog over the last year with criticism.

I want to say thank you.

Here’s why.

The majority of people like all the blogs and comment how funny they are and what a talented writer I am etc etc etc, and these people are so great, I really love these people.

But they don’t make me a better blogger.

The people who make me really think about what I’m writing and how I’m writing it are the people who are critical.  And some of their criticism is absolutely deserved. I don’t always get it right.

After the Orlando terrorist attack I wrote a blog about how frustrated I was about so many people dying for the sake of a God that’s not even there. People didn’t take that well. As my mother would say it went down like a lead balloon. So I deleted it. And I totally get why it didn’t go down well and that people would see it as intolerant and politically incorrect or whatever. But the thing is I don’t think political correctness is going to win the war on terror. Nor do I think people like Donald Trump are. What I do think might help is having intelligent conversations about it. And that was all I was trying to do, get people thinking and generate some intelligent discussion. Only my execution in this case was very poor.

Other blogs that have not gone down well are the blogs about Gloriavale and Brian Tamaki. Apparently I am not in a position to judge Neville Cooper and Bishop Brian because I don’t have a degree in theology or a Y chromosome and I should learn my place and offer unconditional support to anyone claiming to teach the word of God because that’s what Jesus would do.

Firstly, that is absolutely not what Jesus would do. Secondly, the whole ‘judge not that you be not judged’ argument is wrong. The Bible talks about not judging hypocritically, then goes on to say that we are supposed to judge others, especially those is leadership positions within the church. 1 Corinthians 2 vs 15 says The spiritually person judges ALL things.

And if I had a dollar for every time someone emailed me the verse about ‘if your brother sins against you go and point the fault out privately between the two of you’ I would have at least $10.

The thing about that is private blogs really aren’t that successful. And also there’s this passage in 1 Timothy…

The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honour, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.” Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning.

So, to summarise, don’t come at me with those arguments, because it’s my blog and I’ll judge if I want to.

The thing is though, while I’ve certainly got the judgement part down, there is definitely improvement needed.

Titus 3 vs 2 says to be gentle and show perfect courtesy to all people.

I really suck at that.

A lot of the criticism I get is about my lack of kindness, which probably seems strange to those of you who know me personally. But, if you don’t know me or you only know me a little bit and the majority of your impression of me is what you read on the blog, I can see how you might think of me as unkind.

And that’s just not good enough.

I originally started this blog to give people a laugh, but then it grew in to more than that. I decided I wanted it to be more than that. I wanted to get people thinking and talking about important issues that mainstream bloggers and media just don’t talk about. I wanted to challenge the world views of both Christians and non-Christians alike. I wanted to give people a blog that could be funny but also thought provoking.

I got so caught up in that that sometimes I forgot about being kind.

I’m not going to apologise for my stance on Gloriavale or Brian Tamaki or my concerns about Islam. I put a lot of research in to those topics and I am comfortable with my position on all of them.

But I will apologise for all the times this year where I have put getting a laugh or making a point above being kind. That’s not ok, and I will try and do better next year.

Again, thank you to all of you who have sent me feedback this year, both the good and the bad. It helps me to learn and to grow, and I appreciate it so much.

Please keep it coming next year so I can become more like Beyoncé.

I mean Jesus.