Not Ashamed

By Sally Bishai

I recently had the good fortune to happen upon a job posting that sounded almost too good to be true. Ok, so the pay rate was a bit lower than I was used to, but it sounded like I’d be helping people and making a few dollars I that could pay the new Sony off with (PD170, by the way… gorgeous camera).

Anyway, things were going well until one day when I was putting the finishing touches on a group email. As is my custom, I made a reference to God; “May God be with you,” or “May God bless you,” or something similar.

Now, I have to tell you that I’ve had several discussions regarding the validity, nay, authenticality, of saying “God bless you” more than once daily. Some people don’t understand that this is (to me, anyway) literally an on-the-fly blessing or prayer.

Sure, some people DO say it without meaning it, but I’m not one of those people.

Anyhoodle, back to this tale of woe (which does have a point, oddly enough), this group email that I sent out—the first of its kind for this company—instigated an almost-immediate admonishment. I mean, reply.

The gist? “Please don’t use religious language, since you might offend someone.”

Huh?

Where, pray, did that come from?

“You aren’t professional enough,” I could understand.

“Stop sending smilies,” I can dig.

But a blessing?

Would they tell a Rabbi to NOT say “Shalom” or an Imam to skip the “Salaam” ?

But I’m neither Jewish nor Muslim.

If I’m willing to take a sword or a bullet for my faith, what sort of Christian would I be if I agreed to restrict my words—my BLESSINGS, really—for fear of offending someone?

My faithful readers (love you guys!) all know that I’m Egyptian.

The “American” child of immigrants.

Now, immigrants usually come to America for the promise of a better economic life, but also because of the many wonderful amendments that we have here. Like Freedom of Speech. Freedom of Press. Freedom of Religion.

My “God bless you” may offend someone who doesn’t believe in God. This may prompt a lawsuit (in such a litigious nation). But what about my right to freedom of speech?

This is to say nothing about the fact that all true Christians are willing to be killed for their faith. And a muzzle is just as effective as a gun.

And so, before you could say “Jack Robinson,” I fired off an email to my boss, stating that I could not—would not—be shut up, and offered to either refrain from sending out corporate emails, or just refrain from going to work in the morning.

An argument I offered was that I wasn’t saying “Ye must be born again” or “You’re going to hell”—I was just offering a blessing.

Another argument of mine included the fact that Muslims, Jews, Christians, Native Americans, and many other religious members look to some sort of “One God”-type deity.

After all, only vampires melt at the mention of God, and I think that even modern bloodsuckers have developed an immunity to the G-word. (And I don’t mean Garlic, either.)

Bossman mailed me back, with a note that asked me how I’d feel if someone signed their emails with a satanic salutation. (For the record, I would respect their freedom of religion and not be offended, since I’m a mature adult who understands the whole “live and let live” thing. Only a total child would be so upset by words that they’d kick up a ruckus/lawsuit.)

He then told me that he had to respect every individual’s right to not be exposed to religious discussion in the corporate environment, since the word “God” could be offensive to certain persons. But what about THIS person?

This part is very interesting, because, as I may have mentioned before (actually, I know I did, in the article “It Ain’t Easy Following Jesus,” where I pontificated that) Christianity seems to be coming under attack, as evidenced by the fact that a liberal’s right to NOT be offended takes precedence over MY rights of freedom and of religion.

(Is there even anything in the Bill of Rights about “Every American is guaranteed the Right to NOT be offended” ? What if I think that suntans are offensive? Or broccoli? Or flirtation? You can’t please all the people all of the time!)

To show you a side-by-side example of the fact that their rights are protected while mine aren’t, I’ll share a tale with you, dating to when I first began teaching college. I’m sure you’ll be mega-surprised to learn that I—innocent, angelic me—used to shoot off at the mouth all the time. Nothing bad, but…

I’m actually surprised I didn’t get arrested, since I would go on about how TV was full of immorality, how the girls in my class would never get away with their bikini-esque “outfits” back home in Egypt, and how God was so kind to me that week, because He did this or that or the other thing.

I also taught the children my favorite word ever, “Inshallah,” which is Arabic for “God willing” or “If God wills it.”

At any rate, my anecdotes and Inshallahs “offended” two girls, who went to my boss and complained.

(For the record, my boss suspected that the girls were cross with me for not having given them an easy “A” on the midterm, and threw the complaints out. This happy ending has nothing to do with my example, though, so keep reading.)

On the other hand, I had a professor who, when talking of the position of the sun and the placement of lighting fixtures in the home, and why humans insist on being well-lighted, started going on about the way “we grew used to having a central lighting source, high above us.”
He even went on to emote that “We evolved that way, and that’s why we’re used to a certain kind of light.”

Hello? He just stated a theory of evolution to us, as though it was a fact, and no one on earth would think to can him for it, whereas if I had told my good friends from the example above about how God put the sun in the sky, etc., you can bet your sweet life that I would have gotten complaint after complaint.

So it seems that people just don’t want to hear about God anymore.

Although lots of people who fight to keep His name out of the classroom, the boardroom, etc. seem to have no problem bringing Him up when they stub their toe on a boulder they didn’t see, or when they drop a bucket of heavily-buttered popcorn on the freshly-washed floor.

Funny that they don’t get in trouble for saying these things which are the approximate equivalent of “Your mama wears army boots” to the Nth power.

Do they fail to see that their potty-mouth is infinitely more offensive to me than my “God bless you” could possibly be to them?

Back to the job thing, though…

A friend of mine told me that I could stay at the job and lead by example, meaning, “Walk the walk and you’ll do more good than 100 God bless yous would.”

I finally relented and went back to work.

In an interesting twist of fate, however, a recent family emergency has forced me to leave this job, which has me bummed out, since I invested so much time, thought, effort, research and care into both the actual work, as well as this religion thing.

(Bossman is also a total sweetheart, and I can tell that he’d be an excellent person to work for.)

All in all, however, I’m sort of glad that this all happened (on a small scale), because I seem to have been so blinded by the whole “ I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” thing (Romans 1:16 ) that I forgot all about this verse—”All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,” (2 Timothy 3:12) which seems to be proven true as often as we draw breath, and which will continue until the day we draw our last breath and join the One in whose name we’re being persecuted in the first place!

(This is not an excuse for Christians to be naughty and then complain that they’re being persecuted, though! A big GOD BLESS YOU to every single person who’s reading this now