Marcus High School's Online Newspaper

The Marquee

Marcus High School's Online Newspaper

The Marquee

Marcus High School's Online Newspaper

The Marquee

Column: Tug of war

Emily Lundell
“I never hid my faith from anybody, and this led to me being questioned time and time again about it.”

The first thing I hear on Sunday morning is gospel music blaring in the kitchen. My sister and I are greeted with our parents singing and dancing and the smell of eggs, biscuits, rice, potatoes and bacon cooking. I spend the morning getting ready: fixing my hair, doing my makeup and finding an outfit. I then race downstairs to grab breakfast before running into the car, plate in one hand, shoes in the other.

My dad and mom are singing along with gospel music as my sister and I pretend to know the words and sing in the backseat. When I walk into church, I look around, picking out my favorite church hats and outfits, giggling at the women jumping and singing their hearts out with the huge choir.

As the pastor delivers his sermon, my sister and I fight over Trident Juicy Fruit gum, which we only get on Sundays. Our parents give us “the look” as we quickly pay attention to our pastor. After service is over, we sit in the car and talk about what we took from the sermon.

• • •

Church and my faith has always been a huge part of my life. My grandfather was a pastor, and my dad grew up in the church and benefited from it greatly, so he wanted us to have a Christian upbringing. I never hid my faith from anybody, and this led to me being questioned time and time again about it.

I’m a strongly opinionated liberal, and everybody who is around me knows this. I don’t hesitate to give my opinions on social justice issues. I wear bright tie dye shirts that say things like “Pizza rolls not gender roles” and proudly wear my Beto and Obama shirts. Politics have always fascinated me and I’m proud of having strong views. It’s a part of my identity. However, people always asked me how I could be liberal and a Christian or if I was “one of those judgemental Christians.”

I’ve always known there are Christians who believe in and do bad things. Some people use their faith to justify their judgemental and hateful attitudes and opinions which is against what the liberal platform stands for. Unfortunately, that became the new model for Christianity. This caused me to question my faith. It felt like two parts of my identity were playing a game of tug of war within me.

However, my doubts subsided after a conversation with my mother. She reminded me of what I always knew. The core of Christianity is love. There are always going to be bad people, but we can’t make judgements based on them. People that use their faith to spout hate and judgement aren’t really following Christianity.

Remembering this gave me peace of mind; however, I still struggled with the comments about me being a liberal and a Christian. The platform for liberals is presented as a party for the people. They are supposed to help everyone, no matter their race, religion, gender, sexuality, age or socioeconomic status. This is similar to the message of Christians — to love and help all. These go hand in hand, yet many liberals treat it like the exact opposite.

There is a tremendous amount of hypocrisy within the liberal platform. They look down on Christians, claiming they are judgemental, but in reality they are the ones judging.

Society tends to focus on the worst, but that’s just human nature. If someone sees a perfectly straight line of crayons and one is bent, they will only look at the bent one. Of course, the worst people are typically the loudest and most prominent, but fair judgements can’t be made without seeing all sides. There are about 100 different sides to everything, making overarching decisions after only looking at one side is ridiculous and ignorant.

Within every group of people, there are extremists. If we view them as the representatives for their groups, we will have a society where people constantly attack each other. Focusing on extremists will cloud our judgement and lead society down a future path of war. In order to prevent such events, we need to look past extremists and stereotypes and stop making judgments about one another.

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About the Contributors
Reya Mosby, Feature Editor and Business Manager
Reya Mosby is a junior, and this will be her second year on staff. She has a passion for giving a voice to the voiceless and telling people’s untold stories through journalism. When she’s not cutting thousands of words off her stories, stressing out over deadlines and trying to convince Madi to let her keep an Oxford comma, she enjoys singing in choir and Marcus’ all-female a cappella group, Fusion, scream singing 70s music and eating mac and cheese. Reya wishes she could live in the 70s with her endless supply of scrunchies, her high waisted pants, huge pink Janis Joplin glasses, and an immense love for Elton John. She has been dubbed staff’s token extrovert and talker, so she is always down for a good conversation with any and everyone. She is so excited to make this year amazing and full of impactful stories and great memories with an amazing staff! Check out her playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/user/mhsmarquee/playlist/6qTsopCbT1LAdcBvOLlTxB?si=xEnq4T3uTQm3WuZ32GOHLg
Emily Lundell, Managing and Photo Editor
Emily Lundell is an early-grad senior. When she's not working at JCPenney, she's taking pictures, helping write her friends' college essays, spending hours on photoshop editing photos of her cats, and online shopping. She's beyond excited to continue making amazing memories and produce the last Marquee publications of 2019! Check out her playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/user/mhsmarquee/playlist/5rMfqKMqnGrdMHRb7jACNj?si=2uQ2rEI5QpK1d2lytsQkLg

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