The Desire to COEXIST

One can hardly drive down the street without seeing a COEXIST bumper sticker. If you are not familiar with it, take a drive through any culturally diverse neighborhood or trendy art district and you will find it emblazoned on just about every Prius and Subaru you see.

Though there are some variants, the image above has come to represent a kind of philosophical movement. Each letter represents a different faith, religion or creed and jumbled together as a word is intended to promote a kind of “live and let live” attitude.

Now from a very broad societal point of view, I would accept this general premise. As a function of freedom, surely I can allow people to exist independent of my personal beliefs. The COEXIST mantra however is primarily propagated by those with leftist ideologies who routinely use it as a critique of those who believe in any kind of absolutes; particularly faith based or moral absolutes. Their contention seems to be that open-mindedness requires accepting all belief systems to be equal and therefore no one should promote their beliefs over another. This then advances the notion that people who do so are judgmental and have no respect for others who believe differently. 

This is where most Christians are going to have a dilemma. Biblio-centric Christianity cannot be in harmony with other systems that directly contradict its tenets and doctrine. For that matter, many of the other worldviews in the logo are not compatible with one another. Do the majority of adherents to Islam or Judaism accept the teachings of the Wiccan philosophy? Even the promoters of the COEXIST movement frequently claim science (represented by the E) contradicts traditional Christianity.

Christianity must not be viewed as some kind of warm and fuzzy philosophy that should only be practiced behind closed doors. If the Bible clearly teaches that an eternity beyond earthly life does exist, and the concept of heaven and hell are a reality, then it would actually be un-Christ-like to not tell others about it. If we are to emulate the love that Jesus had for the lost, then it is only rational that we should work to proselytize those around us just as Christ did. Jesus Himself taught this in the great commission (Matthew 28) and it was taught throughout the remainder of the New Testament.  Obviously, this can’t be accomplished by force, legal decree or ultimatums. It is God Himself that works in a person’s heart for conversion to faith in Christ Jesus to occur, but those seeds can only be planted by evangelization. This requires interaction of believers with unbelievers. In that course of interaction, disagreement will be inevitable since dramatically opposed world views cannot always cohabitate the same intellectual space.

 

Once contention results over differences, hostilities become common and that gives forth to accusations of judging, condemnation and hypocrisy. It’s at this point where the debate tends to gravitate from the spiritual toward the political which I personally believe fuels much of the COEXIST movement.  My own experience has revealed that once discourse is started about these issues, it’s not long before Christians are being maligned for their views on issues like abortion or homosexuality. While we as Christians may react negatively by going on the defensive, it is imperative to remain sober-minded in all things and maintain an attitude of love.