If You Truly Love Someone… An Open Letter to a Woman Who Claims to Follow Jesus

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Dear Controlling “Christian” Woman,

We need to talk about how to treat other people… especially people who you claim to love… because it’s not the way Jesus would treat them…

Can you not tell how destructive it is when you push your standards and morals on others?  We’ve seen how you force people to attend your worship service even though they don’t want to; and if that’s not enough, you force them to wear “Sunday best” clothing while forcing them to stay quiet during the sacrament that they might not even understand or believe!  Unacceptable!

We all see the look of judgment and frustration on your face when you see a girl take something at the store… but what if she’s starving?  And who are you to tell that girl that the outfit she wants to wear is “inappropriate” because it’s “revealing”?  Why is it your business!?!

I thought members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believed in agency, but you obviously have no problems stripping it away from others so that you can maintain your absolute authority.  And not only that but while ruling with an iron fist over others with your oppressive requirements, you have the gall to tell these people that you love them!

If you truly love someone else, you can’t control them.  You have to let them make their own choices.  Sometimes you might not agree with those choices, but you have to let them be themselves.

Jesus didn’t force people to do what he wanted… he just loved people!  He taught that we shouldn’t judge!

And I know that you think you’ve got good excuses for all these examples… the boys you force to church are your own children ages 4 and 6, and that you can “love” your children and still demand good behavior…  Or that the girl who’s taking things is your 3-year-old who doesn’t know any better, and that the outfit she wanted to wear wasn’t the inappropriate thing, it was that she was taking off her clothes in the middle of Wal-Mart to try it on that was “too revealing.”

Let me tell you something though… just because they’re too young to make independent choices about everything or understand the consequences of their decisions doesn’t give you the right to push your morals on them!  They have the right to do whatever they want!  And if you truly loved them, you would let them be themselves!

I realize this may be hard to hear… but I’m publicly shaming and manipulating you in this letter to try and control your behavior because I care about you and love you!

So please change everything about your life that doesn’t conform to our progressive vision.

Love, Jessie President of the Orem Oracion Association

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Brett Jensen manages The Ward Preacher. You can follow him on Twitter @wardpreacher.