Not Ashamed and still Not Forwarding

Being in a Christian circle of friends, I commonly receive faith-based emails which are little more than chain letters. I am moved today to talk about a particular guilt tactic used in some messages.

"If you aren't ashamed to do this, please pass this on. Jesus said, 'If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.'"

This just gets my dander up. It tries to put the well-meaning Christian in a bind. Of course, no Christian wants to be seen as being ashamed of Jesus. That would make us hypocrites, right? But in my opinion it attempts to limit our free will regarding how to dispose of it. We are being intimidated by Christians. That sucks. Jesus was not about brow-beating or intimidation. He was about choices and love.

Don't feed me this stuff about being ashamed of Christ if I delete your email. I pass along those messages that I think are consistent with the Good News of Christ's love and resurrection. I delete those that try to disguise intolerance or political maneuvering as faith. I am happy to let my Lord judge me based on those criteria. Will I waste the time of those in my email address book with junk now, only to have them ignore a potentially important Word from God later? Not a chance. If George W. or the Christian right or whoever wants to spread their message, let 'em pay for it. Not on my dime.