Recently, First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama posted a picture online with the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag. I believe the FLOTUS should be applauded for drawing attention to this heinous crime and injustice that has taken place.

However, as usual, some opportunistic Christians have seized this moment to address Obama’s “pro-choice” view. Opportunistic Christians (like any other type of opportunistic person/group) are excellent at twisting any subject matter into an argument about whatever their platform issue happens to be.

Last night, I viewed several Twitter feeds that posted the picture with statements like “I wish she cared as much about babies as she did these girls”, “I’d be more willing to believe she cares if she didn’t want to kill babies”,  and “wish she cared as much about the millions of unborn children who are murdered” to quote a few. Rather than drawing attention to the issue, these folks used it as a platform to launch their pro-life agenda.

A person I follow happened to be one of the offenders. I replied, “With statements like this, do we really wonder why people think Christians are too judgmental?”

That was the launching pad for a little back-and-forth with a “friend” of my “friend”. I made the statement about Christians being viewed as judgmental and received a message that read, “twist not Scripture, lest ye be like Satan, Jason.”

Wow! That’s quite a reaction based on my simple statement. And, that was just the first from this “friend of a friend.” From there, I simply posed a few questions. The responses helped me realize something about this particular opportunist…he is right and everyone else is wrong. That’s generally the case with the opportunist. Later, I discovered this “friend of a friend” is an “open-air evangelist”, which means he’s one of those guys who stands on the corner with a bullhorn and some signs letting everyone know they are going to burn in hell, unless they agree to his particular brand of theology.

So, let’s be clear…#BringBackOurGirls has nothing to do with abortion. It’s about the brutal kidnapping of young girls. First Lady Obama is trying to draw attention to a horrible crime that many will simply choose to ignore. Let’s also be clear that pro-choice people don’t want to “kill babies”. That’s a very simplistic and ill-informed reduction of the pro-choice platform. But, that’s another blog for another time.

Those who choose to bash the FLOTUS due to her pro-choice position rather than focus on her noble efforts to keep this story in front of us have completely missed the point.

Put the politics aside and simply realize that this is a horrible criminal injustice. Put your agenda aside and draw together to help create a world where things like this simply won’t happen. Making it about something else won’t help us resolve the issue at hand. I’m not saying that healthy discussions about abortion are not important. I’m just encouraging us to think about the time and place.

The whole thing reminded me to simply focus on the matters at hand. I need to make sure I don’t try to use situations to push my own agenda.