Comments on Complaining

The subject of complaining is less black and white than I originally thought.

A little more than I month ago I set out to write a blog post on the subject of complaining.  I was going to entitle it "Stop Complaining!" and it was going to talk about the evils of complaining, that we shouldn't do it, and how doing it is a sign of an unconverted heart.  More recently I have come to have a somewhat different view of the subject.  I had been thinking a lot about religious liberty thanks in part to an excellent program on the subject from PBS entitled "God in America".  I saw that how throughout the history of the United States that the existence of religious liberty is in a large part due to quite a bit of complaining.  In fact, most, if not all of the rights citizens and visitors enjoy exist because of complaining.  Here are a few examples.

If nobody had complained . . .

• We would all be a member of one state church.
• We would still have slavery.
• Women would not be able to vote.
• School, buses, etc. would still be segregated.

And most importantly . . .

• We would still be part of the British Empire.

This is by no means an exhaustive commentary about complaining, but if you have the same views that I used to have, I hope this helps you start thinking about things in a different way.