(no subject)
I can't believe the democrats have the house. (I'm doing the happy dance) In a perfect world, the greens would, but I need to be realistic. After Bush got elected the first timeI felt like I felt guilty for weeks because I voted my principal and voted for Ralph. What was I thinking?
There was a day when I was a hard core Republican - only because I was raised so. I was under the assumption that all good christians were republicans. So fresh out of high school I joined the young republicans at Merced College and even wrote a little diddy in the Young Republicans newsletter called the "Christian Corner". I touched on things like abortion and homosexuality. Funny, I don't think I ever wrote on anything really political. After all, as a christian republican, what else was there to focus on? I don't think I really started thinking differently until I moved to Fresno when I was 22. I got a job as a secretary at the mothership (aka The Peoples Church). While I have many fond memories of my times with them I also see now that I started to think differently as an employee behind the scenes. Money was a huge issue. My department -college ministries had a budget that was in the $10,000 range, maybe more. We spent that money on retreats for leadership - a weekend on the beach for sure, shopping trips on a private bus to San Francisco for the girls, and getting autographed christian band posters professionally matted and framed. It also bugged me how the church as an ogranization was used to push political platforms. One time my boss asked me to circulate a petition to keep gay marriage off the ballots. I tossed it. He automatically assumed that I felt the same way he did toward that issue. The church gave alot of attention to foreign missions, but solely for the purpose of winning more people for their idea of Christianity. I came to realize that we as americans had essentially made our own religion - Western evangelical christianity. The Christianity that was practiced when Jesus first arrived is so different from what's practiced today. Hell, the modern translations and versions of the Bible are intended to be more user friendly. So much so that the question can be raised of how much has been lost in translation from the original words that were written? This is now what I believe: God is love. We are here to love, to have compassion, to forgive, and to judge not. I think that we've been called to accept people just as they are and not what I think they should be. We need to be humble, feed the poor, and aid the sick.
So what's prompted this exposition? LJ is a funny thing. There are people on my friendslist that I know - k circle and the ex-pats living in Portland. Then, there are people who in one way or another wind up on my FL because of the communities we were part of. I would like to think that we all think alike, and I think we do in some respects. But we also have some differences from liking to eat meat to our religious philosophy. I didn't want to comment in a particular journal because my opinion might be construed as disrepectful. But this has been on my mind. I read this in someone's journal entry the other day, : "I honestly dread the day when man & man or woman & woman will be legally bound together." Even when I the president of the christian club in high school I don't remember thinking like that. I would never look down on my gay friends. If anything, I really look up to them.
"He has shown thee oh man, what is good and what is required by thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy. and to walk humbly with thy God" Michah 6:8
There was a day when I was a hard core Republican - only because I was raised so. I was under the assumption that all good christians were republicans. So fresh out of high school I joined the young republicans at Merced College and even wrote a little diddy in the Young Republicans newsletter called the "Christian Corner". I touched on things like abortion and homosexuality. Funny, I don't think I ever wrote on anything really political. After all, as a christian republican, what else was there to focus on? I don't think I really started thinking differently until I moved to Fresno when I was 22. I got a job as a secretary at the mothership (aka The Peoples Church). While I have many fond memories of my times with them I also see now that I started to think differently as an employee behind the scenes. Money was a huge issue. My department -college ministries had a budget that was in the $10,000 range, maybe more. We spent that money on retreats for leadership - a weekend on the beach for sure, shopping trips on a private bus to San Francisco for the girls, and getting autographed christian band posters professionally matted and framed. It also bugged me how the church as an ogranization was used to push political platforms. One time my boss asked me to circulate a petition to keep gay marriage off the ballots. I tossed it. He automatically assumed that I felt the same way he did toward that issue. The church gave alot of attention to foreign missions, but solely for the purpose of winning more people for their idea of Christianity. I came to realize that we as americans had essentially made our own religion - Western evangelical christianity. The Christianity that was practiced when Jesus first arrived is so different from what's practiced today. Hell, the modern translations and versions of the Bible are intended to be more user friendly. So much so that the question can be raised of how much has been lost in translation from the original words that were written? This is now what I believe: God is love. We are here to love, to have compassion, to forgive, and to judge not. I think that we've been called to accept people just as they are and not what I think they should be. We need to be humble, feed the poor, and aid the sick.
So what's prompted this exposition? LJ is a funny thing. There are people on my friendslist that I know - k circle and the ex-pats living in Portland. Then, there are people who in one way or another wind up on my FL because of the communities we were part of. I would like to think that we all think alike, and I think we do in some respects. But we also have some differences from liking to eat meat to our religious philosophy. I didn't want to comment in a particular journal because my opinion might be construed as disrepectful. But this has been on my mind. I read this in someone's journal entry the other day, : "I honestly dread the day when man & man or woman & woman will be legally bound together." Even when I the president of the christian club in high school I don't remember thinking like that. I would never look down on my gay friends. If anything, I really look up to them.
"He has shown thee oh man, what is good and what is required by thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy. and to walk humbly with thy God" Michah 6:8