So, I woke up this morning to the realization that I've been a Protestant Christian (as opposed to the Catholic Christianity with which I was raised) for almost exactly four years now
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Sometimes I wonder if the judgmental ones are in it just for the opportunity to be judgmental. I have gay and lesbian friends, I have gay and lesbian friends who are Christian. It is not my place to judge, because I realize I have my own vices to deal with.
Those that judge or get showy seem to have forgotten the teachings in the New Testament and only adhere to the Old. Such as the lesson of removing the plank from your own eye before picking at the splinter in your brother's. Or the poor woman who gave her last two pennies over in the corner as opposed to the showmen throwing moneybags into the offering plate
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Yes, the judgmental folks seem to be singularly fixated on the OT, indeed. But they do it in a hypocritical sort of way. Like, they'll fixate on the strictures against homosexuality, but they'll get a divorce or lie or do any number of things that God similarly forbids. Can't have your cake and eat it too, people... I wholeheartedly believe that many of these people have never actually read the Bible for themselves; they're just parroting the standard "sound bites" that they believe gives them the right to judge other people or that, worse, as "good Christians" that they should denounce those things and the people who embrace them. Not their place
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Oh, I definitely agree that we've no right to dictate spiritual or moral matters to people. I swear, drink from time to time, and I've been known to be quite lazy and terribly cynical. What right to I have to tell someone else how to behave? ;P
And yes, being Saved very well could make me quite contemptible to some folks.
Nice comeback to your bossman. ;) And the Judgmental ones forget that their passage into heaven was just as 'free' as ours, all we had to do was accept it. It wasn't anything that anyone had to pay for. It doesn't mean that we can just do whatever the hell we want, we still have a path to try to follow, but we're all going to fall from time to time, and they're deluding themselves if they think they're above that. I'll have to file that thought away for the next one that approaches me...
I'm so glad I was able to introduce you to the Great Fisch. :)
As for your boss...I'd say it's a very good thing. You personally may never see the end result, but you've done EXACTLY what you need to with your "witness" (And I'm beginning to want to find another word to use there. It's been so degraded.)
I'll only make the one comment, because I'm not particularly big on religion (spirituality, yes, but not religion):
It's not just the branding, it's the weird social mutilation that goes on. It's like they systematicaly cut the ties that could be used to help other people form links with them, and they do it in such a way that people no longer want to try and make those ties. "I tried to offer Bob D. Christian a beer and a friendly guy's night out, and he totaly snubbed me, and then tried/succeeded in making me feel like trash for going out and enjoying my buddies' company. Hell if I ever talk to him again." On some level, it affects people, I'd say it even hurts them, and it colours a lot of what non-crazy Christians try to say; their message is already phrased in a very triggering way, the added load of some of their more dubious kin just kills it, you know?
Oh. I wanted to ask. Does anyone teach why things are sins? Not just what the major sins are, but why they are considered sins? Like, murder, theft, adultery, even suicide? I'
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Generally, they don't with what you might call "cultural sins" - the "sins" that God doesn't come out in the Bible and say "Thou shalt not". They either tell you "Because good Christians don't. It will damage your witness if you do." or they'll give you a Bible verse that is taken grossly out of context and stretched to kingdom come to justify it.
The deeper reasons why they do it is never admitted...probably even to themselves. They want a clearly-defined, easy way to differentiate "Christians" from "Non-Christians". Quite frankly, the true fruits of the spirit are too subtle for them. I'll give you a quote from on of John Fischer's earlier books Real Christians Don't Dance.
Which is easier to follow: real Christians don't envy or real Christians don't dance? Which one gets noticed first: real Christians don't lust or real Christians don't smoke? Which one is harder to comply with: real Christians love their enemies or real Christians go to church on Sundays?
I give you two quotes as to why certain things are sins:
When a Gentile who wished to become a Jew asked him for a summary of the Jewish religion in the most concise terms, Hillel said: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Law; the rest is the explanation; go and learn"
And the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans:
13:8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Paul really sums it up beautifully: don't do these things because you hurt the people you should love when you do.
The mutilation is part of the branding, though. Many Christians are programmed by I-don't-know-what to believe that they can't do something and/or are supposed to disapprove of something simply because Christians Don't Do That(TM). Thus, they get sanctimonious about things. The more sanctimonious they are, the more holy and closer to God they think they are and the stronger the stand they think that they're making for Christ. (Mr. Fischer has much to say about this, too, and it's all right hereI'm reminded of an acquaintance of mine. Frosty went to a Bible study with her. The woman was praising her son for "taking a strong stand against (the suddenly unChristian) Valentine's Day" because the kid refused to accept valentines from the other kids in school, no doubt sanctimoniously claiming that he couldn't do so "because he's a Christian." As if there was some commandment in the Bible that says, "Thou shalt not accept little paper felicitations of love and friendship on February 14th." (Even though love and friendship to all no matter
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Know what I find fansinating? The fact that so many Christians have never read the Bible from cover to cover. If they had they'd probably realize that Jesus never, ever rejected anyone just because thy were different. For anything btw. I'm kinda glad you have read the Bible, atl east the bits that most people don't want to read anyways.
Anyways, said my peice. Hopefully it wasn't too confusing.
When I was 9, I read almost all of the old testament, right from the beginning. (and lemme tell yah, there are some really long and boring sections where they list who begat who for pages, and pages, and more pages) It was a slow summer, and they had a reading competition.
But to be honest, it's more beneficial to read and closely study the Bible in small sections. That sticks in the mind better tna reading it from start to finish like a novel.
Ah, but it's a two-way street, you see. Yes, it's true that many Christians have never read the entire Bible, yet they'll avidly tell people that it's the Word of God, that it's good news for sinners, that it should all be believed and obeyed, blah, blah. I've always wondered how anyone can honestly make such a claim without reading the whole thing and having their own understanding of it. "I haven't read it, but I know what it says," just doesn't cut the mustard with skeptical me, I'm afraid. If nothing else, it makes it so much easier to defend your faith if you actually understand your faith. Otherwise, those who would see your faith torn down will easily confound you...
...with their own "sound bites," of course. Atheists/skeptics/whatever will often point and laugh at non-Bible-reading Christians and will often claim that they, in their intellectually-superior state, know more about the Bible than most (if not all) Christians do.
Personally, I have trouble believing that claim because they seem to have exactly the same
( ... )
Yeah.. I have my own little issues about false Christians who aren't at all like who they really should be. But alsas, that doesn't me those of us who are on the right path should just give up and quit. Nope. I just keep on going as I should be.
I had heard about this one site that seems to go out to young/middle-age adults too, like a big message board/web blog place for folks to check. www.notreligion.com "It's not about religion, it's about a relationship."
Of course, the site looks rather tedious to navigate, and it may not be your thing (I have yet to fully see what it's all about too). But just the blog it has on the front page, and the adverts I heard on the Christian radio about it made me curious. I think the community is starting to wake up and realize just the path many are going down... and that it needs to be redirected!
I haven't visited the site in question yet (but I will), but the "I don't have a religion, I have a relationship" thing is well-parroted in Christian circles. Yet, some of the people I hear saying this are also people who are judging left and right and being all Pharisee-like. Makes me wonder which is the stronger relationship, the one with the Lord or the one with their church/pastor. So, it's become rather hollow in my mind, I guess. We'll see if the folks on the site are practicing what they preach, y'know? I hope so, for while my faith in God is very strong, my liking for his followers is dwindling and not just in terms of high-profile Christians. Garden-variety ones who've bought into the branding are, perhaps, even more disappointing to me.
Catchphrases abound in Christianity. There's the whole "What Would Jesus Do?" thing, for instance. It's something that's easy to parrot but not so easy to follow through with. Way I see it, there's lots of talking the talk but very little of walking the walk, know what I mean?
I'm pretty sure I told you about the borderline cult I was involved in for a while...I think that there was a lot of things being done right there, but obviously a lot of things desperately wrong...anyway, I bring it up because there was the lingo there, too. Not words that had been twisted beyond all recognition, but words that tended to take on specific meanings within the 'circle' of this particular church. I called it "Kingdomese" because it drove me up a wall and I hated to see these people who had done so much to help me find my way to Jesus get bogged down in using language in ways people 'outside' wouldn't quite get.
I often wonder if people understand how words work and how powerful they can be for good or ill depending on how they're used.
Oh, I have so much to say in response to this that I know I'm going to forget something.
One thing, yeah, the 'branding' drives me insane. I recall being in a pretty heavy spiritual discussion with a guy over MSN...he had his own interesting way of seeing the world, the best I could say to sum it up would be 'ecclectic Pagan'. Anyway, he knew going in that I'm a Christian, and he went in with lots of preconceived notions of what that meant. He asked me if I would damn him for what he was going to say. I told him, "That's not my job." He was surprised by that answer to say the least. We went on to have a pretty fascinating conversation, and I think my beliefs caught him so far off guard as far as what he thought a Christian 'should' believe that he said several times there was no way I could be a Christian. I guess it's become, as Inigo Montoya put it, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
( ... )
Regarding the Canna miracle, I've got some family members who believe that drinking alcohol is sinful inherently. They rationalize that miracle by saying that the wine those days wasn't anywhere near as strong as what they make now.
It put quite a cat among pigeons when I said, "Hang on! The wine steward, when the new stuff is brought out, essentially says, 'Usually people serve the good stuff first before everyone's too smashed to appreciate it'. However strong the wine was, it was obviously strong enough to get people drunk. And, not only did Jesus provide alcohol, but he provided it to a party where the guests were already intoxicated."
Heh, I know! On the face of it it's just Jesus providing some more tasty wine, but looking deeper, he was keeping that party swingin'. There's plenty of spots in the Bible that show Jesus doing things no "good upright Christian" would even dream of doing! He'd probably hang out in gay bars today! Le gasp!
I do find it amusing in a way--my grandma is a total teetotaler, thinks drinking is a sin, would never drink herself, never buy it for anyone...but all of a sudden, when I got disabled and alcohol became medicinal...well, grandma will buy me alcohol. Maybe she's relaxed her views on it a bit, but I'm the only person on Earth she'll buy alcohol for. Shocked the snot out of me one day when I was in Hawai'i with her and she got me a lei full of little bottles of rum :)
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Those that judge or get showy seem to have forgotten the teachings in the New Testament and only adhere to the Old. Such as the lesson of removing the plank from your own eye before picking at the splinter in your brother's. Or the poor woman who gave her last two pennies over in the corner as opposed to the showmen throwing moneybags into the offering plate ( ... )
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And yes, being Saved very well could make me quite contemptible to some folks.
Nice comeback to your bossman. ;) And the Judgmental ones forget that their passage into heaven was just as 'free' as ours, all we had to do was accept it. It wasn't anything that anyone had to pay for. It doesn't mean that we can just do whatever the hell we want, we still have a path to try to follow, but we're all going to fall from time to time, and they're deluding themselves if they think they're above that. I'll have to file that thought away for the next one that approaches me...
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As for your boss...I'd say it's a very good thing. You personally may never see the end result, but you've done EXACTLY what you need to with your "witness" (And I'm beginning to want to find another word to use there. It's been so degraded.)
Reply
It's not just the branding, it's the weird social mutilation that goes on. It's like they systematicaly cut the ties that could be used to help other people form links with them, and they do it in such a way that people no longer want to try and make those ties. "I tried to offer Bob D. Christian a beer and a friendly guy's night out, and he totaly snubbed me, and then tried/succeeded in making me feel like trash for going out and enjoying my buddies' company. Hell if I ever talk to him again." On some level, it affects people, I'd say it even hurts them, and it colours a lot of what non-crazy Christians try to say; their message is already phrased in a very triggering way, the added load of some of their more dubious kin just kills it, you know?
Oh. I wanted to ask. Does anyone teach why things are sins? Not just what the major sins are, but why they are considered sins? Like, murder, theft, adultery, even suicide? I' ( ... )
Reply
The deeper reasons why they do it is never admitted...probably even to themselves. They want a clearly-defined, easy way to differentiate "Christians" from "Non-Christians". Quite frankly, the true fruits of the spirit are too subtle for them. I'll give you a quote from on of John Fischer's earlier books Real Christians Don't Dance.
Which is easier to follow: real Christians don't envy or real Christians don't dance? Which one gets noticed first: real Christians don't lust or real Christians don't smoke? Which one is harder to comply with: real Christians love their enemies or real Christians go to church on Sundays?
Reply
When a Gentile who wished to become a Jew asked him for a summary of the Jewish religion in the most concise terms, Hillel said: "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Law; the rest is the explanation; go and learn"
And the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans:
13:8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Paul really sums it up beautifully: don't do these things because you hurt the people you should love when you do.
Reply
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Anyways, said my peice. Hopefully it wasn't too confusing.
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When I was 9, I read almost all of the old testament, right from the beginning. (and lemme tell yah, there are some really long and boring sections where they list who begat who for pages, and pages, and more pages) It was a slow summer, and they had a reading competition.
But to be honest, it's more beneficial to read and closely study the Bible in small sections. That sticks in the mind better tna reading it from start to finish like a novel.
;p
Reply
I tried that once and finally succeeded, but 1 Chronicles stopped me in my tracks for months.
I have seen some rather fascinating things produced from closely studying the first part of Numbers.
Agreed though, the Bible was never meant to be read like a novel. Certainly doesn't hurt to have plowed through 1 Chronicles at least once though.
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...with their own "sound bites," of course. Atheists/skeptics/whatever will often point and laugh at non-Bible-reading Christians and will often claim that they, in their intellectually-superior state, know more about the Bible than most (if not all) Christians do.
Personally, I have trouble believing that claim because they seem to have exactly the same ( ... )
Reply
I had heard about this one site that seems to go out to young/middle-age adults too, like a big message board/web blog place for folks to check. www.notreligion.com "It's not about religion, it's about a relationship."
Of course, the site looks rather tedious to navigate, and it may not be your thing (I have yet to fully see what it's all about too). But just the blog it has on the front page, and the adverts I heard on the Christian radio about it made me curious. I think the community is starting to wake up and realize just the path many are going down... and that it needs to be redirected!
Reply
"If God didn't exist in the first place, would there even be atheists?"
;p
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Catchphrases abound in Christianity. There's the whole "What Would Jesus Do?" thing, for instance. It's something that's easy to parrot but not so easy to follow through with. Way I see it, there's lots of talking the talk but very little of walking the walk, know what I mean?
Reply
Say true.
I'm pretty sure I told you about the borderline cult I was involved in for a while...I think that there was a lot of things being done right there, but obviously a lot of things desperately wrong...anyway, I bring it up because there was the lingo there, too. Not words that had been twisted beyond all recognition, but words that tended to take on specific meanings within the 'circle' of this particular church. I called it "Kingdomese" because it drove me up a wall and I hated to see these people who had done so much to help me find my way to Jesus get bogged down in using language in ways people 'outside' wouldn't quite get.
I often wonder if people understand how words work and how powerful they can be for good or ill depending on how they're used.
Reply
One thing, yeah, the 'branding' drives me insane. I recall being in a pretty heavy spiritual discussion with a guy over MSN...he had his own interesting way of seeing the world, the best I could say to sum it up would be 'ecclectic Pagan'. Anyway, he knew going in that I'm a Christian, and he went in with lots of preconceived notions of what that meant. He asked me if I would damn him for what he was going to say. I told him, "That's not my job." He was surprised by that answer to say the least. We went on to have a pretty fascinating conversation, and I think my beliefs caught him so far off guard as far as what he thought a Christian 'should' believe that he said several times there was no way I could be a Christian. I guess it's become, as Inigo Montoya put it, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means ( ... )
Reply
Regarding the Canna miracle, I've got some family members who believe that drinking alcohol is sinful inherently. They rationalize that miracle by saying that the wine those days wasn't anywhere near as strong as what they make now.
It put quite a cat among pigeons when I said, "Hang on! The wine steward, when the new stuff is brought out, essentially says, 'Usually people serve the good stuff first before everyone's too smashed to appreciate it'. However strong the wine was, it was obviously strong enough to get people drunk. And, not only did Jesus provide alcohol, but he provided it to a party where the guests were already intoxicated."
Reply
I do find it amusing in a way--my grandma is a total teetotaler, thinks drinking is a sin, would never drink herself, never buy it for anyone...but all of a sudden, when I got disabled and alcohol became medicinal...well, grandma will buy me alcohol. Maybe she's relaxed her views on it a bit, but I'm the only person on Earth she'll buy alcohol for. Shocked the snot out of me one day when I was in Hawai'i with her and she got me a lei full of little bottles of rum :)
Reply
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