Scary people for a scary day

Tiffany has banished me to our bedroom with our two little barky dogs. The trick or treaters were causing them to make our ears bleed, but the three of us are resting quietly now.

I have my trusty laptop to keep me amused and I came across this article here.

The Thirteen Scariest People in America
From the scariest presidential candidate to the scariest billionaire to
the scariest cop, these truly are the worst America has to offer.

My personal favorite addition to the list?

Scariest Proselytizer:: Rev. Rick Warren / Author of The Purpose Driven Life

A self-described "stealth evangelist" who believes in a "pluralistic
America," Warren peppers The Purpose Driven Life with quotes from the
very unholy likes of Anais Nin and Bertrand Russell. He champions
progressive causes such as ending global poverty and AIDS, and he has
teamed up with Bono and the U.N., to combat these scourges. Many
conservative evangelicals condemn him as a neo-liberal. Fortune
describes him as "secular America’s favorite evangelical Christian."
Warren, 52, who has PowerPointed the way to salvation for President
Bush and Rupert Murdoch as well as Coca-Cola and Ford, says he’s not
right-wing or left-wing but rather "for the whole bird."

And, in
fact, this may be true, as long as that bird is heterosexual,
anti-abortion, gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia,
"the tyranny of activist judges," and is completely committed to Christ.

Stereotypes

The United States is a predominately Christian nation, but I must ask the question, what, in fact, is a Christian? Is it someone who believes that everything written in the Bible is literal truth and must be followed strictly? Is it someone who believes in miracles, such as the virgin birth of Jesus? This is how mainstream Christianity has been portrayed for decades.

However, placing all people who self-identify as Christians into these categories would be a far cry from the truth. I know Christians who believe in evolution, support gay marriage, believe in the separation of church and state and take the Bible seriously, but interpret it within its cultural context. The belief that all Christians are Bible-thumping fundamentalists is simply not true.

Via

In the article cited above, the writer is discussing how the media perpetuates stereotypes. I can’t help but be surprised that some people are shocked to learn that Christians can have the views outlined in this quote. But then I shouldn’t be, the media rarely shows that to be the case. I guess a moderate Christian viewpoint doesn’t make for very good headlines.

A terrible balance

Last week I got word that the ten year old son of a friend had passed away. As I reeled from this news I have to admit that I found it impossible to pray. I was so numb that I couldn’t put together enough emotion to cry out to God in anguish.

On Saturday I went to the hospital and had the privilege of holding the two day old son of another friend. In that moment I praised God in my heart for the beautiful gift that I was holding in my arms. While I held that healthy newborn the thought crossed my mind that the loss of one young boy and the birth of another could easily be chalked up to some terrible balance that the universe is required to maintain.

Karma is a popular notion in our society. The idea that the deeds of a person will be paid back to them in kind.

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew5:44-45 NKJV).

I don’t believe in Karma because I have seen the opposite happen far too many times. I have seen people who are not kind prosper and I have seen wonderful, God fearing people suffer through terrible tragedies. Just like my Christian friend who lost his son last week.

People naturally wonder where God is at a time such as this. I have heard some say that there must not a be a God if these things happen. What I know from my experience of the God who became incarnate in Christ Jesus is this, there is a God and this God weeps along with us in these times of sorrow.

Irrepressible Info

Chat rooms monitored. Blogs deleted. Websites blocked. Search engines
restricted. People imprisoned for simply posting and sharing
information.

The Internet is a new frontier in the struggle for human rights.
Governments – with the help of some of the biggest IT companies in the
world – are cracking down on freedom of expression.

Amnesty International, with the support of The Observer UK newspaper,
is launching a campaign to show that online or offline the human voice
and human rights are impossible to repress.

If you have a website or blog, help us spread the word and undermine
unwarranted censorship by publishing censored material from our
database directly onto your site.

The more people take part the more we show that freedom of expression cannot be repressed.

Via

You may have noticed a new heading on the left hand side of my blog. Irrepressible Info is a campaign by Amnesty International to get censored information out to the world. Every time you visit my blog you will see a new piece of censored material and be able to click on it to find out more about it.

 

Inclusivism

"I have never been able to conjure up (as some great Evangelical
missionaries have) the appalling vision of the millions who are not
only perishing but will inevitably perish. On the other hand… I am not
and cannot be a universalist. Between these extremes I cherish and hope
that the majority of the human race will be saved. And I have a solid
biblical basis for this belief." John Stott

Is torture Christian?

According to this study 35% of Catholics, 34% of white Protestants, and 36% of white evangelicals believe that torture of suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can be justified "sometimes." The same study said that 21% of Catholics, 15% of white Protestants, and 13% of white evangelicals believe that torture can be used often. For the math challenged that means 56% of Catholics, 49% of white protestants, and 49% of white evangelicals believe that torture is OK. If you add in those who believe torture is OK "rarely" the numbers rise to 72% of Catholics, 65% of white protestants, and  65% of white evangelicals.

The majority of American Christians are in favor of torture.

There is nothing Christian about torture. We cannot justify these actions by anything that Jesus said or did. The people who support torture may call themselves Christian and even go to church on Sundays, but this has to be one of the most unchristian viewpoints that someone could hold. What has happened to the Christianity of caring for others that Jesus preached?

This is a symbol of the selfishness that is so evident in modern Christianity. This selfishness has it’s root in our focus on the personal benefits of being a Christian, going to Heaven and being blessed by God. We have taken the most revolutionary message ever shared about how to help others so that the world becomes a better place and made it about how we can get cool stuff here on earth and get into Heaven when we die. Who cares about what happens to everyone else. This isn’t what Jesus had in mind when He said "the kingdom of Heaven is at hand" (Matthew 10:7 among other places).

It is time for Christianity to be about more than a "get out of hell free card." The Gospel has to be more about the here and now. Not the here and now of getting blessed with money and a big house, but about the here and now of loving people and helping those who can’t help themselves.

This includes standing up to our governments when they do immoral things.

Nothing but the poop of Jesus

A close friend and I have been having an interesting email discussion this week on faith and Christianity. Yesterday I wrote the following in an email to him and I thought it might be worthwhile to post here too.

I guess that is the reason Christianity rings true for me. Other faiths have truth in them but no other faith has Jesus, at least not the Jesus of the Bible. The idea of God coming to live with us, being God but also going through all the same shit that the rest of us do is very powerful for me. Jesus went through skinned knees, broken hearts, and crapping in His pants as a baby. It redeems the whole human condition and tells us that God understands everything that we go through and that we may have bad times, but ultimately it will be OK. That is a mind blowing concept for me. I believe God has understood all along what it is like to be human, but this is a pretty powerful way of proving it to us.

I’m OK

Feeding this theological point of view also have been insights from the
newly developed psychological sciences. Among those insights is the
realization that love is also the source and the creator of life.
Without love we human beings shrivel. The unloved child, the
uncared-for infant, will almost surely die.That is equally true of most
higher mammals. Love opens the whole creation up to life and calls all
things into being. On the human level, love is the essential power that
deepens our relationships and simultaneously expands our humility. The
more we are freed by love to be ourselves, the more we are enabled to
give our lives away to others. The more we know of life-giving love,
the more we find the courage to expose ourselves, not in some frenzy of
exhibitionism, but as a way of expressing and feeling the Ground of our
Being. The more we explore the depths of life, the more we discover
that life is interdependent, interconnected, and indivisible. At the
core of the human being there is no such thing as separateness and
aloneness. Each one of us is an integral participant in a complex
living organism, the constituent parts of which die and are born in
every instant of time. Yet each part of that living whole participates
in the eternity of being united to an ultimate ground of what slowly
but surely we may someday learn to call God. Why Christianity Must
Change or Die by John Shelby Spong pg 65-66.

That is so beautiful it brings a lump to my throat. Why has this
message been missing from Christianity for so long? It is obvious from
the teachings of Jesus (do unto others, love your neighbor as yourself
etc.) that this is true. Has it been hidden because without a sense of
otherness there is no separation of the Christian from the rest of the
world? Suddenly instead of being able to look down on the
non-Christians around us we are forced to admit that we are all one,
just as Jesus intended.

If Christians learn to love and accept themselves, and ultimately
everyone around them, including God, the power of guilt is gone. No
more will ecclesiastical bodies be able to maintain some sort of power
over their congregations. That indeed may be the real reason why this
truth has been hidden or ignored. Without this guilt churches will have
to change their tactics entirely or face disappearing from our
landscape all together.

Either way I’m OK with it.

On church

SUPERMARKETMONKEY has a great post today.

I spent five years trying to work my arse off to please God, and fullfill some crazy ambition I had to be in some sort of ministry leadership. I went to church every week, played music in the services, led the youth group, prepared communion homilies, and even preached. Tried to maintain a passion for social justice, ( albeit safely with out any cost to myself) and all the while feeling as if there was something missing. something not right. Then I left behind the traditional Church, for what I thought was going to be real Church where it belonged all along.. on the margins. This was where i would find what i was looking for. I spent the next two and a half years working my arse off even harder to please God and fullfil my hunger for recognition and worth through ministry leadership.

Then I crashed.. hard.

As I stood by my bike in the Footscray Mall, squinting in the spring sunshine, I realised that all during those years I so faithfully attended church, ( against my better intuitions) I was trying really hard to be what I thought was a good Christian. Basically someone that is nice and compliant with everyone in the hope that in my meekness, they will recognise the work of Christ. This method only succeeded in turning me in to a false person. A nice person. but one who was trying so hard to be good that they only ended up removing themsleves from the muck of real life..

But it is the humility of wretchedness that gives faith its authenticity. And for being forced to be so wretched, I am very grateful. For failing at all my attempts to get God to like me, to show that I am competent, That I can lead, I am very very grateful. It is the humility wrought from a failure to be successfully religious that gives me solid ground to stand on. On that ground I can walk with dignity. On that ground I am safe. And on that ground, I have the best chance of actually shining some light in the dark places of this world.

Body count

I saw this interview with John Ashcroft on the Daily Show last week. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then. I have especially thought about the part where he says that those who believe the United States should not respond with violence are weak.

Were I to meet Mr. Ashcroft today, I think the first thing I would ask him is his opinion on Gandhi. I would also want to know if he thought that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a weak man. Finally, and probably most importantly, I would ask him if he thought that Jesus was weak.

"But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also" (Matthew 5:39 NKJV).

John Ashcroft has made the common mistake of believing that strength is in power. You don’t have to be strong to fight, you just have to have a lot of weapons. I am not the biggest, strongest guy in the world but I could kill a bodybuilder by hitting him with my car. That doesn’t make me stronger than him. True strength comes from having character, weakness is lashing out at those who fight against you without considering the consequence.

Sadly Mr. Ashcroft’s opinion is prevalent in our world today, especially among those in places of power and significance. That is why the world has all the problems that it does. Until we learn to appreciate the power of non-violence we will continue to slam our horns together like two bucks trying to impress a doe.

And the body count will continue to mount.