It is MY faith, I have been with it for 33 years, every step of the way, so I understand how only I can truly understand the depth of my faith, and how my faith is defined.
It drives me a little angry nuts when Christians paint me over as an un-christian because I do not believe EXACTLY what they believe.
Right now their is a PROFITABLE movement to be a firetorcher christian, who talk about how your christianity is under fire and how the heathens are destroying America, Family Values and the Children.
Many people are making lots of money and aquiring lots of power by becoming a firetorcher christian. Politicians are reaching new levels of control, the firetorcher speakers are gaining larger and larger audiences willing to believe and pay to believe most of what these people say.
I work at a large chain bookstore, full time. I've been there for 2 years. I saw before the election, and now I've been there after the election how the firetorcher movement is setting people on fire and them claiming their ashes.
A new book 'THE CRIMINALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY', is one of the latest in the firetorchers take no prisoners in the stay the course in the war on conservative christian terrorists war.
The back cover lists the 3 biggest problem on Homosexuality, Prayer in Schools and Abortion.
The book itself's theme is "Soon believing in Christianity will be illegal."
Oh. My. Lord.
70% of this Nation is Christian. 99% of all politicians are Christian 80% of judges are Christian
Do you EVER believe that there is a CHANCE we would ever illegalize it? NO!
But this is the crap their shoveling.
The meat of their arguments is the Ten Commandments displays that have been removed, and school prayer being removed, soon all of Christianity will be removed.
There is actually a sentence in the book that states "before school prayer was removed, schools were safe, happy great places to learn and grow, but since they've taken prayer out of schools they have all been overrun with drugs, murder, violence, guns, pregnancy and homesexuality."
It's like the firetorcher Christians are using the same tactics on people they don't deem people by de-humanizing them, sort of like early Americans did with the Native Indians.
"they are not human, they are indian."
"they are not human, they are liberal."
Why does this country continue to have long Billion dollar talks about Christianity without talking about JESUS.
Ten Commandments is OLD TESTAMENT. Jesus' TWO Laws are NEW TESTAMENT and the WORD The Great One.
Who on this planet can Judge the depth of another man's Faith and relationship with GOD?
I see lots of Americans getting rich and powerful trying to but thier works are not so great.
posted
I think if you look there is a countermovement to this within the Christian community. There are some writers out there like Jim Wallis and Donald Miller supporting the ideas Homosexuality and abortion aren't the biggest problems facing the church today, the republicans shouldn't dictate the Christian agenda, and we Christians should be out loving people, helping the poor and our communities.
My friends and I are talking about these ideas a lot. Most people would consider us fundamentalist, but we don't spend much time on the "firetorchers". While we would like prayer to come back in schools, the Ten Commandments returned to courtrooms, ect. We realize that fear mongering and finger pointing is not the way to show people what Christianity is about; loving them is.
Posts: 555 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Reminds me of Jon Stewart's bit the other night, when the congressman said there was a war on Christianity....
"I have a dream of an America where all Christians can worship freely, where they can wear symbols of their faith in public...perhaps around their necks! And some day, there might even be a Christian president! ...or maybe 43 three of them. Consecutively."
posted
Dishing out paranoia is hardly a new tactic for rousing support for whatever your pet project might be. Total destruction has been a popular one since forever. "Do what I want, or the world will come to an end..."
How old is the story of Chicken Little? Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
jeniwren, true, but shouldn't we expect better of Christians, or people who claim to be acting in Christ's name?
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I agree with her, Bob. Christians come in all varieties, some of them are bound to be those people who need to rally behind something and have lots of drama and fanfare.
Posts: 377 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
There is an article in the New Yorker magazine (no registration necessary) called "God and Country" that kind of made me want to homeschool my son as a Secular Humanist. It's about Patrick Henry college, made up of homeschoolers (Christian Evangelicals, all, I think) and fast-tracking them to Capitol Hill.
posted
Last night I admitted that I had been giving someone serious grief for something I since found out was my fault. It's possible next time, it'll be his screw-up. If it is, I hope I'll remember: I do that.
If you criticize someone for being critical . . . you're doing the same thing.
If you say harsh things about a group, such as that they say harsh things about groups . . . you're doing the same thing.
If you suggest someone is racist in a complaint that says no one should judge what's in your heart (OK, SilverBlue said specifically no one should judge faith; still) . . . you're doing the same thing, or close enough.
How can we miss the self-reference?
Fortunately, recognizing it's OUR problem gives us a great opportunity. Nobody can change those other people over there. But we're eminently qualified to address our own flaws. What drives us to blast our opponents as evil, when we think we've caught them blasting their opponents as evil? What do we judge to be true about them? Judgmental? Hypocritical? Greedy? All beams we can, if not remove from our own eyes, at least focus on, before going for the mote in the other's.
Whatever details I got wrong, change them to fit: I'm sure the argument will often apply, whether the gripe is about a false victim, or a hypocrite, or an inconsiderate person, or whatever.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
You lost me Will B. Are you saying that if I complain about someone who is inconsiderate, I, myself, am being inconsiderate toward them?
If so, I must disagree. If I am griping about someone who is inconsiderate, I may very well have considered them and their behavior to great length. I then am not being inconsiderate. I might be being mean, rude, or perhaps simply expressing righteous anger at their lack of consideration.
quote:If you criticize someone for being critical . . . you're doing the same thing.
To me this is just like meaningless recitations of "judge not that ye be not judged". I do not believe that was ever intended to mean no one should ever judge. We judge every day. We are expected to think critically (or at least we should be). The trick is to judge fairly and to be considered in our criticism. I do not think that if I call someone on their behavior when they are being unfairly critical of someone that I am in turn "doing the same thing." I might be, but it's hardly a given.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Bob, in all honesty, I sincerely doubt that some of the fear-mongering people who are trying to rouse Christians to action are actually Christians. They see a group of people who can be manipulated simply by saying "God wants you to..." and then tacking on some biblical reason basis for it.
Granted, however, some of those people *are* Christians. And just as imperfect as you (Dana's opinion notwithstanding ) and me. God is the judge of standard, not me. The best thing I can do about Christians who are (IMO) using less than admirable tactics is not to follow or contribute to them. Hence my withdrawal of support to the ACLJ.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Karl, you have to admit, as real as the people Thor complains about are, it *is* a bit hypocritical of him to say "you can't judge what's in a person's heart" when he just got done telling us what's in the hearts of a bunch of people he's never met.
That having been said, Thor has a point, hypocrisy is bad. I agree.
Edit: in case that sounds facetious or flippant... I mean it. Thor has a well taken point... I'd just rather he said that he hates when people do this, rather than idnetifying and labeling a whole slew of people and painting them with the same spiritual brush.
posted
I think the real problem is all these people want the life styles and values of the 40's and 50's back. The thing is they want to do this through making this or that illegal etc. The fact of the matter is that the people in our past, in America, didn't require laws , government rules, etc. to make them live the way that they were. Plus in my opinion a lot of people live in a very romantic view of the past, they always see the good things and never the bad.
Of course its not so good to get me around very radical christians, I tend to get myself into a little bit of trouble, but generally not too much. I think the last time I was around some in Kentucly/Tennessee I ended you calling Baptists the new catholics etc. ; )
Posts: 1753 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:You lost me Will B. Are you saying that if I complain about someone who is inconsiderate, I, myself, am being inconsiderate toward them?
No -- I'm not saying that, at all. I don't want to squelch anybody's right to complain! Quite seriously, some things should be complained about.
I am saying:
* "If you criticize someone for being critical . . . you're doing the same thing." If it's OK for Silverblue to criticize (and I think it is), it's also OK for Christians. If it's OK for Silverblue to say what's in their hearts (racism, an attitude that people are subhuman), it's OK for them to say what's in his. Sauce for the goose.
* I'm further saying that if it really sticks in your craw that somebody does X, it's likely (not inevitable) that you do it too. And in this case, it's all right there in the post. Let it make us humble (not ashamed, humble) to recognize we screw up, too.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
