Ponderings

A friend of mine was teasing me today when she said that I needed to get a job if for the sole fact that I have been thinking too much and need to find something else to do. It's true, one of the things about not having a job is that you sit on your but alone with your computer and all you can do is think and write. Out of that come my rants. I've been pondering a lot of things lately, more like a lot of the extreme Christianity that I grew up with. For a little background, I was homeschooled, very conservatively homeschooled. I do my best to hide it and in fact I do not reveal this fact very often. In the last few days I have realized that I am in fact ashamed of being homeschooled. The reason I am ashamed of being homeschooled is that I care too much what others will think. I fear being judged simply because I am an ex-homeschooler. Truth be told there are few social inadequacies that have come as a result of being homeschooled, but I think they are so indistinct most people wouldn't know unless I told you. At least that's the theory I've deluded myself into thinking. I began to analyze though, why am I ashamed of being homeschooled? It has I think more to do with the stereotype than anything else. Think about it, homeschoolers have a stereotype for being socially awkward, nerdy individuals that have no clue how to hold a conversation. Therefore I come to the same conclusion I made earlier, I am ashamed of being homeschooled because I am afraid of being judged on the basis that I was in fact homeschooled.
As I was thinking about this I began to make some comparisons to Christianity. There is a scripture that says "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ..." To be honest, I struggle with this passage. I preach against holding a judgemental attitude and Christian hypocrisy. In certain social circles I really don't like calling myself a Christian, in fact I'd rather hide and skirt around the issue if I can. I began to think about it and analyze why it was I am so apparently ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. It occurred to me that it was not in fact the Gospel of Christ that I was ashamed of but rather the Gospel of Christianity. There is a difference. In fact, if most Christians would live by the Gospel of Christ, I think there would be more Christians in existence. Fact of the matter is, the Gospel of Christianity preaches legalism, and spiritual superiority. Not at all something with which I want to identify myself. In contrast the Gospel of Christ preaches love and acceptance, judgement yes, but first and foremost relationships. In many of the cases where Jesus told the person to go and sin no more he began by establishing a relationship. For instance with the Woman at the Well. He reached out to her by asking her for a drink of water which is something that a male jew would not normally do with even a Hebrew woman. In this manner he began to interact with her and establish something of a relationship with her before he told her to go and sin no more. Another example where Jesus was hesitant to condemn is the situation with the adulterous woman. This was a situation where Jesus told the crowd "He who is without sin, let him be the first to cast the stone." When no one cast the first stone and the crowd dispersed Jesus asked the woman where her accusers were and upon seeing there was no one he told her "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more." (John 8:3-10)
This is what I believe to be the Gospel of Christ. From what I can tell the Gospel of Christianity has turned into the Gospel of the Pharisees, not exactly someone I'd want to be party to. In conclusion then, I would say that I can truthfully say I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, it is in fact his followers of whom I frequently find myself ashamed. In much the same manner it is not so much being homeschooled that I am ashamed of so much as it is others who have been homeschooled and created a bad name for it. There I would ask you who call yourselves Christians to remember that you are representing the name of Jesus Christ and as such at least make an attempt to live by his word.

Frustrations X2 (Follow up to frustrations)

For the purposes of this post I am not even going to discuss the issue of whether or not being gay or lesbian is a sin because where one might stand on that issue has no bearing on how people, particularly Christians, should treat those who are gay. i would like to take a moment and define a term, the term is judgement. When I think of the word judgement I think of Christians looking down their long thin noses and completely shunning any one person who does not live in the same manner as they do. This is what I believe to be wrong. We have no right to pretend be holier than thou because fact of the matter is we are all sinners, therefore it ought to be our duty to make an attempt to show the love Christ to people with whom we may not necessarily agree. It is NOT our job to sit around and make fun of those people we think are living in sin. It is in fact more important to show them the love of Christ
Another term I would like to discuss for a moment is condemnation. This is something else I believe to be wrong. It is God's job to condemn, not ours. So again i would say it is more important to show the love of Christ rather than condemn those who are sinners. It bothers me that Christians are so prone to condemnation. Scripture tells us to speak the truth in love, we have the speaking truth part down pat, however somewhere in there we have lost doing it in love. If one looks at the life of Jesus Christ one will realize that the people he chose to associate with were not exactly perfect people. One example is the woman at the well. This was a situation where he told the woman to go and sin no more. We have no record of what her life was like after her encounter with Christ, it is very possible that she fell back into sin. However, we also do not have any record of Christ going back to check up on her. It is the same with people who are gay, if one wishes to make it clear where they stand on the issue that is fine. What I object to is rubbing their faces in it and using the fact that you are straight to make oneself superior. This is what I believe to be wrong. This is an issue of the log and the splinter in your eye. Christ very clearly tells us to get the log out of our own eye before getting the splinter out of someone elses eye. In other words, be aware of the fact that you have sin in your life that may look like a log to others. Therefore proceed with caution when making your views known.
Another issue that came up in the previous post was the claim that gay people make fun of themselves therefore it is ok for us to do so as well. This is totally and completely not true. For starters the people that I know who are gay do not make fun of themselves and furthermore it is an issue of prerogative. Going back to the issue of Nerd Day, I make fun of myself for being a nerd but do not appreciate when others make fun of me for the same reason. It's similar to the situation with siblings. I have an older sister, typically younger sibling I picked on my older sister but if anyone else picked on my older sister there was hell to pay. Another issue here that ought to be raised is the question of right vs. edifying. I would not ask the question is it right that I do this, but rather is it edifying for the other person? Since there are people who find it offensive to make fun of people who are gay I would say no, it is not edifying therefore it is no longer right.
Secondly the issue was raised that those Christians who do make fun of gay people are in fact accurate in their interpretations, this is a non-issue because they shouldn't be making fun of gay people in the first place. Again it is a question of edification rather than accuracy. Am I being edifying to myself and the others around me by making fun of gay people?
It is more important to me that I build a relationship with my friends who are gay, and as the relationship grows yes my views will come out, however I am not about to go beating them upside the head with my views on the subject matter. I've never been a huge fan of the beating the bible over the head method of evangelism. My experience has been that it is more often than not alienating to the other individual. I am much more inclined to build a relationship first and thereby show the love of Christ.
There have been times when I have thought about what would happen if in fact I was lesbian. How would I be treated? It saddens me because I can predict that I would many close friends because they would no longer want anything to do with someone they felt was living in sin. This is precisely why many of the people I know reject Christianity. Therefore I would leave you with this, would it not be better to show the love of Christ rather than show a judgemental attitude?

Frustrations

There's an event on campus that frustrates a small contingency people. The event is titled Nerd Day, it irritates/frustrates a few of us because it is supposedly representative of the small but outspoken contingency of those of us who call ourselves nerds. What it amounts to is that we feel the day makes fun of us those of us who are in fact nerds. Now the people who participate in this day would I think be mortified if they knew they had offended anyone because while their heart is in the right place the problem is they have not stopped to think twice about the people they may possibly offend. While their intentions are good it is quite obvious they really don't know anything about the group they are supposedly representing and in essence they are making fun of those of who are nerds. So where am I really going with this? There is another group of people who do something quite similar. A few people on campus have taken it upon themselves to make fun of a group of people of which they really don't know anything about. I am referring to gay people. There are few people I know who sit around and make fun of gay people. This bothers me because I know people who are gay, they are nothing like the people who make fun of them think they are. Fact of the matter is, they are people just like you and me. Simply because we claim to be Christians does not give us the right to sit and judge them or to make fun of them because they are different. Do you suppose that during the holocaust Germans sat around and made fun of the Jews? Or during the race riots do you suppose white people sat around and made fun of the blacks? In both cases it was a case of the majority making fun of a minority simply because they were different. Fact of the matter is, they are people too. Just because we might be German, White, or Straight while someone else is not does not give us the right to sit around make fun of these people. This is what people like to call bigotry and unfortunately Christianity is full of it, it is for this reason that I am hesitant to even call myself a Christian because there are so many things like this throughout history that have given Christians a bad name. Would it not be better to make an attempt to understand the culture of those who are different rather than to sit and make fun of them or to condemn them? Because quite honestly if we sit and make fun of those who are different from us it is in a sense a kind of condemning. By making fun of those who are different we in fact condemn them and make their differences blatantly obvious and thereby condemn them because they are in fact different. I would ask you then, think twice before you make fun of a group of people, or an individual simply because they are different, because someday that could be you.