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.

Crisis in Christian Schools?

Descartes once said "in order to be a true seeker of truth, one must, as far as it is possible, question everything." I am becoming more and more convinced of this as I have seen Christians seemingly well grounded in their faith go through Christian schools and come out the other side questioning their Christianity. There is something wrong here. I know of several cases where this has happened. The first case I know of was at a Christian high school. Someone I know became so completely dissulussioned with Christianity after seeing the amount of hypocrisy at his school that this person isn't sure they want to be Christian. Part of the purpose of sending someone to a Christian school is an effort to keep this person from losing their faith. The fact that the opposite effect is happening is disturbing. So what's causeing this? Is there actually a crisis in our Christian Schools? I would say quite simply yes, there is a crisis in Christian schools. The problem, put simply, is the Christian sub culture. This is the idea that if one puts a group of Christians together who are like minded they will never question anything and in so doing will save their faith. THIS IS WRONG! Scripture commands that we be in the world but not of the world. NO WHERE in scripture does it command that we not even in be in the world and that we completely separate ourselves from the world. Christ in fact reprimands this kind of behavior in Revelation chapter two when he condemns the church who has lost it's first love. Here is a church who has done all the right things, and yet they have lost sight of the goal. I would put forth that this what happens when Christians insist upon living in a sub-culture kind of society. We end up raising children who are given the tools combat in the real world but never given the opportunity to use these tools. I would ask then, what was the point of giving the tools in the first place? If we insist upon sheltering our children to the point that they have no idea what is in the world they will no know how to deal with the things that are in the world. What will follow is a child who views the world as something that is perhaps not all bad and thus begins the slippery slope of a child who, when confronted, does not know how to deal with the confrontation and begins to agree with the ideas set before him. I ask you, would it not be better to instead begin confrontation in a controlled kind of manner that these children will know how to use the tools they have been given? It makes no sense to give the child the tools to use without actually giving them instruction manual to booklet. We must not assume that our children will simply figure it out on their own, some will, but some will come out the other side disillusioned. Again I ask, would it not be better to give them both the tools and the instruction manual to use these tools to combat the world? I would put this to parents, you know what is the world. Educate your child in both the ways of the world and the ways of Christianity and then ask them, which is better?

Upon meeting two women

Recently I encountered two women I found to be of interesting note. Of the two women, one was quite obviously an outspoken feminist. She talked as though she would be quite happy to completely eradicate any mention of man, men or anything that would even remotely hint at patriarchal values. I found this to be of interesting note because quite honestly, I was bothered by the whole encounter. The idea of completely eradicating men quite honestly bothered me. I'm reminded of a song I heard once as a child, "Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking. What a grand world this would be, if the men were all transported far beyond the northern sea." Reuben's reply is: "Oh my goodness gracious Rachel, what a strange world this would be, if the men were all transported far beyond the northern sea." On this issue I have to agree with Reuben. Indeed it would be a strange world to live if in fact men were completely eradicated. Granted I have had my moments when I've wanted to see the eradication of men, I think most women would be foolish if they think they haven't; however I think if women thought it through for two seconds they would infact realize the folly. As much as women may try to resist men are infact needed to stabilize women. I shudder to think about what the world would be like if ran by women, though that day may soon be approaching if Hillary Clinton gets her way. Women are emotional creatures and in fact need men to reason with them. If God had wanted the world to be ruled by women he would not have created man. By the same logic if God had wanted woman to be man he would have simply created man and let it be at that. The fact of the matter is, God in his ultimate wisdom created both man and woman for a purpose. God said "it is not good for man to be alone." The same could be said of woman.

Book Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

This is I think one of the most important books of the twentieth century. Bradbury does an excellent job of depicting what happens to a society when knowledge is suppressed, books censored, and libraries no longer exist.

Quick review of the plot:
The book is set at some point in the future. Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books and begins to wonder what is in the books he is burning. Thus begins his downfall. The story unfolds with Mr. Montag's meeting with Clarrisse who begins to open a world for Mr. Montag he never knew possible.

Analysis:
At the end of the book Bradbury quite elequently gives a dialogue on the main points in his work and why he wrote the book in the manner that he wrote it. Let's talk literary theories for just a moment. Bradbury most definately comes from a New Criticism perspective, the idea that it is what is in the text that counts. He states, at the end of the book, a number of things he would have changed had he allowed himself to re-write the book. However, he also says that in re-writing the book it would be a totally new book, and would have to be titled differently. Bradbury takes to task various different minorities for their criticism of his books in that he is too far in one direction or the other. In essence he states in his appendices that he is an author who wrote about something he cared about and if those minority groups want their points of view represented, then perhaps they should write their own book. This book is a fairly quick read, but extremely important. It's hard to believe it has come so far from it's meager beginnings as dime novel.

Can Islam and Christianity coexist in a pluralistic society? (An analysis of a recent Socratic Club forum)

As stated in the title the topic of tonight's socratic club forum was "Can Islam and Christianity Coexist in a pluralistic society?" Speakers this evening were Dr. Martin Alphonse arguing for Christianity and Dr. Shariar Ahmed arguing for Islam. First will be a brief summary of Dr. Alphonse's opening statements followed by a brief summary of Dr. Ahmed's opening statements. The final part of this analysis will be a summary of my own personal thoughts on each speaker.

Summer of Dr. Alphonse

In Dr. Alphonse's opening statements he gives several reasons for the coexistence of Christianity and Islam. Dr. Alphonse states Christians and Muslims are, in a sense, blood brothers and sisters as they are both descendent from Abraham. He also makes the statement that non-Arab muslims and Christians are descendent from the same theology they merely arrive at different conclusions. Christians and Muslims can coexist because they believe the same books to be revealed by the same God and they believe in the same prophets (i. e. Moses, David etc.). Dr. Alphonse argues a textual commonality between Jews, Christians and Muslims but says that Christians and Jews have deviated from that thus limiting the textual commonality. The issue of love is yet another area Muslims and Christians have in common as both are permitted to lvoe our neighbors as ourselves. Dr. Alphonse says also that Muslims and Christians all have a coomon goal and that with both religions there is a definite beginning and a definite end to the world. The issue of peace is another area Dr. Alphonse uses as his argument for the coexistence of Islam and Christianity.
Dr. Alphonse does state there is much still separating Islam and Christianity even given these similarities. He then goes into a brief explanation of just a few of these barriers. He says the main barrier between Islam and Christianity is the idea the trinity. Muslims see the trinity as being three separate gods rather than one God as the Christians do. Dr. Alphonse argues different names of God would have to refer to different gods. He also argues another barrier between Islam and Christianity is the the claim of a unique revelation. He also accuses Christinaity of major antisemitism against Arabs.

Review of Dr. Ahmed's opening arguments.

Dr. Ahmed begins by breaking the number one rule in public speaking, never apologize for your mistakes. Thus within the first 30 seconds of his presentation he makes it blatantly clear to his audience that he is not prepared to give his presentation and in his own terms "wings it." The only relevant comment Dr. Ahmed makes about Islam and Christianity is his statement that the practices are different. The rest of his presentation he spent establishing commonality with Judaism which was not the question; however, it is to his credit that this part of his presentation was informative albeit not on topic. Dr. Ahmed begins by discussing the origin of the word Islam saying it came from the Arabic word for submission. He also points out that in the Muslim religion to talk about the divine birth is sacrilege. As he walked through the audience he went on to discuss what it would look like to never forget God. After this discussion Dr. Ahmed deals with the issue of Abraham stating that Abraham did not have a wife and a concubine rather that he had two wives. He also makes a bold statement by saying that Hagar, not Sarah, was the ideal wife.

My own personal analyisis and comments:

I haver little in Dr. Alphonse's presentation to criticize his manner was courteous, brief and to the poitn. He dealt with the issue head on and gave a most informative presentation. I completely agree with his statement at the end of his opnening presentation "there is much still separating Christianity from Islam;" however, the point I think he is trying to make is, would it not be better to focus on that which bridges the gap between us rather than focusing on that which widens the gap?
My attack then would lie solely with Dr. Ahmed. First and foremost Dr. Ahmed never actually answered the question of the evening. In fact, he never answered any question. He took 5-10 minutes attempting to answer the question and by the time he was finished the audience completely forgot the question. His speaking manner was extremely accusatory and in fact ridculing to both the Socratic Club and the audience. At one point he made a statement about the list of things expected of him as a speaker saying "I was given a list of dos and donts and decided to just wing it." Saying such he as much as admitted he found the guidlins given him by the Socratic Club to be pointless. Many times in his presentation Dr. Ahmed made statements attesting to the fact that he was unprepared. Therefore, he could not even give the Socratic Club and the audience of the forum the respect of coming with a knowledge of the subject. Given all this it would by my critique that Dr. Ahmed was extremely unprepared, unprofessional, and disrespectful both for the Socratic Club and for the audience of the forum. Any man who hogs the microphone and stiffles any other discussion except that which he leads can be deamed such.

Q&A Session critique's

Many excellent questions were asked and indeed many more could have been asked had Dr. Ahmed simply answered the question in a timely manner and indeed answered the question in the first place. The most interesting of these questions was the question about dhimitudee. It is interesting to not that Dr. Ahmed at first refused to answer except that he then proceeded to spend the next five minutes establishing how Christianity is tolerated by Muslims in this country and in fact all over the world. At one point he gave the example of a Christian, muslim born, well respected woman. What he failed to point however is that this particular woman cannot go back to her home land because she will be killed. He also failed to mention the thousands of Christians that have died by the hand of Islam in Sudan. Does dhimitudee exist? Indeed it doues Dr. Ahmed. In fact I would say to Dr. Ahmed the prime reason Christian is tolerated by Muslims in this country is because we have religious freedom and any attack made on any one person solely on the basis of their religion is deemed a hate crime. It is in fact, a crime.
I next come to the issue of Dr. Ahmed's discussion of the origin of the word Islam. It may very well have come from the Arabic word for submission; however, what Dr. Ahmed neglects to inform his audience is that the muslim idea of submission is not submission at all it is in fact slavery. Muslims live in constant fear of not following the ways of Allah and thus it is no longer submission, but it is in fact slavery.
Dr. Ahmed also makes the bold claim the Muslim religion is not a proselytizing religion. This is absolute nonsense. The only way Dr. Ahmed can make such a claim is if he completely ignores the thousands of years Muslims have threatened to cut off the heads of those who will not convert. How is this not a proselytizing religion?
In closing then I would ask Dr. Ahmed that the next time he gives one of these presentations to be a bit more prepared and do his homework.