"Family Values"

What they mean when they say "family values" - straight, white, suburban, 1950s ideals where you hid the sins beneath the veneer of civic politeness and patriotism. No gays. No trans. No uppity blacks talking about unfairness in the system. Submissive women doting on husbands. 

What I mean when I say "family values" - actual values that the Bible and other holy books espouse: kindness, patience, service, love, goodness, gentleness, love for the poor, widows, and orphans, the rich refusing to hoard up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy.

The truth about Charlie ... er, Seanie ... er ...

Someone asked me on the phone the other night about how did I reconcile my faith and many of the topics and characters I choose to write about in my stories and comics, etc. Then he said that my "open mind" (his words) was one of the things he liked about me, particularly considering where I used to work.

All of which got me to thinking.

Am I really that open-minded? I don't think so.

I think I'm far more tolerant than I am open-minded.

I share many of the same beliefs as other conservative fundamentalists. Really I do. But I just don't think that having those beliefs has to hamper my ability to develop genuine relationships with people who might disagree rigidly with me and I with them when it comes to politics, social conventions, religion, and who knows what else.

So, before anyone goes and labels me as open-minded, let me set the record straight. I'm not. Not really. My tolerance just disguises it some times. And I don't tend to advertise the individual tenets of what I believe apart from what I consider the big things like grace, forgiveness, and faith. Because the smaller things are just that, the smaller things.

It's not that I dislike the idea of being open-minded, and I guess to a degree I am. Maybe. I am willing to give ideas a chance, an opportunity. I believe Truth rises to the top, and therefore, I'm willing to accept that Truth, if it (or He/She) exists as I believe, has a way of making it's presence known in its creation. And particularly via the branch of theological ponderings I've grown to embrace.

But what I ultimately deem as Truth will determine my views on everything else. Purpose. Politics. Life. Law. Sex. Sexuality. Society. Human dignity. Poverty. Hunger. Gender. War. Peace. Economics. The world. Everything. That's why what we believe is called a world view.

But it doesn't have to prevent me from enjoying the company of people. Any people. All people. After all, I've got a great role model right at the top spot on the pyramid of my belief system.

Were I to wear my beliefs on my sleeve and tout my how they affect my political views, I'd probably lose a few of the folks on my friends list. Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe I just somehow am lucky to meet people of a like-minded tolerance. Even toward Southern Baptists who live in the "Bible Belt."

So, why mention any of this? Because one of the things I really want to do here on LJ and everywhere else is be authentic. Perhaps painfully so sometimes, and perhaps embarrassingly so at others. Of perhaps even against the wishes of that little voice inside that says, "Don't mention that, you freakin' moron. Nobody likes a fundie. So hide the fact that deep down, you really are one. C'mon, boy, get a clue."

Oh well, just feeling introspective. This too shall pass, I'm sure.

Existential Truth and the Eternal Jerkness of Being Right

 

Yes, I believe that what I believe about God is true at the expense of all other beliefs about God or Not-God being false. I own up to that cosmic bit of egoism in my chosen faith. However, I also believe that believing that does not now, nor has it ever given me the right to be an jerk about it or talk to other people without love and peacefulness in my attitude.

[Link] Where Is the Kingdom?

We have become much too obvious about identifying what is “Christian” in the world. In fact, we have lost ground trying to gain ground. We have labeled and marketed a subculture and an agenda in the world. Christians have become much too visible. If you can say, “Here it is!” or “It’s over there!” then chances are you’ve got something other than the Kingdom of God. Not sure what it is but it isn’t that. Trying to identify and establish what is Christian in culture can easily work at cross-purposes with what God is already doing in the world.

The Kingdom of God is not something you can buy or sell or purchase a ticket to. You can’t market it or vote it in. You can’t put it in power because it is already in charge. You can’t call it out because God hasn’t called it out. There will come a time when every eye will see it, but this is not that time. To pray “Thy Kingdom come” as Jesus taught us to pray is not to bring it as if it weren’t here. He told us already that it is here. It means to pray that we might be agents of doing His will on earth “as it is in heaven.” -- John Fischer

Read more: http://catchjohnfischer.wordpress.com/2013/04/15/where-is-the-kingdom/

More Important Matters

by John Fischer
 

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices - mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law - justice, mercy and faithfulness." (Matthew 23:23)

How we love to control what we can control and let go by what we can't. How well I understand this. This is the diversion of religion, and when Christianity becomes just a religion, we get all taken up with things like going to church, reading our Bibles and praying while missing the bigger issues of the heart - things that color all that we do and say. Jesus mentions three of those things here: justice, mercy and faith.

The first one, justice, is sorely missing in conservative Christianity today and has been for some time. I admittedly know little about it and I have been around Christian ministry all my life.

Years ago, in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the church let the world take up the banner of justice and we haven't done much about it since. Yet Jesus mentions it as one of three important things for us not to miss. How many sermons besides those of Martin Luther King, Jr., admonished us as followers of Christ to treat everyone adequately, fairly, and with full appreciation - and that's just one aspect of justice. There are many more.

I think we get confused over this sometimes because justice is often paired with its social counterpart to create social justice - something that has more to do with the laws of the land than with individual responsibility. That may be obliquely related to what Jesus was talking about here, but I think He meant something more attached to the heart, and how each one of us thinks about and treats other people.

We are going to look more into this in the coming days, but I must say that I am not as far along on this journey as many of you probably are, so bear with me. I have much to learn.

How can any follower of Jesus bypass what He has so clearly marked out as being an important matter? So please, teach me about justice. Write to me with some illustrations of what you have experienced as acts of justice or lack of it. Let's do this together. Marti believes that justice is going to play a big role in the next spiritual revolution and I, for one, don't want to miss it this time.

From Fischtank.com

[Link] Sterile Christianity

“A Christian should be in the world, but not of the world.”

How many times have you heard, or maybe even said something like this?

This is a mantra of Christianity, the functional approach that many Christians apply to life. It expresses the intent to be fully immersed and engaged in worldly affairs without being compromised by its stink and corrosive effects.

This quasi-biblical command is based passages like John 17, Romans 12, and 1 Corinthians 5. It’s solid theology.

Unfortunately, the problem is in the execution.

Many Christians really struggle with what it means to live in this world while not being tainted or stained by it. I’ve struggled with it myself for much of my faith life (more about that, later).

Wrongly executing the “In/not Of” ideal often results in an effort to self-quarantine from the world and its effects. People who do this reason that until they die and are in heaven, they are “in” the world. Until then, the best, noblest thing they can do is pursue the life of the ascetic, shunning any engagement with the world (inasmuch as possible).

Author John Fischer calls this “the three monkey approach,” a lifestyle defined by “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” These people feel like the only way to be “untainted” is to be segregated from the world. Unfortunately, this is an Eastern philosophy hearkening back to Confucius, not a Christian philosophy issued by Jesus.

Consequently, an entire sub-culture of Christianity has emerged that, while technically “in the world,” it has little or nothing to actually do with the world. I call these people Sterile Christians. Well, not to their face, because that would be rude. Sterile Christians practice Sterile Christianity.

In this series of blog posts, I intend to bust the myth of Sterile Christianity and offer the better way taught, exemplified, and enabled through Jesus.

---------------------

Well worth checking out this series from Bryan.

Epiphany Day

I believe I came to a sort of epiphany today. I think if I'm completely honest with myself, I've been far too content to know about Christ and to try to emulate him instead of putting my focus on wanting to know him and be known by him. And I do believe that needs to change.