Did you do the exercise
on the previous page? Did you have
trouble making specific matches between List A and List B? If
you did, I'm not surprised. There is no perfect match; in fact,
you probably couldn't find any scripture in the second list that
came close to expressing your feelings about some of the topics
in the first list. Was this a trick exercise? Not at all. I was
trying to make a point by getting you to think a little bit.
The scriptures I picked are, I think, very representative of the
teachings of Jesus. More than half are words he reportedly said
himself (those verses printed in red in some bibles). The others
are words from his apostles that seem to me to be very close to
Jesus' own sentiments. If - as a "Christian" - your
feelings about the List A topics are not somewhat along the lines
of the List B scriptures, THEN WHERE IN THE WORLD (AND IN HEAVEN)
ARE YOU GETTING YOUR IDEAS?
****************
We have a problem with terminology. It's not a new problem; word
meanings frequently get changed over time. "Screwing"
used to be part of a carpentry project. When we sang about when
"our hearts were young and gay" - or named our baby
daughters "Gay" - we certainly had no inkling that homosexuals
would one day adopt the word for their own, entirely different,
use. We have a similar problem with the term "Christian."
I hear news personalities, religious leaders, talking heads, pundits
from both the Right and Left, and my family, friends and neighbors
using the word in an amazing number of contexts, some of them
not even close to its original sense:
"And the disciples
(of Jesus) were called Christians first in Antioch" (Acts
11.26).
The situation seems like that described by Henry Higgins in "My
Fair Lady," as he lamented the corruption of the English
language. The situation was so bad, he said, that there "even
are places where English completely disappears." And as further
explanation: "Why, in America, they haven't used it for years."
We seem to be reaching that point with the word "Christian."
To the world around me, "Christian" seems to mean one
or more of the following:
(a) Someone who regularly attends a Protestant or Catholic church;
(b) Someone born in a "Christian nation" who knows he
is not a Jew, Moslem, Buddhist, Taoist, or Atheist;
(c) Someone born in any country who identifies more with Christ
than with Mohammed, Buddha, Manitou, or Lao-Tse;
(d) Someone who wants the world to have more "morality"
and better "family values;"
(e) Someone who is a nice, caring person (as in "that's mighty
'Christian' of you");
(f) Someone who expects to make political or monetary gains by
being one; or
(occasionally)
(g Someone who is a follower of Jesus Christ.
Now, I don't want to get into an "unprofitable and pointless" argument (Titus 3.9) about who is or isn't a Christian - or about whether all it takes is "faith," or if a little "works" has to be in the mix, somewhere. God and each individual will ultimately work that out. On the other hand, Jesus said that we'll know his followers by their "fruits" (Matthew 7.20) and their "light" (Matthew 5.16). It seems to me that we do have a right to expect a REAL CHRISTIAN to follow a certain number of Jesus' teachings, and to exhibit at least a few of his attributes. To my mind, there is something decidely un-Christlike about the militant "conservative christians" and "evangelicals" who by their actions, attitudes and actual words are saying loudly and clearly to the world, "Screw you; I'm saved, and I have a right to have my way!"
I don't fully understand how Christians - humans who believe they are "saved" by Jesus and have access to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit - can align themselves with a political bloc that clearly is not acting with the "Mind of Christ." I do have some ideas about it. For instance, I'm sure there are many people who are "christians" under definitions (a) through (e) above who are truly good people, who want what's right for other individuals, for our nation, and for the world. But not really having access to the Holy Spirit that early Christians believed in, their instinct is to listen to the most pious-sounding voices around them. You've all seen the cartoons about the difference between what a dog is saying and what his master hears, or between what a woman says and a man hears. You know, the woman speaks three serious, important sentences; the man hears "blah blah blah blah sex blah blah blah beer blah blah football." I think many people who don't have the social or political interest, or don't think they have the time to delve into national and world affairs, are in that kind of conversation. There's a highly significant - a vital - discussion going on around them (the "wife's," aka God's and Mother Earth's). But like "the husband," they only hear the words "christian," "morality," or "family values," and assume the speakers of those words have to represent something better those "liberal elitists." Come on, folks! You're better than Pavlov's dogs, aren't you? You don't believe every commercial ad you see, do you? You don't assume the car salesman is dishonest, but you sure read the contract, test drive the car, and have your mechanic look at it, don't you? Remember what that great Conservative Ronald Regan said: "Trust, but verify." That's very similar to what Jesus advised (Matthew 10.16): When you go out like sheep in the midst of wolves, be innocent as doves --- but also be wise as serpents.