Yesterday was National Coming Out Day. It was also the day I broke one of my rules…no politics on Facebook. Well, actually I suppose we were talking about religion so maybe I’m still golden.
One of my Christian Facebook friends seems to enjoy stirring things up. And yesterday he stirred things up by announcing that homosexuality is a sin. I suppose you can guess where things went from there.
I was embarrassed. It struck me though, more than it has on other occasions, how much of the culture of modern Christianity seems to be about bullying. About using the guise of “reaching others” to really spend our time banging others over the head about what they are doing wrong. Nevermind that Jesus himself told us explicitly to NOT do that. (Matthew 7:5; Luke 6:41-42) Granted those verses do say we can deal with the speck in our brothers’ eyes…but only after we’ve gotten the logs out of ours. And I don’t know about anyone else, but every day I wake up and realise that there is still a wooden eye in my head. By the time I get these logs out, the eyes themselves will be in heaven.
I’ve got a non-Christian acquaintance who has decided that my Christianity isn’t good enough for her because I don’t give her money to pay all of her bills and I don’t drive her to medical appointments. So she shows up periodically to bully me about religion. You may have seen her here from time to time. Thanks to her (and others) I’ve really come to despise the idea of using religion as a tool to abuse others. Because that’s what it is. Rarely have I seen another person who uses the “you aren’t a good Christian” trope for any other reason than to impart unto themselves a degree of superiority. A blog I recently started following is really a series of sermons written by a writer. Underneath all the various vignettes it’s clear that the writer is using those blog entries as a form of self-aggrandisement. “Buy my Christian Fiction because I’m clearly really in touch with the Faith. Unlike most of you.”
Lucifer was cast out of heaven because he wished to be God’s equal. More and more it strikes me that in condemning others we might be committing the sin of pride.
Not to get too confessional… but. (side note, it really is a pet peeve of mine when people say I’m not going to do thus and such, but…).
I have been struggling with this issue. And this blog post just reiterates a Sunday’s discussion from another point of view. First was Sunday school and the tangent we went off on between Religious Tolerance versus Religious Toleration. And then going into the worship time and the sermon… the church of the older brother. (you know, story of the prodical son comes home and the older brother pitches a hissy fit). Sometimes it hits home… do I slip into modes where I am judgemental and harsh, rather than excited to join in the party.
I am just rambling now. I will try not to be too paranoid and make it all about me. Is this for me? Am I getting away from the love and relationship with the Father and instead focusing on my perceived rules – and how everyone else is not following them?
Funny…the Older Brother was what I was going to mention before the dog’s attempt to dig infer the fence cut my writing short.
I think often there seems to be a sense of personal pleasure when decrying the ‘sins’ of others. I put sin in quotes because sometimes it’s a Biblical sin we are on about and sometimes it’s a cultural perception we’ve decided to view as sinful. But rarely–if ever–do I see someone talking about the sin of others without feeling a sense of pride within themselves fir not committing that sin. The older brother was so pleased with himself. He was so pleased with himself that he wanted praise for being good at the expense of his brother. I don’t think it’s an accident that Jesus used the ‘brother’ analogy repeatedly when talking about our relationship to others. He wanted, it would seem, to drive home the points that we are all deeply loved by God AND equal in standing. What we have is a gift of parental love, given equally. None is more or less deserving.
But, aren’t you saying you are superior to people who think they are superior?
[...ducks and runs...]
If that’s all you take from this discussion, have fun mocking me.
No, I don’t feel superior. I just feel the need to talk about the difference between faith and emotional abuse.
Thanks for contributing.
Pardon the brevity and the typos. This was sent from my iPhone.
nicely put.