“Christians, sadly, tend to believe more in the negative power of sin than they do in the redemptive power of Christ in the lives of His people.”
This quote perfectly reflects my frustration with the way I feel most Christians live their lives. If what you are doing (or not doing) is motivated by fear, you’ve got it wrong. period.
I found it in an article on Home Schooling at Burnside Writers Collective here…
I have many friends (some close and some not as close and some not as close as once were) who are going to be shocked and appalled that I would put up this link.
Again, I don’t believe that I am anywhere near a position or vantage point where I feel like I could accurately comment on national policy most of the time. I have heard others argue that Frank Schaeffer has proven himself to be an untrustworthy narrator of his experience and commentator of current events. However, I am convinced that Frank Schaeffer has a much better vantage point from which to accurately perceive and understand and comment on what’s going on with the wackos from the far right that I am hearing about constantly.
And yes; I said wackos. And I am getting more and more freaked out by them every day.
Please understand: although I’ve never stated affiliation with any political party, I would have considered myself VERY conservative as recently as 10 years ago. I voted for GWB…twice! (albeit with great reservations the 2nd time…) The idea of big government does not excite me. Ginormous national debt is very troubling to me.
But willful belief in disinformation, proclamation and belligerant support, whether in words or actions, of that disinformation scares me much more.
I don’t think, or at least I don’t know that I know any of these far-right nutjobs that would one day walk into a church on Sunday morning and shoot a man because he provided women with abortions. But, I am bombarded, it seems like daily, with msgs from friends and acquaintances all around me who are on different altitudes of that same slippery slope.
Birthers in my inbox, various/numerous chain emails about Obama’s “secret muslim faith” or whatever, calls to ban this or that corporation because they support “the gay agenda”, buying up ammo as soon as Obama was elected because they were afraid he was going to take away their guns, warnings of the “death panels” in the health care plan, pulling children from public school because of the fear of indoctrination (when really it’s that they want the children at home so they can be indoctrinated properly), saying “I just don’t trust the guy…” with no reasoning (other than subliminal racism), hearing statements like: “I’m just surprised he’s even made it this long. I didn’t think he’d make it a year…”, ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???!!!! (I am so thankful my school didn’t have class the day of the President’s school address and I didn’t have to deal with that BS…)
Just so you know, I am a Christian. I am a very imperfect follower of Jesus. But I also believe that all of the things that I just listed (and numerous other things) are NOT Christian and are NOT Godly and are NOT patriotic. So, quit assuming that I agree with you.
It was one thing when fellow Christians assumed I agreed with them on whether or not it’s ok to read Harry Potter. This is way scarier.
out loud and in public (but H usually gets an earful….) This is mostly because I think that too many people open their mouths when they have little to no idea what they’re actually talking about.
And again, McLaren comes to my rescue with more eloquence, grace and knowledge than I can muster:
This quote gets to the issue of why I can’t sit quietly on this one.
“The Obama administration needs a worthy loyal opposition, just as any group in power does, and the president himself often says so. But people who shout “hitler, nazi, socialist” don’t constitute a worthy loyal opposition. Nor do the birthers. Nor do the nostalgics, who seem to keep waking up in the 1980’s year after year, quoting Ronald Reagan.”
I told H last night: I’m so tired of the demonization of “the other side”. The fact is, I don’t think that either side has it completely right and to completely and blindly align myself and label myself with one political side seems stupid to me.
All I want is to be on the other side from stupid.
And it’s been exactly a month since my last blog entry. Coincidence? I think not.
Our Japanese exchange student, Saori, only has one more week with us. She’s fixing us dinner tonight. This afternoon, Holly and Ivy were still napping. I asked Saori if she missed Japan and was excited to be oing home soon. She said that she wanted to stay here and that didn’t want to go back. She said that she was worried about her host family, but that we’ve been very nice and that it’s been a good experience. That’s nice to hear. We’ve had fun with her, too. I don’t know what Ivy is going to do when she leaves.
School has been good. I haven’t said it out loud very much cuz I feel like I’m going to jinx it in some way. It’s crazy that we’ve only been in class something like 10 days and I already feel way behind. I lucked out with a fantastic schedule this year. Another big plus for teaching in PG is that I get two days for Labor Day instead of just one.
Big deal on the horizon is Bill Mallonee is coming on the 17th. Still trying to figure out how to get people to the show.
Ok. blog. done.
shacknotes.com 