A thought provoking piece on Christianity vs 'what a church says'

[fleetfootmike]

http://frankwu.livejournal.com/301747.html

As a courtesy to me, please do try and bear the distinction in mind before commenting. ;)

Comments

[grey-lady.livejournal.com]

What an excellent post - thank you for bringing it to my attention.

[danea.livejournal.com]

When I was at Wheaton, I had several professors who made a point of discussing the distinction between the essence of Christianity and the culture(s) that has(ve) built up around it. It was more in the context of comparing different denominations, even Catholic vs Protestant, but some of the same applies here.

(As a side note, it infuriated me when, upon hearing that R & I no longer consider ourselves Christians, the pastor who did our premarital counseling commented that Wheaton has a high number of alumni who have "fallen away from the Lord," with the strong implication that the school is very clearly doing something wrong to cause that. Ok, perhaps they are by encouraging the students to think about what they believe and why, and come into their faith on their own terms instead of blindly following in the way they were brought up. But I believe pretty strongly that any God who said that he would spit out lukewarm followers would much rather have people decide that they couldn't believe than have them say "I believe because that's how I was raised, and this is how we've always done things, and it's not worth my time to think too hard about why so I'm just going to follow by rote." By the same token, those Christians who have done the careful self-examination, and understand why they believe what they do, I've found generally have more compassion and love towards their fellow man and are more willing to stand up against "what a church says" in their pursuit of God's path for their life.)

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

Assuming you mean Wheaton (IL) and not Wheaton (MA), I can understand why the administration would be concerned that they've been creating critical thinkers. They should consider it an inherent hazard of their institutional goals.

One of my professors once told the story of a student's evaluation on a comparative religion course noting that he didn't teach How to Bring a Mission.

Of course, I was at an extremely secular college and he was talking about a previous job at, IIRC, a state university.

[lastalda.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking. It is always a pleasure to read of people who are able to combine their faith with reason, and follow the spirit of love at the basement of their religion rather than single lines of books that were written over a thousand years ago, in the spirit of their time.
I may not be a religious person myself, but I strongly prefer this kind of reflected religion to unreflected reciting of lines and sayings, be they from a theist or atheist upbringing.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you for linking to it.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

What a lovely, thoughtful, sane piece of righting. And yes, what he said about the difference between Christianity per se and the interpretations of certain church groups and movements. Indeed, to me the only odd bit is Anne Rice's worrying about anti-feminist -- her books are fairly hard on women as decent human beings, in my opinion, anyway.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

What an excellent piece. Thanks for linking to it. Lots to think about :-)

[plaid-dragon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. That's a good read and fits with something I was trying to explain to someone the other day far better than I was managing to word it.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Thankyou. Good piece.

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

I couldn't have written that. I wish I had. I am a christian, I defines who I am. I'm not perfect, I don't always live up to the ideals that I should.

But I hate that this paints me with that anti- brush. Because I'm not any of them. At all. And I cringe when I hear thunderous sermons condemning gays, women who have had abortions and so on. I wonder and I'd like to ask these people, who make you God? God is the decider, he is the one who after the world is ended and judgment is here. He judges us not you, you have no right to condemn any one to anywhere. Nor do you have the right to judge any one. I'd quote scripture here but . . .

I could not more stop being Christian than I could stop breathing, how do you stop believing? This doesn't mean I can't think for my self, I enjoy science, I believe that creation and evolution can stand side by side, I also believe that every one has the right to believe the way they want to. And that I should get the same courtesy in return. The right ends BTW when people start blowing up buildings and shooting abortion doctors.

Hope this coherent. I love what was written, It echos what I wish I could say.

[jhayman.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for posting the link to that very excellent entry.

At work we've been dealing with incidents at a faith-based (Christian) school with regard to teen pregnancy. Their actions have been consistent with the image of the church and school in the community, and so bloody unchristian as to make me furious. Faith and church are not the same. I wish more Christian churches could see just how far they've strayed from the basic tenets.

I may not be a believer but I understand the faith well. And, strangely enough, more or less live by the same principals.

[otherdeb.livejournal.com]

What an excellent, thoughtful piece. Thank you so much for sharing it, as it addresses some questions I have been grappling with lately.

[kathy-songbird.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting to that. I found it a very interesting and inspiring read.