Check this out. Old school video I did a few years ago about a ministry I was involved in. Gotta love the nappy pin in the ear!!!!

The Fear

Today it hit me while I was waiting at the bus stop.

It's been known to sneak up on me while out with friends, lying in bed, shopping, working...pretty much just about anywhere.

It stalks its prey silently, deviously, and waits until they are their most unsuspecting and then...

...WHAMO!!!

I know it's got you too before.

The chilling little voice in your head that paralyses you with fear.

The voice that says "Is there really any point to this?"

So there was I, at 6:50am, waiting nonchalantly for my bus, quite at peace with the world and all that dwell in it. Two seconds later I was in the grip of an epistemological crisis and questioning the reason for life, the universe and everything.

All because a little voice asked me if there was really any point.

I don't know about you but this type of thinking can really scare the pants off me! I am a fairly imaginative, deep thinking person anyway, so get me started on a topic like this and I start jumping from one scenario to another and soon I am ready to quit my job, leave New Zealand or, failing both of those things, run back to bed and hide under the covers.

Because, really, at my core, I do question the reason for everything. I guess my life has taught me that the one sure thing that will happen in life is that it will bite you. At some point, life is going is going to get hard and you won't know why, you won't know if it will change, and somehow you have to find meaning in all of it.

So colour me pessimistic but I haven't seen a lot that changes this opinion. Crap happens. All. The. Time. To everybody, everywhere.

So what is the point of life if all I am doing is getting up at 6 to go to a job that is full of angry and stressed people to try and work and not getting angry and stressed at the same time? What is the point of earning money just to see it disappear every week into someone elses pocket?

What is the point when where you are and where you wish you were in life are so different that you can't even see the connections to get from one to the other?

How, in other words, do you stop getting so miserably depressed at the thought that all you are going to do for the rest of your life is work a 9-5 job (if your lucky!), save for your retirement, maybe have children who you will break over everytime they hurt, and then die with nothing to show for it, that you don't go and throw yourself off a bridge somewhere and meet God early?

Yup, that's what went through my head early this morning.

At that moment a song came on - "You Are Holy" by The Digital Age - and I had an epiphany.

There may be no point in working!

But it's ok, because work was never meant to give meaning to my life!

If work is what defines me then I am screwed! Bring on death I say! Take me from this hell hole we call consumerism!

It defines so many people's lives though, it makes them who they are, teaches them their self worth and then when they retire we wonder why old people are so depressed and grumpy.

it's because they have lost the reason they lived!

Life is not about work.

Granted I cannot live without my paycheck and Luke would not be too impressed with that as an excuse if I quit my job tomorrow and lived off the dole.

But there is something more to life than just the same old stuff we see around us.

There is hope.

Not "hope that one day I will be in heaven so HAH! to all you suckers I am outta here" hope.

No, true hope comes from knowing that one day this, this stuff all around us, the world and all we see, the famines in Africa, the plagues and dtroughts and storms and miscarriages and diseases and homeless people and child abuse and rape and deforrestation and global warming and greed and anger and stress.....all that stuff...

one day it will all be made ok again.

One day we won't have our hearts broken by what we see and what we have done to us and what we have done.

One day we will see this all as it is meant to be.

One day Jesus will return and the crap will stop.

And that ladies and gentlemen, is my hope.

That one day it will all make sense, it will all be healed and we won't have to struggle to find meaning or fight off the fear or anything because it will be as it was.

I need this hope like I need air.

Without it my world would collapse and I would be the most depressed person ever.

With it I find joy in the little things, hope in the big things and love in everything.

And it makes me realise that after all the crap I have been through, I am still here! My life is good; I have a steady income, a loving husband, a nice place to live and food to eat. I have more than I need in accumulated stuff and I live like a Queen compared to most of the world.

The fear is really a construct of my own pig-headeness and desire to be autonomous. I want to be able to quit work when I like and still get paid, still live as I do and not have to work for it! That is selfish and self-serving and yet that is where the fear is based; in the fact that I can't just do what I like and have what I want for nothing.

When it comes down to it, when I focus on what he has done, and what he will continue to do to his glory, and I pull my head out of my arse long enough to breathe in the quiet morning air and stop focusing on myself, I see that, honestly,

 the Fear pales in comparison to Love.

Injustice, weight loss and other stories

Ah insomnia.

Such a wonderful motivator for updating my blog.

I can hear Luke in the next room breathing gently, sound asleep in our warm bed, and here I am, in a freezing study, wrapped up in blankets wondering why the heck I am so wired!!

But enough on my sleep patterns, or lack thereof, I have far more interesting tales to keep you addicted to this blog (seriously, I am finding that my ego relies heavily on how many reads I get per post atm. Sad but true!).

My first deep, probing issue that I want to raise with you all is that of injustice.

Light topic for 1am I know.

Luke observed tonight that I have a major issue with injustice and people believing me. At first these too issues don't seem to relate; people not believing me doesn't really seem to be an issue of injustice. But it really is! If I am telling someone the God's honest truth and they flat out refuse to believe me the sense of injustice I feel is overpowering!

It seems like a strange thing to get my knickers in a twist about but there is nothing more frustrating, more hurtful, or more maddening than not being believed.

It was in the course of discussing it with Luke that I began to realise that a lot of these feelings stem from being a child and not being believed. I have memories of the silliest things that still grind me up because in the situation I wasn't believed. I want to pull those memories up in front of those that dismissed me and demand justice, demand that they believe me!

And then I got to thinking (small wonder I am still awake right) that if anyone understands injustice and not being believed it would be Jesus. I mean the dude was nailed to a piece of wood and left to die because people thought he was such a liar.

And he forgave them.

*sigh*

It would be so much easier to live like Christ if he wasn't so freaking good all the time!

So I guess now I have to show grace and mercy and extend forgiveness. Now that I am aware of the issues do I really have any other choice?

All I am really doing by holding on to the anger is swallowing the poison and hoping the people in the wrong will die.

Mercy is about giving to those what they do not deserve and withholding what they do deserve.

They deserve to have their arses kicked.

They don't deserve my forgiveness.

And yet, with God's strength I will try to forgive and perhaps the anger will fade with that.

I really am an angry person. Not nearly as bad as I use to be but I still hold on to a lot of things that hurt or made me angry and it's not until a long time after that I realise I have done that.

I get angry at myself more than anyone else.

Like I found out this week that I will probably need surgery in order to keep losing weight.

Basically my body has slowed down the weight loss so much that I will be 45+ by the time I am a healthy weight, which means health issues and problems if we want children in the near(ish) future.

And so surgery seems to be the way to go according to two unrelated doctors.

I am angry that I let myself get this bad. I have destroyed my body and I didn't even mean to. I can't blame anyone but myself and, though I have lost lots of weight already, it is my body, me, that is stopping me losing weight au-naturale.

It scares me that I am facing such big health issues that surgery seems to be the right way to go.

It worries me that people will think I am lazy and couldn't be bothered trying and so I went with surgery to avoid diet and exercise.

Most of all I felt I have let myself down in such an insurmountable way that I can fix it by myself, and I hate that. I have this huge urge just to ignore the whole thing, throw my hands up in the air and yell "I QUIT" and then spend the rest of my life eating whatever I want, whenever I want, and not caring about the consequences.

But then I talk to Luke about our future plans and I know that that won't fix anything. I can't run away from this, I have to accept that I did this and now this is the way out.

Can't say the list of things that can go wrong in surgery really helps!!

               me at my biggest (2008)                                          me couple of months ago

I am NOT a boy...

I have often thought that life would've been so much easier if I had been born a male.

I wouldn't have got told off for making my dresses dirty when playing.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't have to wear dresses!!!

Seriously, women's clothing is the most uncomfortable stuff ever.

Every morning you need to spend ages doing your hair and makeup, covering up, perfecting and changing everything to make you look presentable.

You lament over your body and how it doesn't look as skinny, as curvy, as sensual, as tanned, or one of a hundred other things as the girl next door/on tv/your sister/your best friend.

You are taught to compete with other women on how you look in order to get men to notice you.

You wear high heels to look sexy and appealing (and because they are sooooo damn cute) only to have your feet destroyed by them.

You get periods. That alone is a deal breaker on whether being a guy is easier. Enough said.

You are taught to find your worth in men, your fathers and boyfriends/husbands, but finding one who hasn't been affected by the image of the 'ideal woman' and who accepts your flawed body is getting harder and harder.

You are looked at strangely if you ever say you don't want children.

You have to go through pregnancy and childbirth.

You get paid less, promoted less, and have to juggle having a family and working.

You always, where ever you are, have to be aware of your surroundings, the people that are there and, if trouble strikes, how to defend yourself.

You can't walk by yourself much anymore without some kind of fear and trepidation of attack.

Your relationship with your mother will be strained at some point, and your relationship with your father it will make or break you.

If you get emotional some guy somewhere will assume it is hormones, and in a work situation it is seen as weak and pathetic.

HOWEVER:

Being a woman is unique.

The bond you share with other women, when you aren't competeing with them, is deep and sisterly and cannot be replaced.

I have to say that relationships with sisters, when they are going well, are worth all the painful things put together (Keren, I love you so much).

Though your Dad has the potential to destroy your self image, there is also a special bond that can occur between men and their daughters that leads the men to be better people and teaches the girls how capitvating and amazing they are.

It is GREAT to be able to cover up a really bad pimple with makeup!

Shoes are too cute, who cares about the pain.

Babies are worth every moment of pain that you ever experience to do with periods, pregnancy and childbirth. The ability to be the one who brings life into the world is one that is humbling and beautiful and amazing.

Learn how to defend yourself; there is nothing quite as satisfying as having some idiot try to do something to you only to end up writhing on the ground because you aren't gonna let it happen!

So.....

Learn to love being a woman.

Learn to love other women as your sisters and not as competition.

Learn to appreciate what the world sees as weakness as your strengths, given to you by a God who knows your heart, knows how much you want to be loved, knows how valuable you are, and who made you beautiful, in his image, and as the pinnacle of creation (Adam needed Eve, just as a male dominated world needs women).

Find your worth in God and it will never again destroy you when someone lets you down.

Embrace your feminity, curves, sensuality, and emotions as strengths. Only women can bring them too the world, and without it....

...the world would be a much hairer, smellier place!

If I were a boy...

This morning I was reading a really good blog by one of my fav lecturers, Dr. Mark Keown (read the whole post here: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MarkKeown/~3/OaqRGUs21T0/women-bishops-euodia-and-syntyche.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email).

He was basically talking about how he doesn't understand why there is such a big kerfuffle in the Church of England about making women bishops when they have a Queen, have had a female Prime Minister and are basically ok with women being in charge in every other sector of society.

Preach on preacher man.

Apart from the fact that I completely unreservedly agree with the good Doctor, it also got me thinking about the world if the gender inequality was reversed.

Let's imagine I was a man and women ruled the world.

The church is based around a female God who begot an only Daughter.

For years the church has been run by only women and the subjegation of men is a shame that darkens the church's history.

It is into this world, developed as it is now, at my current age with my job and relationship status the same but my gender reversed, that I now delve into.

What would that look like?

For starters I would be involved in a church that more than likely made me feel somewhat inadequate.

The preaching and teaching would be about a Mother and her Daughter and an undefinable Spirit that I am expected to be able to relate to on all levels despite the fact that this raises it's own barriers. I mean, how can I relate to a female about porn addiction, raging hormones, the male drive to succeed, wet dreams, feaers of being a father and various other male only issues?

Anyway, I want to emulate a male, not a woman, even if her gender is only 'metaphorical' or 'pictorial'.

The female God is waaaaaay too touchy feely for me, I wanna bit of grit and spit and righteous anger in my God thank you very much. This God seems to nag at me and tell me off a lot and not really like men and sometimes I feel isolated from Her.

The bonus would be that at this age in my life (27) I would not have to be deciding if I would like to get pregnant or not! No stress on that one, but in this world not only would my prospective employers ask me questions about when I want to start a family as I am the one who will more than likely stay home and look after the kids once they are born. This can affect my chances of getting a job but my wife would more easily get a promotion and pay rise than I would anyway.

But what I find really frustrating about being a man is that I feel called by God to be a preacher. Now a lot of churches support me in this role but a lot of them don't. Not because I am bad at it, or I am not strong in my faith, or because I am not educated or respected, but because I have a penis.

That's it.

No matter how passionate I am, how much I love God or how much others think I should do it too, there will always be people who tell me that the God who said there would be no inequailty in Her also thinks that my male brain is insufficent for Her ministry.

Now let's flick back to reality.

If this was the way the world was, and I was a woman watching men being less than me, I would feel so sorry for every man who was unable to follow God the way they felt lead to. I would want everyone to support and love them and make room for them. I would feel outraged that this was the norm and would demand change in the face of such unbiblical behaviour.

What would you do?

Are you doing that for women now?

Does the plight of women in these churches and societies make you angry? Does it stir you to action to help, to cry for a biblical, loving treatment of women? To honour them as Jesus did? Does it make you look at the women around you and wonder what they are capable of?

What are you going to do?

Food for Thought

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2012/06/11/if-youre-selling-scorn-for-conservative-christians-the-market-is-hot/

If You’re Selling Scorn for Conservative Christians, the Market is Hot

June 11, 2012 By Timothy Dalrymple

I recently wrote a piece entitled “What if the Culture War Never Happened,” where I encouraged progressive evangelicals — who publicly blame the conservative Christians (largely of the prior generation) of the “culture wars” for giving Christianity a bad name and driving people away from the church — not to accept uncritically what their liberal confreres tell them about the culture wars.  Too many young evangelicals, in my view, question the culture wars but never question the “culture wars,” or the very concept and the way it’s developed in liberal circles.

Some of my progressive friends challenged me to point to examples.  I did not really want to call anyone out on the carpet, but it’s a reasonable request.  Sometimes it’s important to speak clearly and openly.  So here’s what I want to say: To be fair, this happens on both sides.  But recently I’ve seen a lot of young, progressive evangelicals denouncing and caricaturing their conservative brethren for their “culture war” concerns.  But by accepting the caricatures coming mostly from secular critics, legitimating and perpetuating them, they themselves — acting out of concern for the damage done to the church and its witness — are doing great harm to the church and its witness.  If we truly care for the public witness of the church, then we (liberal and conservative) need to stop slandering and caricaturing the other half of the church.  Don’t throw your Christian brothers and sisters under the bus.  Even if you disagree with them, you can provide a coherent, charitable explanation for what “those other evangelicals” believe.

Let me start with a generic example.  MissionGathering Christian Church in San Diego, responding to Amendment 1 in North Carolina, purchased a billboard strategically located alongside Billy Graham Parkway in Charlotte that says, “MissionGathering Christian Church IS SORRY for the narrow-minded, judgmental, deceptive, manipulative actions of THOSE WHO DENIED RIGHTS AND EQUALITY TO SO MANY IN THE NAME OF GOD.”  Click on the image to the right for the article explaining the billboard.  MissionGathering describes itself as an “Emerging” church, and their Pastor of Spiritual Formation, Alex Roller, says that the purpose of the billboard is to tell the LGBT community that “there are progressive Christians who believe in the Bible and Jesus but still support marriage equality and rights for the LGBT population.”  The church (300 members), he says, was showered with praise for the billboards they rented in response to the Prop 8 fight in California.  ”We just want them to know,” says Roller, that “our hearts are with you.”

If that was all they wanted to say, however, they could have rented a billboard with the boards, “Our hearts are with you.”  Given their beliefs on homosexuality and marriage, that would have been a fine thing to do.  Yet that’s not what they did.  Instead they called their fellow believers, who feel differently from them on this issue, ”narrow-minded, judgmental, deceptive, [and] manipulative.”  So let’s be clear what they’re doing here.  (1) They’re perpetuating the worst images of conservative Christians who support traditional marriage.  (2) They’re holding themselves our as a better alternative.  They are the good Christians, the more Christ-like Christians, who are not judgmental — even as they’re judging sixty percent of North Carolinians, a majority of Californians, over half of Christians in the United States and the great majority of Christians around the world.  In other words, (3) they’re saying “our hearts are with you” in that “we feel the same anger and scorn in our hearts as you do.”

Their intentions are honorable, but undermined by an incoherent strategy and by their deep-seated scorn for conservative Christians.  They’re trying to encourage love — by being hateful (and no, I don’t think that’s too strong a word).  They’re trying to encourage tolerance — but judging everyone who disagrees with them.  They’re trying to improve the witness of the church — by legitimating the stereotype that the conservative half of the church is bigoted and deceitful.  They hold themselves out as a better alternative — by throwing more conservative Christians under the bus.

Of course, it’s easy to argue with a billboard.  So, as requested, let me give another example.  Rachel Held Evans’ recent post, “How to Win a Culture War and Lose a Generation” went viral.  Rachel is a fine person, and I regret that I tend to engage with her posts only when I disagree with them.  I’m sure she’s deeply and thoroughly convinced she’s in the right here.  But she let her anger get the better of her.  Let’s look at the post, which begins thus:

When asked by The Barna Group what words or phrases best describe Christianity, the top response among Americans ages 16-29 was “antihomosexual.” For a staggering 91 percent of non-Christians, this was the first word that came to their mind when asked about the Christian faith. The same was true for 80 percent of young churchgoers. (The next most common negative images? : “judgmental,” “hypocritical,” and “too involved in politics.”)

(To pause: the study says nothing of “the first word that came to their mind.”  And “antihomosexual” is a catch-all term that people might check if they believe Christianity is bigoted, or merely that some Christians are bigoted, or people who simply think that Christianity opposes homosexuality.  But when your anger gets the better of you, there’s no time for nuance or discernment.)

Evans goes on to say that the belief Christians are bigoted against homosexuals (in the words of David Kinnaman) is “the negative image most likely to be intertwined with Christianity’s reputation,” and (in Evans’ words) “one of the top reasons 59 percent of young adults with a Christian background have left the church.”  Then Evans points to Amendment 1 in NC and the advertisement that featured a quotation from Billy Graham:

Despite the fact that the North Carolina law already holds that marriage in the eyes of state is only between a man and a woman, an amendment was put on the ballot to permanently ban same-sex marriage in the state constitution. The initiative doesn’t appear to change anything on a practical level, (though some are saying it may have unintended negative consequences on heterosexual relationships), but seems to serve primarily as an ideological statement

….an expensive, destructive, and impractical ideological statement.
Conservatives in the state [...] supported the amendment, and last night it passed. Religious leaders led the charge in support of the amendment, with 93-year-old  Billy Graham taking out multiple ads in publications across the state supporting the measure.

The convalescent Billy Graham likely had very little to do with the ad, but my point here is not to debate the rightness or wrongness of Amendment 1.  My point is to examine the ways in which progressive Christians talk about conservative Christians.  Conservative Christians have voted for these amendments consistently.  Yet the reason many Christians feel differently from Evans is completely unexplained.  And since (she asserts) there’s no practical reason (no reason why it might matter to give something a constitutional and not merely legal imprimatur), it must be just to spite gays.  The reader is left to conclude that conservative Christians simply are, to use the terms from the beginning of the post, anti-homosexual, judgmental and hypocritical.  Then Evans brings out the big guns of bold type and larger font-size:

I’ve said it a million times, and I’ll say it again…(though I’m starting to think that no one is listening):

My generation is tired of the culture wars.

We are tired of fighting, tired of vain efforts to advance the Kingdom through politics and power, tired of drawing lines in the sand, tired of being known for what we are against, not what we are for.

Evans wonders whether anyone is listening — and the post received 56,000 Facebook shares, and the comments cheer her on.  If you’re selling anger and scorn against conservative Christians, the market is hot.  Of course, Evans does not speak for our generation as a whole.  And these are bumper-sticker arguments.  I am for a family founded on the marriage of man and woman; I am for the defense of innocent human life even prior to birth.  And I am not trying to advance the kingdom so much as I am trying to defend the innocent and defend social structures I consider sacred and valuable.  The dead are not raised by politics, but the living can be protected and served by it.  But we go on (reformatted for space):

…Amendments like these needlessly offend gays and lesbians, damage the reputation of Christians, and further alienate young adults [...] from the Church.
So my question for those evangelicals leading the charge in the culture wars is this: Is it worth it? Is a political “victory” really worth losing millions more young people to cynicism regarding the Church?  Is a political “victory” worth further alienating people who identify as LGBT?  Is a political “victory” worth perpetuating the idea that evangelical Christians are at war with gays and lesbians?  And is a political “victory” worth drowning out that quiet but persistent internal voice that asks—what if we get this wrong?

Too many Christian leaders seem to think the answer to that question is “yes,” and it’s costing them.

Because young Christians are ready for peace. We are ready to lay down our arms. We are ready to stop waging war and start washing feet.

For conservative Christians, of course, there are not merely political victories.  These are matters of fundamental moral and theological import, critical to the health of individuals and societies.  I believe these things matter to God because human flourishing comes when we are leading the lives we were designed and redeemed for.  Sometimes the best way to wash a person’s feet is to tell him those feed are striding down a self-destructive path.

But again, the argument is beside the point.  This is not really an argument but a bit of angry rhetoric.  Evans never engages with how conservative Christians articulate the reasons for their actions.  She never gives an explanation at all — much less a charitable one — for the things her brothers and sisters in Christ believe and do.

I understand why Rachel and her fellow progressive Christians are angry.  I have many close relationships with gays and lesbians who do, indeed, find actions like Prop 8 and Amendment 1 hurtful.  I do feel for them, and I genuinely wish for the sake of our relationships that I could agree with them on these issues.  Evans and the MissionGathering church believe that Christians who oppose marriage equality for gays in the name of God are doing a disservice to the God they claim to serve and harming the witness of the church.  I get it.  But this is not the right way to respond.

This is selling anger, not offering enlightenment.  Anger is not always wrong, but it’s always a dangerous substance to deal with.  In its anger, posts and billboards like these lose the capacity to understand believers who disagree.  They rush to judge our elders and dispense with humility or nuance.  Instead of saying, “No, most conservative Christians are not hateful or deceptive.  Here is where they’re coming from, but I stand with you” — they say “I am with you” because “I scorn them too.”

Does it happen on both sides?  Absolutely.  I cannot stand the glib, bigoted “ain’t no homos gonna make it to heaven” video that’s circulating.  But one would never know, from a post like Evans’, that there are loving and thoughtful and self-sacrificial people on the conservative side of the argument who are genuinely trying to do the right thing for all people.

There is a growing genre — call it Progressive Christian Scorn Literature — about the scorn progressive Christians have for conservative evangelicals.  It seems to be celebrated on the Left as a kind of righteous comeuppance for the Christian Right, and it wins the applause of the Left for the Christian Left.  But it’s wrong and it needs to be called out.  It’s neither winsome, nor loving, nor constructive, nor right.  It will not improve our witness because it’s soaked through with bitterness and rancor.  I hope that people of good heart and mind, like Evans, leave it behind.

We cannot get beyond the culture wars by simply joining one side and lobbing bombs against the other.  We cannot improve the reputation of the church by throwing half of it under the bus.

Everything is Relative

Everything is relative.

If you don't agree with me you are a bigot.

Everyone knows that the only truth is there is no truth!

But it is your right to believe what you like.

Just as it is my right to believe that you are a deluded idiot.

Because everything is relative.

Really, the only thing that is important is how I feel about something.

 My own personal truth as it were.

Except there is no thing as truth.

So it's my opinion that matters.

And it is opinion that you are wrong to believe in anything.

Of course you may disagree with me, but you would be wrong in that.

And don't try and shove your religion down my throat.

That would be prejudicial and I can't stand prejudice so therefore it is wrong.

Don't like it?

Your entitled to think that.

You are wrong but that's ok, it's merely your belief system.

You can believe what you like as long as you don't force it on anyone else.

Like me.

I am letting you believe what you like (asstupidandwrongasitis).

And if your faith leads you to love people so much that you need to tell them your version of the truth for the sake of their souls, well,

Too bad.

There is no such thing as truth.

I know this.

Therefore you are wrong.

To suggest that my relativity is wrong is not only prejudicial,

it is down right ridiculous.

A really good read

This is a really good read. For more posts go to this link:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2012/07/02/the-im-offended-game/

The “I’m Offended” Game

July 2, 2012 By Timothy Dalrymple 7 Comments

My fellow Patheos blogger and Catholic pontificator extraordinaire Elizabeth Scalia writes a lovely post on the tactics of offense.  Speaking of the response to the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act, she writes:

Amid all the predictability, though, nothing bores me more than the phrase “that offends me,” uttered by a person who decides to define himself (or herself) according to some aspect of that self — as a fat person, a thin person, a vegetarian person, a meat-loving person, a Christian person, an atheist — and then presumes to “take offense” at things, on behalf of all the people in the world who share some form of that defining characteristic.

A too-quick choice to be offended by something (and it is a choice) tells me a couple of things about a person: first, that he feels so uncertain of who he is that he must declare and define himself as “thus” or “such” in order to establish a reference marker — a stake that is meant as much for himself as for the rest of us…Second: a death-grip on an identifier, used in conjunction with feather-ruffled offense-taking, tells me that this person is a passive aggressive — someone so weak that he needs to resort to the tyranny of “shut up” because he cannot trust his ideas or arguments to hold up under debate. Rather than subject himself to a debate he knows he cannot win, he declares himself “offended” and usually demands future silence on the issue and a public “apology” (also tiresome!) that is meant to warn-off others from attempting to address it.

I used to call this ‘The “I’m Offended” Game,” and I’ve seen it played — often when the interlocutor is flustered and cannot muster a more rationally compelling response — in countless academic conversations over the course of my fifteen years of undergraduate and graduate education.  The conversation is rolling along, point-counterpoint, point-counterpoint, in a roughly linear and logical manner, until someone decides to grasp the snitch and win the whole game in one fell swoop.

“As a woman, I’m offended you would say that.”  Translation: you are a misogynist who would gladly impose a brutal patriarchy if you could.  Game over.

“As a 1/64th Native American, I find that notion offensive.”  Translation: you stand on the side of the white colonialists and cultural imperialists, who by the way gave the Native Americans blankets infected with disease.  Game over.

“As a Christian/Buddhist/Atheist, I’m offended at your comment.”  Translation: you are hateful and ignorant of any religion apart from your own, and if you do not apologize then I am going to take my complaint to the Dean.  Game over.

There is a near-term effect to this kind of maneuver, and a long-term effect.  In the near term, the flow of the conversation ends.  Any consideration of logic or evidence is thrown out the window.  What you have said may or may not be factually wrong, but it is certainly morally wrong, or at the very least politically wrong, and you must apologize.  Even if you are not wrong, you are in the wrong, and your interlocutor bears no responsibility to dignify your offensive comment with a reply.  Also in the near term, you may find that you have to defend yourself to the professor or to the head of the department or to the Dean of the school.

I must be giving the impression that I was a veritable flame-thrower in class discussions.  That’s not really so.  I relished intellectual combat when I was a teenager, but I quickly lost my taste for it when our philosophical differences became deep wedges dividing me from several people close to me.  After that, I did not disagree with people in discussions because I enjoyed disagreement; I disagreed because I felt the truth (at least, the truth as well as I could understand it) was being misrepresented and maligned.  I am old fashioned: I do, quite honestly, I feel a burning passion to defend the truth.  I hate the thought of upsetting people.  I really do.  And yet I feel compelled to enter into some of the most controversial topics known to humankind because I care about the truth and I care that people should find the truth.

While my doctorate came through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, I took many courses at the Divinity School.  I remember one in particular where a young woman, a Th.D. student with whom I had many disagreements (she was nominally Christian, but extremely liberal and militantly feminist), mentioned her disgust and outrage at missionaries to the Native American tribes.  I made the point — and I swear it was this mildly put — that not all Christian missionaries had completely evil motives.  She was so appalled that she sat in stunned disbelief for a few moments, and once she had regained the power of speech she explained that she was offended.  That effectively ended the conversation.  The rest of the conversation centered on her offense and her troubled attempt to patch together some psychical well-being after my (apparently) blazingly offensive comment.  I refused to apologize, except to say, “I did not mean to cause you offense, but this seems like a pretty minimal and unobjectionable claim.  Surely there were some missionaries who at least had some good motives.”

I came to the professor’s next office hour and sat outside to wait my turn — and heard through the open doorway that it was the same student inside with the professor, complaining about the damage that my comment had done to her soul.  How could I defend the evil institution of Christian missionaries?  When she left, she blanched at the site of me outside the office and walked away swiftly.  The next time I saw her, I actually did apologize for offending her, but this clearly did not satisfy her.  She was going to be offended until I agreed with her in full.  I immediately hated myself for apologizing for speaking the truth — and it made clear to me that there would be no satisfying this kind of person.  Give her an inch, and she’ll demand a mile.

The long-term consequence is far worse.  While it’s helpful to be aware of the objections of your critics and detractors, it’s not helpful to be paralyzed by them.  But the classroom became a place that was littered with landmines, a place where you could not speak freely for fear of reaping the whirlwind.  Our social (and national) conversation erodes as we cannot speak clearly to one another, as we exchange sentiment and anger for evidence and argumentation, or — worse — as we hide our beliefs from one another and seal ourselves into hermetic chambers of isolated news and opinion.  This is rarely appreciated.  There are many causes for the balkanization of our political culture — but political correctness takes a huge share of the blame.  We withdraw into our own worlds where we all believe alike and do not offend one another — and soon thereafter we cannot understand one another either, like tribesmen separated by mountain ranges whose languages develop in seclusion until, when the tribes reestablish contact, they cannot understand one another.

And it’s not merely external.  We internalize the lengthy list of questions we cannot ask and things we cannot say.  Our thoughts become armed against us, and we’re no longer free to think clearly and critically and without inhibition.

“I’m offended.”  It’s a dangerous game to play.  In the short term you gain a specious “win.”  In the long term, you erode the bonds that hold us together.  Thanks for that.

Jesus Buzz

It's Monday and I am just about to start work after getting up at the ungodly hour of 6am.

I went to church last night so I am feeling pretty good right about now.

I got my holy on, my Jesus buzz, my praise tank is on full.

Cause that's what church is about right, getting a good 'hit' of the Holy Spirit (or HS-ay (pronounced hizzay) as we that are close to it like to call it) because for the rest of the week it will slowly leak out of our pores until next Sunday when we can refill.

Sounds good to me.

Sounds good to you.

It's all gravy except it is WRONG!!!!!

Church does make me feel good and holy and close to God, and I can't say that 6am mornings really have the same impact on me, but is this really what church is for?

Is it there to fulfill our own selfish need to feel Godly?

This is the problem with basing our faith and our churches on how we feel. Feelings are fickle, they change from one day to the next. For example, today I may feel like the sexiest beast alive, but come tomorrow I may be complaining about feeling more like a whale. Nothing changed expect how I feel about the way I look.

It is the same with God and church.

I know too many people (and am guilty myself) who leave churches or move from one to the other because it wasn't what they were 'looking' for.

It didn't have the right kind of music.

Or the right kind of fired up preaching.

People didn't immediately embrace them as a long lost sibling as soon as they walked in the door.

Or maybe the colour scheme was distracting (I have heard that one...for serious!).

All of these things aren't about God. Nor are they about church. But they all somehow are mysteriously powerful enough in themselves to make people not get the Jesus buzz.

You know the "I-feel-so-good-right-now-I-just-wanna-praise-God" thing.

And if we don't get this 'hit' we feel like for the rest of the week that God is missing from our lives.

Oh sinful generation we are, how does God put up with us?

Church isn't about the spiritual high or about how we feel about the music/speaking/service.

It is about meeting with fellow believers who want to join together for a few hours a week to share their faith, admonish and teach each other and sing praises to the living God.

Anything else is selfishness.

It is not about you.

It never has been.

If you go into church asking what it will be doing for you then you have really missed the boat on this one.

And it doesn't stop on Sundays either!

That love for others that motivates you to meet with them every week and praise God in song is the same love that should be motivating you at work, at home and everywhere you are.

That same love for God that lifts your heart when you sing songs to him and hear a really heart felt sermon is the same love that should get you up each morning and put you to bed each night. It should be love for God that makes you want to please your bosses and do your job for his glory.

It is a love that doesn't leak out or fade.

God's love is the same everyday regardless how you feel about it.

It doesn't change, ever.

So if you are feeling like Monday has arrived and the Jesus-high is fading, then reassess your priorities when it comes to church.

And think, if God's love is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, then it is not him who is 'leaking' out during the week.

Maybe you just aren't looking for it.