The Marginal Christian's Handbook.

The Passing Show: the Uses of Prayer, the British Spongebob, Sideshow, and the Church of Christ without Christ

by Damozel | I've had a long day of praying and waiting, waiting and praying.  Being a certain sort of Christian, I assume that God knows what he is doing all the time and always knows what everyone wants in his or her heart;  I also believe that life is demonstrably not about trying to be happy all the time or to live forever, but something else, a different sort of opportunity.   I therefore believe that prayer is pointless on some issues:  things I don't like and feel I can't bear will happen.   But of course, a priest I know once pointed out, the answer to a prayer is not invariably, "Yes."

Prayer is for filling in the time when there's nothing else to do but that, I guess; and also because you might as well ask.  To quote a character in a Flannery O'Connor novel I read in my twenties, how can you get what you don't ask for?  You might as well ask.  Anyway, that sense of connection and communication can keep you from going insane when there is literally nothing else to be done.  At least you can ask for the kinds of things that can make a difference in the meaning of a situation:  courage, support from above or within, that sort of thing.   And you can register what sort of outcome you want.  Who knows, maybe it does make a difference sometimes?  And so far my prayers have been "answered."  Answered with a "yes," I mean.  Unless, of course, it's what was going to happen all along anyway.    

Can I Hear You say Hallelujah? Evangelicals Step Up.

The word "evangelical" gets thrown around a lot these days concerning various Christian groups.  Some of the groups mentioned are honest-to-Jesus Bible-thumping hellfire-spouting missionary types, but some of them are just exceptionally conservative Christianists who go to church every Sunday, sit up straight, sing in the choir, and refrain from dancing or drinking.  There's a difference, I think.  Coming from the Carolina Bible Belt---and being related to a number of Southern Baptists and Republicans----I'd say there is a difference between those and, say, the Pentacostalists. 

But I don't suppose it matters.  I'm not going to tabulate and classify them; I'm just going to pray that more of them get the prodigious mess in their heads (where the words of Jesus get all mixed up with what their Daddies told them about taxes, capitalism, and the flag) sorted out so they don't keep yanking the country further down the path to dysfunction and dishonor. 

There's some reason to believe that some of them are hearing the pleas (or that God is hearing the prayers) of some of their more centrist or even leftward-tilting brethren.   

According to The Raw Story, one large group, the National Association of Evangelicals,  (45,000 members) have "broken ranks with the Bush Administration on torture."

The National Association of Evangelicals, representing roughly 45,000 churches across the U.S. endorsed on Tuesday a declaration against torture put together by Evangelicals for Human Rights – an organization of 17 evangelical scholars – in a striking break from the Bush Administration's policy.

"Tragically, documented cases of torture and inhumane and cruel behaviour have occurred at various sites in the war on terror, and current law opens procedural loopholes for more to continue," the evangelicals' statement declares.

Christianity, 'Christianity,' and Ann Coulter

    [published on September 9, 2005 in my "Flatland Oracles" blog]

An Ann Coulter speech? Thanks but no thanks. A Christian college revokes its invitation. [Salon.com]

    In addition to the Tim Grieve note, I recommend having a look at the article from Inside Higher Ed.  Here's a quote which goes to the basis of this very conservative College's decision to retract an invitation to have her speak there:

Yet in the days after Harding’s announcement, a small group of Harding alumni began voicing their discontent on their blogs. Mike Cope, a minister at Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, Tex., complained that Coulter lives in a “black/white ‘I’m-right-and-you’re-an-idiot’ world. If you don’t agree with her then you’re a bleeding heart liberal who doesn’t deserve to live here.” The problem, he said, was not that Coulter is conservative, but that her views are un-Christian.

Fighting Back Against the Church of Christ Without Christ: Why Secular Humanists Need Left-Leaning God Botherers Like Me.

I found the perfect name for the "Christianity" practiced by the 'religious' 'Right'  from a book by Flannery O’Connor (who was talking about something else entirely. Though I like all her work, I am pretty sure that she and I wouldn’t see eye to eye.) But 'the Church of Christ without Christ"  perfectly describes the religion that the Right touts as “Christianity”---a sort of nominal Christianity, a religion that mandates the worship of Christ while disregarding his actual teaching.

I received a comment from Case Wagenvoord, who states:

Those on the right are Christanists who practice the doctrine of Christanism, a doctrine totally unrelated to the teachings of Christ. They should be forced to memorize Romans 8:38-39.

“Christianists.”---practitioners of the religion of Christ without Christ. You know, I don’t think he’d like them quite as much as they assume. He was constantly rebuking people for being hypocrites. And as he said to some of those tedious pharisees: “You are the sort who hold yourselves out to other people as righteous, but God knows what’s in your hearts, and the self-serving righteousness which people esteem, God despises.” (Luke 16: 15).

So-Called 'Christians.' They've hijacked my religion.

published on September 1, 2005, at my previous blog, "The Flatland Oracles."

They're wrong.  What was that he said?  "By their fruits you will know them."

So the real problem is that they don't understand the religion that they are so anxious to shove down the throats of the rest of the world.  As the man said, a diseased tree is going to yield diseased fruit 100% of the time. 

I hate the way that they are hijacking my religion.  I don't mind being considered a namby-pamby bleeding heart mawkish soft-shelled squeamish God-bothering  liberal, because at least that's consistent with the principle of loving one's neighbor as oneself, which we are told is one of the two commandments "on which hang all the law and the prophets."  I can live with being despised for being too tolerant, too ready to forgive, too ready to excuse.  I am sure I'm wrong sometimes,  but I'm comfortable with erring on the side of compassion. 

But I cannot understand---or accept---how the religion of Christ has been taken over by people whose whole religion consists in judging and excluding those who don't believe the 'right' (in their minds) creeds.

Christianity vs. "Christianity"

[published in "The Flatland Oracles," my previous blog, on August 11, 2005]

Reflections on Bill McKibben's article in the August 2005 Harper's Monthly [THE CHRISTIAN PARADOX:  HOW A FAITHFUL NATION GETS JESUS WRONG]. Christianity (as opposed to 'Christianity') is hard.  No wonder we're basically a 'Christian' nation.

 

I am indebted to Alice Cowen for directing me to Bill McKibben’s article in this month’s Harper’s, The Christian Paradox: How a Faithful Nation Gets Jesus Wrong. Bill McKibben is ‘a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College.’ The article (cited below) appears in the August 2005 issue of Harper’s Monthly.

This article---which, sadly, will never even come to the attention of the people who most need to read it because of course they probably don't read Harper's Monthly----discusses the widening gap between the ‘Christianity’ of the right wing of the political spectrum and actual Christianity based on the actual teachings of Christ.

One aspect of ‘Christianity’ as opposed to Christianity is that those who practice ‘Christianity’ base their beliefs primarily on what they’ve been told it’s about. They freely mix together elements derived from political theory and political writings that are not in fact essentially Christian in origin. McKibben states, and I am going to take his word for it that ‘Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves” is a a teaching of the Bible, as opposed to a teaching of that jolly old freemason Ben Franklin.