As most of you can see I haven’t been writing much over the past two months, which is unusual considering that I love blogging and the dialogue that is produced between me and the handful of readers that I have. But that seems to be the key word isn’t it? Dialogue? Lately I have had too many debates… No… Arguments. I dare not call what my critics have tossed at me something as intellectually stimulating as a debate. And now, it has all come full circle.
Many I have met that have a good spiritual head on their shoulder have said something very similar to me. “When I stopped debating a new world opened up to me.” The owners of these words have been Spirit inspired pastors, authors, and fellow journeymen/women in the faith that have recognized the futility of wasting breath debating fruitless topics, and have proactively taken on the darkness in this world using words and actions of love.
Lately a few regulars to my blog have begun critiquing and criticizing every entry so as to start “debates”. And in a few cases, it has worked. I am ashamed to say that in a few recent blogs I have allowed myself to be “taken away” into what I Timothy 1 says are “vain discussions” with people who would rather teach the law, not understanding what they are teaching, than to love others, which is the greatest way we can show we love the Lord.
No more. I am through with these debates, I am through trying to change what people believe, and I am through with the children of dissent, the brood of vipers.
I have learned something about these people over the past few years, the most pertinent lesson being that these rabble-rousers treat their faith and how they share it with a bumper sticker mentality. This is a picturesque way of saying that they wish to teach, teach, teach others without learning how to learn, learn, learn about the souls they are talking at. It is a one sided and arrogant conversation that alienates others from the beautiful freedom we have in Christ and takes the person out of salvation. I dream of the day when being “right” is not the churches focus, and Christ and His passionate love for us on the cross, is. When the truth of Christ desperately wanting a relationship with His children is pounded into our heads so much that we forget the evangelical message of fire and brimstone and adopt the message of the cross, the message of ultimate love, then we will be making fishers of men and not a bunch of “tithers” that have “fire insurance” bought by fear! This is where the wolves will jump in. And to them I say, YES we are not deserving, and YES God hates sin… But I refuse to follow your god, a god that hates me because in ignorance I didn’t know Him.
I believe that a great lie in the modern day church is that only the “saved” are His children. Men and women alike all carry the image of Christ, no matter how perverse and how depraved. A recent example of this was my blog about George Carlin’s passing. I was disgusted to surf the blogosphere and read that evangelical Christians were only saying cynical and mean spirited things about a man who was hurting and lashed out at those who were making the problem worse. Oh how easily we forget that he was crafted inside his mother’s womb just as we were, or that He had God given gifts just as we do. It sickens me to see that the modern day church teaches such an elitist and caste like mentality that is built on a foundation of pride. Have you entered a fundamental church lately my friends? Have you heard that the gospel is now an Us versus Them document as opposed to a love letter from the Almighty to any that would listen? Shame… Shame on those that would teach the law of grace with such a bitter venom dripping from their lips! Shame to you children of dissent that seek out arguments with more enthusiasm then you seek to help the needy and helpless! Shame on you for having the words of love at your disposal, choosing rather to impart fear than to free souls from the pit! Do you not remember that perfect love casts out all fear?! Do you not remember that a gentle answer turns away wrath, that it is folly to so carelessly point out the splinter in another’s eye when you could potentially have a plank in yours? Do you not remember that the aim of our charge is LOVE?
So with this I end the debates, my love for engaging others so as to prove them wrong. I will no longer play these childish games, especially on this blog. Life is not about arguing or debating another person into believing as you believe, its about loving others and allowing the Spirit of the Lord to work through you so as to create a tangible image of Him. Christ walked the highways and byways and taught that we were supposed to return good for evil. I pray I will be able to walk worthily in that noble calling. I will continue to dialogue, but at the first hint of uncivil discourse I will delete any comments that demonstrate an “I’m right, you’re wrong” attitude.
I am a recovering fundamentalist and this is the next step on my path to recovery and to the freedom I am promised through Christ.
