It has been an interesting weekend in Oklahoma. Some semi-bizarre things have happened, but it’s been a learning experience. You see, I’ve been struggling with an unhealthy cynicism about Christianity. I know it’s good to be critical—rather than cynical—in a healthy way, but my attitude has gone too far.
The fun started on Friday, when I was talking with my mom about Rick Warren. I was pretty much making fun of Purpose Driven Life. Not even an hour later, a family member as sweet as can be gives me a copy of the book. She has just read it, is very excited about it, and wants me to read it as well. That night I went to a Good Friday service with my cousin. It wasn’t really a service—the church had set up different rooms to represent the Stations of the Cross. As soon as we walked in, a whole bookshelf full of Purpose Driven Life greeted us. We had a packet that the church had made to guide us along. Of course I was frustrated with most of it, because I have recently been learning some different meanings (or at least a fuller meaning) of the crucifixion and resurrection. At the end, we could take communion by ourselves. Isn’t that an oxymoron, though? I told my cousin I didn’t want to take it, so we left.
When we were discussing things in the car on the way home, my cousin had on K-Love, a contemporary Christian music radio station. I haven’t listened to CCM radio in a while, but evidently someone has redone Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me.” I don’t even know if that’s the name of the song, but it is originally a love song. On a CCM radio station, though, I guess it’s supposed to be a song about the personal relationship Christians are to have with God.
I won’t go into any of the details, but the rest of the weekend has included frustrating conversations about Genesis and evolution, reading the Bible with “common sense,” and why going into Iraq is perfectly fine and dandy. And every time I visit, I also always read whatever magazine (usually some sort of Lifeway something) that my Southern-Baptist-preacher grandpa has out on his coffee table. All of these things, packed into one weekend, have been a little much. But via Maggi Dawn's blog, I came across an article by Dave Rattigan that has been helpful to me in my frustration and bad attitude. It turns the story of the good Samaritan on its head, but in a way that is especially challenging to folks like me:
Now, I think if Jesus had been talking to the Southern Baptists, he might have had a gay Episcopalian be the one to stop on the road. It'd be the Bible College Professor and the Megachurch Pastor and the Chair of the Southern Baptist Convention who'd be the ones to walk by. That'd shock the hell out of the Baptist crowd. Heh. But I've also a suspicion that if Jesus were talking to a bunch of ex-fundamentalists, it might have been a parable about how a gay Episcopalian were the one who lay beaten and bleeding on the road, and the only person who'd stop to help him was -- wait for it -- an out-and-out fundy. The Liberal Bishop would walk by, followed by the Democrat, and then the Human Rights Activist, all pretending not to see, until along comes the least of all creatures, the Bible-Basher. And he's the one person to stop and, for all his stupid ideology, tend to the man's wounds, give him a bed for the night and show him the love and care everyone else walking past that night had denied him.
Reading that was a good reminder for me. I love my conservative friends and family, and besides, it’s not them as people that I am struggling with, but rather their beliefs. Dave Rattigan says it better:
It's easy to forget that the real problem is ideology. Ideology makes people do things and say things, and to that extent our problem is with people, yet still at the root of it is ideology. While the fundamentalist mindset and agenda may be black-and-white, I want to suggest that a person, a human being, is more than the sum of her ideology, and that goes for fundamentalists as much as the rest of us.
So, I’m trying to have a better attitude, one that isn’t so negative, critical, and arrogant. Yes, I especially need some humility. Nobody has it figured out. Even if I think that there’s something wrong with the way Rick Warren goes about things, I still need to remember that my favorite people to read don’t have it all figured out, either. That was my lesson for Resurrection Day, I s’pose. My dad has pointed out something positive about Warren, by the way.
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