Ubuntucat

Right now, our church is doing a sermon series about creation and is also experimenting with allowing congregation members the opportunity to create during the sermon. Children are painting murals. Adults are playing with pipecleaners and making pizzas. We’re even encouraged to blog during worship (which is what I’m doing right now on my Eee PC).

Bruce started off his sermon talking about how he finally realized he needed a day of rest, and he went to a cafe and read a book. That was his way to relax and reconnect with God. Now, he’s soliciting responses from the congregation about how they feel renewed (some people go out into nature, some throw barbecues).

What I like about this line of inquiry and this whole experiment is a recognition that people have different ways to create, to connect with God, to be fed, to feel renewed. A lot of times, you go to church or to a church retreat, and you’re asked to perform a particular ritual that is intended to be the most appropriate thing for you to do in your spiritual life at the moment, but everybody is required to do it. How could we possibly all be at the same spiritual place and have the exact same activity to be appropriate for our spiritual needs?

For example, I’ve had services where someone will ask you to write down three ways you want to improve your relationship with Christ and commit to doing those three things this week. That may work for a lot of people, but that sort of thing doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to connect with God or be a good Christian. I just do things my own way, and I think it’s important for people to recognize that the old saying of “To each her own” (or, as some of you may have heard it, “To each his own”) has merit, particularly on spiritual journeys. Blogging during the sermon… interesting. Still not sure if it’s for me, but it was certainly worth exploring!

Every year, my wife creates a little postcard to advertise our church’s Easter service. This year, with a bit of a time crunch, since we got started late, and in the interests of saving printing and postage costs, we went digital, so her “postcard” was just an image we put in our eNewsletter and on the church website.

Well, now, apparently, some gaming folks have gotten a hold of it, and someone in Australia blogged about it on Kotaku Australia (whatever that is): Church Uses Mii Christ for Easter Outreach

Well, that’s her 15 minutes of fame used up, I guess. This will probably my only blog post that falls into both the Christianity and Video Games categories.

Edit: Apparently, it’s been Dugg.

This is something I’ve never understood. Maybe Jewish people (since the few Muslim people I know are not offended by the phrase) can explain to me what’s offensive about “Merry Christmas.”

Yes, I realize Christmas is ostensibly a Christian holiday celebrating the Messiah that the Jews believe is still to come. Yes, I realize that the holiday season brings about mangers and many Christian-oriented carols.

Nevertheless, the holiday is essentially a secular one that is celebrated by many atheists, agnostics, and other non-Christians. It has come to be a holiday season about shopping, gift-giving, family, well-wishing, and eating. It should be common knowledge that the meaning of words change over time and a lot of the Christ has gone out of Christmas, which is fine by me.

I’m very much against the conservative Christian crusade to “reclaim Christmas.” I’m fine with Christmas being a primarily secular holiday—all the more reason for people not to be offended by it. If you’re not Christian, buy gifts, put up a Christmas tree and decorate it, have a festive meal with your loved ones, sing non-religiously themed Christmas carols. If you are a Christian, sing the Christian-themed carols and put up your little manger scenes, but don’t force those things on other people.

Frankly, as a Christian, I don’t see the birth of Christ as being relatively theologically significant. If you are a Christian, Good Friday should be far more important to you, with Easter coming a close second. Of course, this problem of oversignifying the birth of Jesus is just one instance of the general phenomenon of people making too big a deal of birthdays in general. Wouldn’t the day Malcolm X first encountered Allah in prison be more important in his life than the day his mother happened to give birth to him? Wouldn’t the day Susan Brownmiller wrote Against Our Will be more important in her life than the day her mother happened to give birth to her?

If Jesus is important in your life, why alienate your Jewish friends? You can celebrate Good Friday—the day Jesus died for your sins; not the day Jesus was all dirty and smelly and crying in a manger (never mind the fact that he wasn’t actually born on December 25). Let’s not reclaim Christmas for Christians. Let Christmas be a secular holiday of good cheer for everyone. Merry Christmas, everybody. Yes, I mean “Merry Christmas, everybody.”

Today was the AIDS Walk for San Francisco, and at the very beginning of the walk, there were conservative Christians on the sidelines with big signs and big megaphones proclaiming that homosexuals were like thieves, liars, and fornicators, and that they deserved to get AIDS because of their sin.

There was no Jesus love there. I was angry (righteous anger, I assure you) that these people called themselves Christians.

Most walkers chose to ignore them. Some yelled back “Shut up!” As far as I can tell, nobody converted to Christianity or was tempted to do so. No one fell on their knees screaming, “You’re right! I am a sinner. AIDS is God’s punishment for gay people.”

I just don’t get where this is coming from, Biblically speaking. Did Jesus go around with a megaphone condemning prostitutes? Did he tell lepers they must have sinned really badly in order to be afflicted with leprosy? I seem to vaguely remember him loving prostitutes, lepers, and tax collectors… and condemning the self-righteous pharisees. Maybe my version of the Bible is different from the megaphone- and sign-touting Christians’ Bibles.

Several years ago, I wrote an essay called A Christian Perspective on “Homosexuality,” in which I tried to put forth what I viewed as a balanced view of Biblical truth and sociological realism and compassionate understanding.

I think about 90% of me still believes in that essay’s ideas.

There is that 10% that isn’t too sure, though. Maybe I’ve lived in San Francisco too long or heard too many of my pastor’s sermons (he and I disagree theologically on the topic of sexuality). I will say that one of the major reasons I’m questioning my earlier position is the reading of The Good Book by Peter Gomes. It had some interesting questions about how we read and interpret the Bible—as believers, as scholars, as literature readers.

While I had (for other topics) heard, read, and even made arguments in favor of reading the Bible with historical context and inaccurate or misleading translations in mind, I had always taken for granted the traditional interpretation of gay behavior as sin and hadn’t really explored opposing Christian interpretations (anti-Christian interpretations, of course, don’t believe the Bible to be true to begin with, so they’re irrelevant to this discussion). Gomes’ book, however, made me see sexuality as potentially just one of many misinterpreted issues when it comes to theology. And his argument style seems sound (not a desperate attempt to justify what he knows is wrong).

I’m in a very Malcolm X place right now—in the middle of questioning—not quite sure yet where exactly I stand… but still outspoken about the topics I am sure of.