Ubuntucat

A few Sundays ago, the pastor at our church gave a sermon about making a difference, examining how there are basically two approaches—institutional and personal. Institutional change seeks to change how society and laws are structured so that it affects the greatest number of individuals. Personal change is what he called the “grunt work” of change. You could also call personal works of change “band-aid solutions.”

Jesus, of course, did both. If you believe in traditional Christian doctrine, Jesus changed the entirety of humanity by instituting the forgiveness of sins and the accountability and sacrifice for those sins, abolishing the idea of earning one’s way to heaven. At the same time, he worked one on one with individuals, talking and listening, preaching and healing.

I’m no Jesus.

I don’t know where I fit in with change. Like most people, I have ideals. I want change. I’m not your traditional activist. I don’t go to rallies and protests. I’m not on the board of directors for a non-profit organization that deals with animal cruelty, environmental pollution, human rights, or boycotts. I also don’t help out in soup kitchens on a regular basis or give out sandwiches or money to homeless people I see on the street. Malcolm X would be disappointed in me.

What do I do?

I live life in accordance with my beliefs. I try to treat other human beings equally. Some people make a big deal about looking homeless people in the eye. I don’t see why. I offer them more dignity by ignoring them—that’s what I do to rich people. I don’t look rich people in the eye. Strangers are strangers. I try to be helpful when people ask me for directions. I donate what little money I can to causes I believe in. I write essays, hoping people will stumble upon them and think or learn something. I spend a lot of time online trying to help people adopt a computer operating system (not Windows) that stands for freedom. In my speech and actions, I try to model what I think are attitudes and behaviors that would discourage sexism and racism.

Sometimes it’s the simple things. I always use “she” when referring to the generic third-person singular. It’s not grammatically “correct,” but I don’t care. It gets people to think. It makes men feel uncomfortable. They wonder why they’re getting “left out.” If you use “he” instead, no men wonder why or if women feel “left out”—men assume women have no problems being “included” with the term “he.”

I recycle and try not to waste materials—that includes not making excessive photocopy or print errors at work. I swear that half the paper waste out there is from people not paying attention when printing or photocopying.

I believe we should each examine our own talents, resources, time, and inclinations, and we should see what can feasibly be done to make a difference. Will it be a difference in “the long run”? It may. It may not. Jesus stopping to talk with a Samaritan woman at the well may not have made much of a difference in “the long run,” but it sure made a difference for her.

Two things baffle me about politics and religion, from what I’ve seen: 1. that political progessives tend to be moral relativists and 2. that moral absolutists tend to be political conservatives.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes a fairly convincing case for moral absolutism tempered with relativism. The idea is that any time someone gets offended by an action, there is a sense of common decency or morals that is invoked by that outrage. If no one’s held to a standard, there’s no outrage. His second point is that while different cultures may have different ideas of what is offensive, appropriate, kind, etc., all cultures consider it desirable to be kind and appropriate and undesirable to be offensive. One culture may think giving someone the “thumbs up” is rude. Another may consider giving the “thumbs up” affirming. Both cultures would agree, though, that being affirming is a good thing and being rude is a bad thing. Rudeness and affirmation simply manifest themselves in different ways.

I don’t fit into either of the following categories, but I’d say the vast majority of Americans I’ve encountered fall into one of the following two profiles:

1. Conservative Christian: moral absolutist, political conservative
2. Liberal atheist/agnostic: moral relativist, political (or at least social) liberal

I view these two stances as being at odds with themselves, though. Moral absolutism, as I see it, goes hand in hand with progressivism. Take, for example, gay marriage. One of the arguments for gay marriage that social and political liberals rely upon is the argument that only a few decades ago popular morality frowned upon interracial marriage and that within a few decades people will realize (as they do now about interracial marriage) that gay marriage is a just occurrence.

The idea of justice and the idea of progress are based on the assumption that there is such a thing as justice or that you can be progressing “towards” something (a better society or whatnot). If morality is truly relative (what we think is abhorrent is perfectly acceptable in X time period or Y culture, so who cares?), then what’s the point of protest? What’s the point of progress? What is justice? Any kind of deviance from the natural course of popular opinion or general trend is an appeal to a universal morality. Without realizing it, most political and social progressives are really saying “What is happening right now is not right in some absolute sense that we don’t realize now in our relative culture.”

Then why don’t those two neat categories described above notice the inherent contradictions in their stances, particularly the liberal atheist/agnostic?

I don’t know.

My guess, though, is that most people don’t examine the full implications of a belief system. They just know their immediate concerns (gay marriage, for example).

Let me put it another way. If I lived in the sixties and opposed interracial marriage, what would be wrong with that? Do you have more respect for someone who is “ahead of her time”? Why? Why not fit in with your own time? After all, if morality is relative, you’re just fitting in with the morality of the culture you live in. If you’re “ahead of your time” it means your current time is behind. It means morality isn’t relative to time or culture. It means there may be a prevailing thought or feeling at the time, but that others are more “enlightened” (presumably more in touch with the moral absolutism built into each one of us).

You can’t make “progress” unless what you have now is not meeting a standard—that standard… is absolute morality.

I’m only a little bothered by atheists or agnostics who say when they were young they used to believe in God, prayed to him for something, didn’t get it, and then didn’t believe in him any more. What bothers me more are the atheists and agnostics who claim that prayer does nothing—that God does not or probably does not exist—but when the first sign of trouble comes (a terrorist attack, the death of a loved one, a divorce, a lost job, etc.), the first thing they do is pray to the God they were so disrespectful to before. I call the first group childish and selfish. The second I call fair-weather friends.

There’s something problematic about a Santa Claus approach to God; I’m not sure what it is.

I’ve always wondered what it means for God to “answer” prayer. Sure, some people say God actually “talks” to them, but most honest Christians admit there isn’t a real conversation going on. Sometimes I can feel an idea. Sometimes it’s actually nice to be able to speak out into the void and not have someone talk back. That’s the problem with humans. They don’t really listen. Silence is just too uncomfortable. You tell humans your problems, and they want to “help,” give you advice, “relate.”

Some people take a scientifically skeptical approach to prayer. If you can’t “prove” it exists, it doesn’t. If God doesn’t definitely answer “yes,” he isn’t answering. Others seem nonsensically devoted to the idea of prayer. If God doesn’t answer the prayer, he’s saying, “No” or “Wait.” If he answers, he’s saying, “Yes.”

There’s a problem with both of these approaches, and they actually feed into each other.

The skeptical approach still has that Santa Claus assumption about prayer. What can it do for me? If I ask for something, can I get it? I want a new job. I want a new car. I want this disease to disappear. I want my children safe. If God says, “No,” he couldn’t possibly want the best for us. Yet, when these same skeptics become parents, they realize the most important thing for them to learn is how and when to say “No” to their own children, the ones they love the most.

The nonsensically devoted idea is equally flawed. If God is saying “No,” “Wait,” or “Yes,” unpredictably, how is that different from rolling dice or praying to a wall?

I don’t know where I stand… somewhere in the middle, I guess. I can be skeptical about prayer. Sometimes when I’m praying, I do wonder, “God, are you really out there? It’s me, Margaret.” Other times, I do feel a connection to God. Maybe, as the haughty skeptics say, it is a psychological retreat I make up in my mind. Maybe, it’s all a mental illusion. Still, it feels real, a lot more real than some of the other things I’ve had to accept (I did finally get real proof that the state of Wyoming exists… when my car broke down in it. Before that, I’d taken its existence on faith alone).

I have seen miracles happen. I’ve seen them not happen, too.

Maybe it’s just Pascal’s wager, but I feel prayer is worth investigating, worth doing, worth experimenting with… and if it’s only a mental exercise, a psychological trick—me talking to myself—then, it’s one of the best tricks I’ve ever played on myself. God—omnipotent powerful being or the cognitive abyss that the wall next to me is—has been a great friend to talk to.

I’d urge all the skeptics out there to just give it a try, an honest try—not to get anything concrete out of it, but just to see if it could be real. They don’t have to tell anyone about this experiment. They can just try it for their own personal curiosity. They need a little honest self-examination: “Do I require scientific proof for everything or just religious stuff? Do I hold double standards for burdens of proof?”

And for the religiously unquestioning, stop pretending you can reason the power of prayer to others any more than you can reason a friendship, marriage, or other relationship to others. Just live it and enjoy it.

Let me start off by saying, as obnoxious as it sounds, that some of my best friends are Charismatics. I know it’s dumb. When White people tell me some of their best friends are Black, I can only roll my eyes. But, I mean it. I don’t doubt Charismatics’ sincerity of faith in God. I don’t doubt their good intentions. I’m not theoretically opposed to anyone speaking in tongues ever, but there is a problem with how the Charismatic movement has appeared to me through many people (mostly friends).

My only encounters with the Charismatic movement have all been scary, and they usually involve some person or people praying in “tongues” (translation: gibberish). One time, I even went on a retreat where, while someone was playing guitar continuously in the background, everyone else was rocking back and forth (sometimes on all fours), making animal noises, moaning, and just generally being scary. For a while, I stayed, hoping it would go away. Maybe I was too shocked to move. Eventually, though, I had to hide in my little bunk to get away from the insanity, but the noise still penetrated the walls. I thought to myself, “How could this be godly? What non-Christian would ever want to become a Christian after going to a retreat like this?”

Even though I’ve heard friends and acquaintances of mine pray “in tongues” on many occasions, I’ve never once heard anyone interpret tongues. I’ve also heard some people insinuate or say straight-out that having the gift of tongues is indicative of having a closer relationship with God. This is dangerous territory, folks. That would be like a situation in which a teacher tells another teacher, “I’m a better teacher because my students give me better Christmas gifts.”

What bothers me more is that there seem to be no bounds to what can be considered a “spiritual gift.” Tongues is clearly a spiritual gift outlined numerous times in the New Testament, but people will go to holy laughter, holy feeling each other up, holy whatever-I-feel-like-doing-but-am-usually-too-inhibited-to-do. Worship services dominated by a Charismatic ideology have an anything-goes and anything-is-valid feel to them, in which if someone says, “X is from God because I feel it,” there’s little room for any kind of validation or challenge.

What’s worse is that oftentimes participants in and proponents of the Charismatic movement do not even follow scriptural guidelines for gifts. The most appropriate scripture (which Charismatics conveniently ignore in sermons, Bible studies, and general conversations) is I Corinthians 14, where Paul urges people to conduct an orderly worship (no animal noises and such, I’m assuming) in order to bear good witness. Paul also encourages those who speak in tongues to do so in private or to ask God for the gift of the interpretation of tongues. I’ve never seen any Charismatic be at all concerned with how Charismatic manifestations, however “godly” or “spiritual,” may turn off seekers, nor have I seen Charismatics express to me any sentiment similar to “I know I’ve been blessed a lot in my times alone with God to be able to pray in tongues, but I have asked God to give me the gift of the interpretation of tongues so that others, too, can be edified when I pray in tongues.”

I have, however, seen a lot of Charismatics flaunt, in direct opposition to Paul’s admonishments, their “spiritual gifts” in extremely unedifying and haughty ways.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with gifts, healing, or “feeling” God, but when an Evangelical Christian movement becomes too experienced-centered and not scripturally centered, it must be called into question. It must be made accountable.

Okay. I’m confused. Why is there all of a sudden a “new” controversy over the phrase under God being in the Pledge? Wasn’t this a news story about a year or two ago? Then, it just disappeared. Now, it’s resurfaced again for no apparent reason. Anyone know? Well, I just think the whole thing’s stupid. I can see both sides of the issue. First of all, from the standpoint of someone against taking it out, who cares? Does it matter if we say “under God”? Most of the people saying it don’t believe it, really. A lot people don’t believe any part of the pledge, let alone the “under God” part. In elementary school, we’re forced to say a lot of things we don’t believe. What’s the big hub-bub about “under God”? Is it really worth all the trouble? On the other hand, I don’t see any reason to oppose taking it out. Is it worth the trouble opposing it? What does the phrase “under God” being in the Pledge really do for us Christians? It doesn’t make the people who say it become Christians, appreciate Jesus more, or become more open to accepting Christ into their lives. If anything, it makes them more bitter and less receptive to the Gospel.

I am a devout Christian, and I’ll say it: I believe in the separation of church and state. Yes, I know the phrase “the separation of church and state” isn’t in the Constitution. I still believe in the idea. Let’s take the “In God We Trust” away from the coin. Let’s take out from the courts “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” If I’m ever on a witness stand, I’ll grab the Bible out of the bailiff’s hand, flip open to Matthew 5:33-37, and highlight the part that says, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” Why do they have you swear on a document that condemns swearing? And this is the type of swearing Jesus was talking about—he wasn’t talking about cussing. Bottom line: God should not be in the governmental system (godly individuals might be, but God shouldn’t be there institutionally… only nominally), but if he stays in, it’s not worth raising a big fuss over. Geez.