Only Human

"There is none righteous, no, not one."—Romans 3:10

"For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God."—Romans 3:23

One thing I find interesting about how people view religion and faith is how the same thing can lead to such wildly different conclusions. For instance, one or both of those quotes above, or the summary of them, is frequently cited by people as a reason they have issues with Christianity. Yet, for me, they're one of the things that form the bedrock of my belief.

A gospel song I like

One of my favorite gospel songs is one I was introduced to via Babylon 5.

Yes, really.

What I like about Jesuits

I would make a horrible Catholic. I don't agree with many of the Church's positions and teachings, and I don't think I ever could. There are things about the Catholic church I like, and I find some of their ceremonies and rituals beautiful, but they just aren't for me.

But I've always had a soft spot for Jesuits.

Keep the Sabbath Holy

So, apparently, certain right-wing television and radio pundits are really, really upset that the healthcare reform bill vote is going to be on a Sunday, because it's an affront to God to work on the Sabbath.

Strangely, I'm of the opinion that doing something one believes will help the sick is not only God's work (and therefore holy) but also something Jesus would explicitly approve of doing on the Sabbath. I wonder where I got that idea?

Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, "Stand up in front of everyone."

Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent. —Mark 3: 1-4

Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"

He said to them, "If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." —Matthew 12:9-12

God's not the inflexible one

Via Sadly, No!, I was linked to a post basically complaining about the word homophobia and how it's all wrong because Christians don't fear homosexuals, they just... something. I'm not clear on what the "something" is because the article being discussed is really poorly written. I'm not going to get into the debate on the word here because that would distract from my main point, which was brought up in the commentary to the Sadly, No! post, wherein several people highlighted this quote from the original article:

We trust the God who cannot lie, not to change his mind and give us a whole new set of rules just because the times they are a changing. In fact it is God's promise that he will not change his edicts, statutes, restrictions or commands that assure us, even though the world is in a great storm; God is always an immovable rock.