An Open Letter About Christmas

Dear easily offended American Christians,

There is no anti-Christian conspiracy regarding the holiday greetings expressed to you publically by commercial organizations and/or their employees.

I could stop there, or just point to last year's rant on this topic, but I'm afraid you've shown me that you're very, very thick, so I feel a need to expand on this:

When someone wishes you "Happy Holidays", it's not an insult to you or to your religion. As a commenter on a blog I read recently pointed out, it's actually someone wishing you well for basically the entire month of December and a bit of January to boot, in fact, but even leaving that aside: it's not them prejudicially choosing to use a generic greeting from some secular humanist plot, or some liberal atheist snobbery about the word Christmas. It's them choosing to use a greeting that doesn't presume to tell people what they should be celebrating. That's the opposite of prejudice.

Get this through your heads: not everyone in this country is Christian. Not everyone in this country is even nominally Christian. And unless you're awfullly ostentatious, your Christianity is not visible to people, nor is someone else's lack of Christianity. The people who aren't Christian look and dress and talk and act just like you (barring any cross you might be wearing, and be honest: you probably aren't). So those store employees? They don't know which holiday you're planning to celebrate, if any, and therefore, it has nothing to do with your religion.

(As to the random wingnut who posted on their blog that "holiday" is somehow an insulting word: the word 'holiday' derives from "holy day", as in "what Christmas is". Seriously. That was pretty stupid even for this brand of stupidity.)

As I said last year: Get over it. No one is stopping you from religiously celebrating Christmas by not making sure they use the word regularly. Or, if they are, your faith is pretty fragile.

Which, come to think of it, it must be, if you think that other people not celebrating your holiday properly somehow damages your faith.

Maybe you should be thinking more about that.

Love,

Me

The Camel and the Needle

Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." —Matthew 19:21-24

This seems fairly straightforward to me. It's not the only time Jesus suggested giving away money was a godly thing to do, of course, but this passage seems to sum it up nicely. The message I take from this is that concentrating on keeping wealth—caring about doing so—is detrimental to your relationship with God. Note I say "detrimental", not "an absolute bar", yet either way, I'm not sure I understand why so many Christians seem to be amongst the most greedy wealth-seekers, and I definitely don't understand prosperity preachers.

Brotherly Love

Via a comment on slacktivist, I was pointed to this post, reporting on a Christian "demonstration" at the Gay Pride parade in Chicago... one where the Christians wore shirts saying "I'm sorry". They were apologizing for the years they and/or their churches have treated gays like... well, the way too many Christians treat gays.

The article links to the blog Love is an Orientation, maintained by the founder of the group The Marin Foundation, which is a non-profit outreach group trying to work towards a better relationship between churches and the GLBT community. I recommend taking a look at both, because we all could use some more love and acceptance in our lives.

As a side note, the founder's blog mentions that he and his wife live in the Boystown neighborhood in Chicago, which, for those of you who don't know Chicago, is where the most open GLBT community in Chicago is centered. It's the neighborhood I first saw pairs of men and women openly together back when I was much younger, and it was just a couple miles up the street from there I first worked with three openly gay people... which is how I learned that the only difference between me and a gay woman was who we were attracted to.

Universalism

I've written before about how I can reconcile being a Christian with believing that non-Christians aren't doomed to either eternal punishment or exile from Heaven, but I've felt a need lately to talk about it some more. Maybe it's because I keep seeing so many people—both Christians and non-Christians—talking about how exclusivity is a major hallmark of Christianity.

A couple of links

Via one of my old friends, the moderate voice of American Muslims regarding a recent attempt by non-Muslims to be stupid about how Muslims feel about visual depictions of Muhammad. (No, they didn't call it stupid. I am calling it stupid. Going out of your way to offend people of a specific religion is stupid... and it violates the "don't be a dick" rules of many religions.)

Via another friend, a liberal Christian shared blog, bearing witness (dreamwidth|livejournal). From their profile:

Jesus Christ lived and preached love and acceptance of all, but it increasingly seems like the most vocal Christians are preaching intolerance and hatred. So we, as Christians who believe in Christ's true message, think it's past time for us to exercise our right of rebuttal.

Note that our aim is not to evangelise to non-Christians about our religious beliefs, but rather to evangelise to other Christians about our political beliefs, and to strengthen ourselves in fellowship with others who take these beliefs as not merely compatible with, but actually required by, our faith.

Sounds good to me.

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.

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.

Christianity and Politics

One of the things I've increasingly noticed of late is the way that so many people assume that you cannot possibly be both Christian and centrist-to-left politically. This seems to be particularly true when it comes to online comments on news stories, blog posts, and other "new media". I find it uncomfortable to participate in many moderate-to-left blog comments because of that perception. (I'm very unlikely to participate in the more conservative ones; I've yet to find a really conservative blogger I can tolerate.)

I'm not sure what else I want to say here. I could make a list of things that not all Christians believe, and get into why some of them do support some of the more moderate or liberal views, such as keeping abortion legal (even if possibly with restrictions), same-sex marriage equality, ceasing to use torture under any circumstances, health care reform, and probably half a dozen other things. I could point to my theories on how evolution and creation can maybe be reconciled, and note that I'm not alone in feeling that way... or point out that there are scientists who do have a faith, some of whom are Christian. I could note that some Christians wince at Young Earth Creationists. I could show examples of interfaith discussions, ones that show respect for non-Christian beliefs and not incidentally serve as statements that not all Christians are knee-jerkingly against Muslims.

I don't know if it would do any good. The far-right Christians (and the outright wingnuts who are also Christian) have some pretty loud voices. And right now, political arguments in the U.S. are running pretty hot, with a lot of people who are fed up or scared or just plain hostile to anyone who doesn't agree with them 100%. I'm not sure anyone's really listening much right now, and that's kinda scary, and really saddening.

Insert Title Here

I haven't been doing much writing of any kind, but I've still got a few things in the "to be posted" folder, so I probably should post one of them. *rummages through folder* Ahh, here we go: the perfect post for right before I go read the latest critical post over on slacktivist.

While I'm in a cranky mood

Might I point you over to slacktivist's very well-written posts on why it is the "Manhattan Declaration" is unacceptable? (If you don't know what it is, Fred'll also let you know that part.)

They can be found here, with a followup here, and lastly, here.

Go read them. Yes, now. I've got a few comments, myself, but they can wait until you're done.

I am appalled at my own kind

Well, they're not quite my own kind. I recognize them as Christians, but we're obviously very different. It's the ones who, in the wake of the horrendous tragedy at Fort Hood, are saying, "See, Muslims are all terrorists!" Who are, in the main, the same ones who when people, oh, say, shoot an abortion doctor in the name of Christ, don't have anything to say about that, or at best say "But that's not what we believe!"... and then refuse to give the same courtesy to others.

I'm appalled that Christians give other Christians a free pass on such acts, but immediately harp on anyone of any other religion, especially Muslims. We worship the same God. Never mind my belief that ultimately we all do, I mean this one much more literally; Muslims consider Jesus one of the great prophets and believe some of the same things Christians do about him (albeit not all of them). We should get along better. It's one of the shames of religion that we can't. And one of the shames of American Christians in particular that so many of them refuse to believe anyone who says "We're not all like that."

Are there bad Muslims? Yes. But there are also bad Christians. And a lot of them are right here in this country. Condemning the entire religion based on the whack-jobs is really... unChristian. Brotherhood, remember?

(Belated x2) Sunday Thoughts

"Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation."—Mark 16:15

A fairly sizable portion of Christians seem to believe that the primary goal of all Christians should be to preach to others, and I believe this is one of the verses that makes them think so.

Is Proselytizing a Sin? (Part 3/Final)

So, let's wrap this up, and go back to my basic question: Is proselytizing a sin?

I think I've shown how it can be, whether one defines sin as "harm against other people" or "offenses against God". Anything that drives people away from God (and, if you think Christianity is the One True Way, Christ) pretty much would have to be a sin, and generally speaking, things that harm people are sinful.

But is it always a sin?

Is Prosyletizing a Sin? (Part 2)

In my last post on this topic, I related a sad story about a kid I used to babysit thinking he was going to Hell because he didn't listen to me, his babysitter, and I said this: emotionally and psychologically harming someone is a sin.

Before I go further on that, I should define the other word I'm using here the way I understand it. Proselytizing, to me, is when someone tries to convince someone else to convert to their beliefs. It differs from evangelism^[1] in that evangelism is more about simply spreading information about one's religion.^[2]

Sunday Thoughts

There's something about this country I don't understand.

See, Christians are a majority here. Maybe not everyone who classifies themselves as Christian is particularly active in their faith, but they were raised with Christian beliefs and still consider themselves such.

So why are so many Americans against programs to help the poor? Whether it's direct as welfare or a national health insurance of some sort, or as indirect as better education, people seem unwilling to pay for government programs, or volunteer time or money or goods to private programs. And some people are pretty heated about their opposition to the former.

I don't understand how anyone can reconcile that unwillingness with what Jesus taught. I don't think I need to pull out Bible verses for this; anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the Gospels should know that Jesus was pretty explicit that helping the sick and the poor was the right thing to do, and that giving up one's own wealth for that purpose was the best thing to do.

I find it difficult to understand why anyone who calls themselves a Christian would have any trouble giving to a cause that helps the poor. Churches which run food pantries or other helpful programs are struggling to meet demand, so it's not even happening there. And when it comes to government programs and any hint of suggestions of tax raises, it's met with anger and refusal. Is that really the Christian response?

Sunday Thoughts

We just got back from an early-morning drive through the city and I was thinking of writing something about that, about beautiful sunrises and birds singing at dawn, but I don't know if I have the right words to explain why that and the otherwise silent city means so much to me. I've said in the past to people that sunsets and kittens are two good reasons to believe in a loving God and love creation, and you can put sunrises and joyful bird wakings on that list, too, but it's more a personal thing than something I expect anyone to really share. Still, I can say there's something beautiful and even awe-inspiring in getting to see those things in the middle of a large city before most people have stirred from their homes. A moment where you can glimpse a peaceful creation is something wonderful.

And that might be enough for today, but I thought I'd grab a random Bible verse to see if it inspired me to write something more anyhow.

The Bible verse I got led me to Chapter 12 of Romans, and it does touch upon something I've been thinking about, so I think it's probably a good idea for me to try to explore what it means for me.

Is Proselytizing a Sin? (Part 1)

I imagine now there's someone out there thinking: how can something that preaches about God be a sin?

Well... "Sin", to me, includes anything that harms other people, a word that can be used both within religious discussion and apart from it.

Now in the context of religion, it's generally defined as an offense against God. Well, while Jesus was more to the point about harming people being Bad, God himself had a few words to say on the matter, too. Most of the Ten Commandments are about one's treatment of other people, after all. So while "sin" may encompass things other than "harming other people", it definitely includes it even in that context.

With me so far? Good. Let me tell you a story about my past, then. This is gonna get a little long, so I hope you like reading.

Trinitarianism. Unitarianism. Ow, My Head Hurts.

One of the things non-Christians find difficult to grasp about Christianity is the fact that it considers itself a monotheistic religion, but has three figures it generally holds to be divine: Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Any attempt to explain this is frequently seen as an incomprehensible feat of philosophical and metaphysical gymnastics.

To be honest, I'm sort of with the people who don't really understand it. But bear with me while I try to muddle through it, and then I'll get to what I believe.

Most modern Christians subscribe to the trinitarian belief. The basics of it as I understand it are this: There's not three beings. The three named beings are the three ways God works among us—the Creator Himself, the incarnation of Him on the earthly plane, and the part of him that speaks to or guides humanity.

There's also a unitarian (note lower-case 'u') viewpoint, one that acknowledges the role of Christ, but does not think of him as a divine being that is meant to be worshipped, even if his teachings are the cornerstone of Christian faith. Whether or not he was somehow supernatural isn't even the point; the point is he's subordinate to God and does not have His powers. As to the Holy Spirit, well, maybe that's another of God's Heavenly servants, or maybe it's just the voice of God.

My beliefs are much closer to the latter than the former, and that's probably part of the problem I have with Christian churches. I'd probably be more at home in a unitarian church, though since I'm not really fond of church-going to begin with I'm not sure.

For what I believe... it's hard to define, precisely.

As far as God goes, well, that one's easy. God's, um, God. The Creator, the source from which everything came, the being who laid down the rules and the laws of the world as well as the rules and laws by which He wanted humans to abide. He's the object of our worship.

Jesus is not God. I form this belief primarily from one source: Jesus' words as related in the Bible. He talks of the Father as if He is a separate being, talks directly to Him in places, and explicitly denies he himself is divine. His role on earth was to teach us, and then to suffer the crucifixion, to atone for the sins of mankind. I believe his role in Heaven is to be a sort of mediator between us and God, someone else who can hear our prayers.

In fact, I believe God has many servants in the Heavenly realm, beings that are not human, but not precisely divine. We usually call them angels. Jesus may be an angel now, or he may be something else entirely, but either way, he's a servant of God, not God himself.

So what's the Holy Spirit? I'm not entirely sure, but I'm nearly certain it's who God was talking to when he was making the world. It might be an angel, or it might be some other being that was there from the beginning (God's first creation, perhaps), or it might just be the conscience of God. When I say the conscience, I mean two things, though: both God's own inner thoughts, and the part of God that connects us and Him and speaks to us in the still of the night, prompts us, and guides us.

I believe in one singular God, but I also believe that we're meant to revere and respect Jesus, and follow his teachings, and strive to be more Christlike. The Holy Spirit is more of a mystery to me, but I think it's our conduit to God, that part that speaks to our souls. A messenger, perhaps. All three are important, but only God is God.

Sunday Thoughts

One of the better characteristics of human beings is the ability to feel sympathy for complete strangers. To shudder at a tragedy, to spare a few moments to feel sorrow for the people and their families, and to wish things like that didn't happen. I think anyone who doesn't show this sympathy—this empathy—has something wrong with them.

When I see in the wake of some tragedy people who are avid to discuss all aspects of the victim's lives, frequently in a deragatory manner, it makes me ashamed of my race. When I hear a person who calls themselves Christian daring to call a major tragedy a judgement on the human race, it makes me ashamed of my religion—you can add that to the pile of reasons why I had trouble with Christianity for so long.

Sometimes it seems like the less we know someone, the easier it is to forget that they were real people. For instance, for a real example, there's Michael Jackson. He was a real person who had a lousy childhood, obviously had some seriously psychological issues, and whose family now has to deal with both his early demise and all the people who want to loudly discuss those things. Yes, he was famous, for many reasons, but that doesn't make him a non-person, and it certainly doesn't make his family non-people. These are people deserving of sympathy and empathy for what they're going through. How would you feel if someone you loved died and the next day there were thousands of strangers talking about that time he got drunk at the office party and gave his CEO a wedgie?

I see the same problem with people who sort of shrug off the demise of thousands of people in an earthquake because, y'know, it didn't happen here. They're strangers; why should we care, right?

Maybe because each of those strangers was a human being. And if you're a decent person, there should at least be a few moments where you feel for them, and for their loved ones. You don't have to obsess over it, you don't have to rush out and do something about it (though if you can, one hopes you would), but you should, at least, feel that basic kinship with other human beings that lets you sorrow for bad things happening to other people.

And if you're a Christian, and you're one of those who likes to gossip in public about the people whom these tragedies hit, shame on you. If you're a Christian, and you're one of those who likes to feel justified by tragedies because "they had it coming to them", shame on you. That's not Christian behavior. And someone out there who could be shown an example of good Christian behavior is now wondering if all Christians are like that. Is that what you really want?