Skip to main content

Just stop it!

*Raw, quick thoughts, just thrown up here, at my peril, with very little pondering.
Wayback machine or other internet tools used to dig up dirt on people, I'll probably edit this as I have better formed thoughts on the matter. Please don't hold this rant against me. It needed to get out there in order to spur further thought*

Division. No, not lists of the dreaded mathematical function represented by ÷

I'm talking polarization. 

No, that buzzword has become too familiar. 

I'm talking cleavage. 

Not breaking up (that can be a thoughtful act) but breaking off. Casting out. 

The world is facing polycrises: climate change, species loss and natural disasters are bad enough without us adding wars and racism and systemic injustice to it all. 

Christians, if we are to have any hope of faithfully representing the God we claim to obey, it is high time we put our differences aside. 

Those of you who are purity minded, okay, you probably have a point. God's holiness does demand something of us. But for the most part, you have not successfully shared that perspective in a way that has led people to find shalom. 

Maybe what we need right is to put aside all our differences. Stop with the heretic hunting. Stop with the purity tests. Stop arguing about correct doctrine. Even if that means accepting some yahoos who you don't think should get to claim the name of Jesus. We can work on harmful rhetoric later. Right now the biggest threat is the harmful rhetoric of othering.

We need to stop throwing people out on their ear. We need to model Jesus' radical love that FIRST of all says you are loved and accepted. Only after that is clear do we have the right to say, "listen, there are some things you do or say that do not lead to your flourishing nor the flourishing of those around you." But that needs to be said in the context of walking together, and mutual correction, not finger pointing and boundary policing.

Unity − but not uniformity − needs to come first.

 If we can't live a capacity to get along despite differences, I think we have failed in our mission.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Whose death matters?

In June of 2024, a man was just riding his bike to work. Early in the morning when traffic should be low to nonexistent. Wearing a helmet and a reflective vest.  A racing driver lost control and plowed him over.  Anyone who bikes in this city was grieved and outraged.  This stretch of roadway is designated as a bike route. There's a little green sign with a bicycle icon to tell you that. The wide road that invites speeding certainly doesn't. How does a person even drive 159 km/hr on a sleepy residential street within city limits? (Because the street is too damn wide.) For about as long as it has existed, the cycling advocacy organization has identified this stretch of roadway as a route in critical need of remediation to make it safer.  So, within a week, temporary safety measures had been rolled out. Reduced speed limit signs were erected, poly posts narrowed the roadway and speed cameras made sure folks took it seriously.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha. No. 20, 40,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bike 19

It's Earth Day today. It's a day, not to worship creation, but to pay mind to it, and in so doing, to worship the creator. So, says Sarah Pulliam Bailey , was the intention of Earth Day's originator. I confess I'm not doing anything special for the day. I take pride -- perhaps too much -- in the "eco-morality" of the normal things I do. That morality, sense of self-righteousness, is not the reason for my choices. Instead, it's a conviction that it is, in fact, worship when I climb on my bike; dig paper out of the recycling bin or stock used envelopes for reuse; dissect a teabag so the paper tab goes in recycling, the bag into compost, and only the string into the garbage; use my thrift store dishes; even when I carpool with someone else. The little bits of inconvenience that I subject myself to in order to reduce waste are intended for the sake of the Creator. The attitude is not always worshipful; on my way home today, I was once again muttering i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bike 7

Steady falling snow against grey skies did not encourage bike riding. But when the sun broke through late afternoon, I got up my gumption to leave the house for a short jaunt to the Forks. Leaving behind the gloves was a mistake but otherwise, it wasn't too bad. Underneath the Norwood Bridge, the bike path was covered with rivulets of ice from meltage dripping down from the bridge, and for the width of the two bridge spans, the river was flowing water right up at the surface, whereas the rest of the way appeared to be completely snowed over yet. That small view of open water was a reminder of the pending flood we'll see this spring, and of the great vulnerability we have to the elements: all it would take is the combination of above zero temperatures and an enormous ice jam, and we'll have some seriously rising water.
Post a Comment
Read more