Saturday, December 26, 2009

this is NOT a political commentary... :)

OK, so there are two big things going on in our culture. We are a 100% individualistic culture, meaning that we do everything ourselves. Asking someone for help is considered a 'weakness' by our standards.

(1) We live in a culture of pluralism; specifically religious pluralism. This says that truth is relative, everyone is right in their own eyes, and there can therefore be NO final truth.

(2) We live in a culture of intellectual autonomy. This is the attitude that people are not mature if they let others tell them what to think, or even influence their thoughts. This says to others, "nobody tells me what to do or think because I am an individual".

Both of these things combined leads to our current way of thinking where we accept absolutely everything that someone does, says, or believes. And to disagree with someone on anything is considered arrogant and judgmental. So we have Christians that are very shy, or even afraid to claim to know THE truth or THE way to God. Because of our culture, we are afraid to claim THE truth, or THE Gospel of Jesus. Our biggest fear is the threat of offending someone by our message. Thus we have a lot of uneducated Christians that cannot distinguish between different religious claims, and that honestly may not even want to distinguish between them.

The Gospel of Jesus is very dangerous because it is the opposite of individualism. The main message is that you CAN’T do it yourself; that’s why Jesus was sent. So yes, it is dangerous because it directly attacks our pride and the culture that we live in. It claims to know THE truth and THE way to God, and sometimes might even call us to action. It might call us to do things that make us completely uncomfortable because it is unknown (relying completely on faith, not EARNING something ourselves).

Btw, Jesus’ message was EXTREMELY offensive to certain people of his time because it attacked their pride and their self-righteousness. Is that still true? are there Pharisees in 2009? am I one?

Merry Christmas. pieces!

Monday, December 14, 2009

remember: you can't spell "conviction" without "fun"...(sortof)

Oh yeah, by the way, after writing that last post I have come to realize that I actually do the very thing that I was talking about. It has happened several times in the past couple of weeks.

(1) The guy at the rental car store asked me what I was doing for Thanksgiving. I'm not proud to admit that all I remember thinking at the time was, "why does this guy care?" and "when is he going to stop talking to me". I was not interested in real conversation because I knew that I would get nothing out of it. I couldn't wait to get home to my "real friends" on Facebook. Ha!

(2) The guy at the video store asking what we did for Thanksgiving...same story really. I just wanted to rent "The Holiday" and get out of the store before I had to have real face-to-face interaction with someone... It turned out to be a very long movie about love and stuff; not Jack Black's best...

(3) The guy at Guitar Center who wanted to talk to me after I had demoed a guitar. (It was a really cheap G&L Legacy, but turned out to be a fake...) He wanted to talk about guitars and I just remember trying my hardest to get away from the conversation...he had funny glasses too.

So anywho; the bottom line: Any time I try and comment on someone else's actions, always put it into the context of my own life...always. I am trying to just love whomever God puts in front of me...absolutely anyone...

We live in a world where people are freaked out if you take an interest in them for no reason. It is absurd for someone to take an interest in another just because they want to get to know them for no reason. I think that's why the gospel is so hard to grasp, because I don't do anything to become a child of God...nothing. We prefer to interaction via some sort of impersonal device (text message, Facebook, blogging, email)...absolutely ANYTHING but actually talking to a person face-to-face. That's just crazy talk really. We're a very funny people group.

Pieces. GO STUFF!