(no subject)

[lederhosen]

Why I love Real Live Preacher.

And it's not just because of the positions he holds, which often agree with my own; it's because of the humility that leads him to them (which I do not share, but wish I did).

Comments

[fluffy-cloud.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this.

[polydad.livejournal.com]

Having read the article, I know how he felt about what happened, but I have no clue what *happened*.

Okay, he could reach no conclusion of his own and decided to stand by his friends. On what issue?

best,

Joel. Perhaps more literally minded than is always useful.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Homosexuality in the Southern Baptist church - I don't think he actually says that anywhere in the essay itself, but there's a topic tag at the bottom of the post and he links to another site that makes the topic a bit more obvious.

(Also, it's easier to guess if you've been reading RLP for a while and know the sort of things he's likely to be talking about.)

[polydad.livejournal.com]

>Homosexuality in the Southern Baptist church -

I'm all in favor of sexual expression, but they *really* should wait 'til they get home.

best,

Joel. With state-of-the-art rimshot effects.

[cornute.livejournal.com]

sounded like a half-chewed cookie hitting a monitor to me.

[turnberryknkn.livejournal.com]

(nods nods)

Luke, the apostle, once recorded one lesson of Jesus as follows:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

"I tell you that this man [ed. the tax collector], rather than the other [ed. the Pharisee], went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."


Luke 18:09-14, NIV

One of *the* central tenets of Christianity -- and one of the concepts which to some extent sets Christianity apart from other religions -- is the idea that it's not because we are without sin that God loves us. It is that God loves us in spite of being sinful people. In God's eyes, pride, envy, and greed are every bit as deadly sins as, for example, lust. Compared to the holy perfection of God, all of us mortal men are sinners -- the lazy, the prideful, the greedy, the lustful, all of us. Every single last one of us. God loves us anyway. It isn't because we are able to do everything God tells us we should that God loves us. It is in spite of our inability to do so. And that's where the tax collector was closer to a true understanding of real faith than the Pharisee.

The Pharisee might have been free of the sins of theft and lust, but the Pharisee reveled in the sin of pride, unashamed and unrepentant. The Pharisee was a sinner and unashamed and unrepentantly so, even in the very House and face of God. In contrast, who knows what specific sins the tax collector might have committed? For all we know, the tax collector might have been a pretty outstanding citizen himself. But the tax collector understood that it didn't matter how many things he got *right*, but those things, many or few, he got *wrong* that he needed forgiveness for -- forgiveness which Jesus taught God would give all who asked and strove. It doesn't matter in God's eyes how few sins you have if you refuse to acknowledge or refuse to try to overcome them; and it doesn't matter how *many* sins you start out with if you're willing to be honest and try to be better.

It's not whether or not we sin. We all do. It's not about what *kind* of sin. Doesn't matter. It's not about whether we will fail to resist temptation. We *will* fail, again and again. The promise and the beauty of Christianity is that we don't have to *be* perfect. We only have to honestly *try*. And an all-knowing God knows our hearts, even if the world sees only the repeated failures. It ultimately begins from whether we have the self-honesty to recognize our own sins of pride, greed, wrath etc. -- whatever our own sins might be -- and the courage to try to overcome them. The wisdom. The humility.

The Book of Romans takes off from there, and is considered by many Christians to be the next most important book of the Bible, after the four Gospels of Christ. (I personally think the book of James is just as important as Romans.) But I think it's that self-recognition, that wisdom, that humility, from which any true Christian faith must begin. The wisdom that James was speaking of when he wrote:

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. (James 3:13).

And that's why I too have a lot of respect for the Real Live Preacher, more than any dozen holier-than-thou right-wing so-called Christian political activists. Because the RLP has the same wisdom, the humility, with which the tax collector in Jesus' parable spoke. And he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Thanks for sharing.

[culfinriel.livejournal.com]

Since Turnberry already spoke so thoughtfully and eloquently, I shall indulge my baser instincts and play the philistine.

At least he didn't advocate dancing.