Things are not as they seem

i can imagine that i come off as a guy who jokes alot about christianity and one who seems to not take it too seriously. sometimes i even think i joke too much about it when i'm around you guys but to be honest, it seems like there's no way to convey myself sometimes. i am very serious about the whole business of "working out my salvation" but it seems everytime i have to talk about what i believe there is conflict because i can't take sides. i've never seen so many factions in christianity til this year. you get your emergents, your emergings, your evangelists and it goes on forever. what makes it worse is that you cannot be some of each, you have to be one. well E sorta thinks so anyways. and this is what leads me to be so silly at times, keeping pictures of raptor jesus and what not. i mean what's a guy to do when he's asked to choose two sides that he does not firmly believe in?

when i was first introduced to christianity, i thought that you just had to believe and allow Jesus to change your life. i did not know about the whole business behind interpreting scripture and different theological views. i also did not know about all the political implications of being a christian. i guess you can't really be a "mere" christian anymore eh? you have to take views on abortion and same sex marriage. you have to read certian books and agree with certian pastors and writers about certian views on God and disagree with certian views on God. i've always wanted to steer clear of these things but i guess they've caught up with me and i'm going to have to deal with them. i imagine the future when maybe god willing i'll be a pastor and people will come up and ask questions like "what is your stance on abortions?" and i'll probably have to give them some concise and righteous answer involving both tolerance and holiness (what christianity is known for eh?). but an honest answer that i would give now is this...I don't know if abortions are wrong. we may be killing innocent childern and souls and we may not. things are not as they seem and only God knows these answers.

i guess what i want to say is that it saddens me. more than anything i am saddened by all the bitter conflict that this recent emergent vs. evangelical church has started. i almost wish i had never read velvet elvis and this whole sliceoflaodicea.com stuff. it's so anger and passion packed and worse of all is that it's all directed at one another. those pastors on sliceoflaodicea.com say that the emergents are heretical and that Rob Bell is misleading this generation. Then the emergents, not as loudly, say that the old way of thinking was wrong and we need to repaint the way we look at christianity. that we need a new way of looking at faith and christianity as if the way now has been going in the wrong direction for a while now. i just don't see why they can't get along.

maybe this is because i'm a linguist. i am more sensitive to words than ever and when i read those articles arguing that Bell is denying the gospel i just can't believe how the writers are so sure about the words. they read them with totally different meanings. instead of trying to understand what the other person means, they just look at the words like they mean something else. like they would mean what they mean if they themselves wrote the book.

it is absolutely ridiculous. there is no trust that the other party has done some research and that God may be using them to say a truth. there is only critizism. i love critical thinking but i think there is a point where it goes too far.

and this is where i am. standing on the fence again. just when i got off one, another one springs up from the ground and seperates friends. stop protecting the faith. i'm sure that if scripture is God breathed, he'll make sure it stays that way.

so you know now why i don't really like saying i'm a christian. because i don't identify with those people who argue against one another over who is "right". but at the same time, i can't imagine being anything other than a christian. having this vibrant and amazing relationship with God that i have yet to fully understand.

it reminds me of the sermon yesterday and the baptism service that i went to. you can never really explain to people what it means when you encounter God. only that you have and when you have, you never forget.

i guess that's what i really want to say. that i am confused about why we all need to fight each other to protect the faith. i am confused about how much time and effort into fighting things like abortion and same sex marriages when real issues like feeding the poor are not addressed. i am most confused about how theology is the "study" of how we view God rather than the emphasis being placed on him reveiling himself to us. i mean it's kind of hard to study the maker when you are the creation.

i just want to be a mere christian. without all this political and theological baggage.
so if i've hidden my faith, you know why now because people die for and die because of this thing called christianity