Be the cliché you wish to hear...

I have learned that you can’t tell the ignorant that they are ignorant, and those with closed minds will never hear a contradictory word you speak. Any hope for dialogue is futile. You can only hope that they may see the truth when it is presented to them.
I have learned the hopeless despair that arises when I start to think about the problems in our country and our world, and their seeming insurmountable complexity. When I think about how each issue is so intricately intertwined with all the others, and to what great scale, I ask myself, “how can one person ever begin to make a difference?”

And then I learned something else.

Recently I have learned that change is happening in my own little circle. Minds are opening and ignorance is being replaced with the pursuit of understanding. Problems are being understood and solutions are being developed. The crazy thing is that some people attribute some of these advancements to my efforts to make a difference in my own life.

So, what have I learned? Sometimes a cliché or two can actually be fitting:

What we need is “a little less talk, and a lot more action!”

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

The gift that keeps on giving?

What if the way some Christians feel about "the War on Christmas" is how everyone else has always felt about the evangelistic efforts of those same Christians?

What if the perceived push by some to remove God from our schools, government, and society is simply the backlash against the overzealous attempt of some to force superficial godliness on our nation through legislation?

True or False?

I am becoming increasingly frustrated with our seemingly binary culture.  Who has convinced us that there are only 2 options, and that they are extreme opposites?  And who decided that compromise is only for sissies?  When did dialogue (multilogue?) turn into multiple concurrent monologues? And why has Christian activism been reduced to hoping that we yell the loudest by turning out the most voters?  Whatever happened to sitting down and working towards ideals that we can all agree on?

This is my perspective on religious involvement in government: instead of attempting to legislate the moral code of our own religion on the entire nation, we should work together with representatives of every major belief system in our society (including atheism!) to settle on a set of laws we can all approve of.  Anything that can’t be agreed on by a consensus probably does not belong in the laws of our nation.

Pilgrims

If our forefathers dreamed of a place where they could enforce their religion rather than the king's, they dreamed of nothing new and better than what they left. If we seek to implement that philosophy today, it is not any earthly kingdom we will drive pilgrims away from, but the Kingdom of Heaven.

Where is your God now?

If you think that we have taken God out of schools or government, then you do not understand the manner in which He has been there all along. If you think the spirituality of public institutions is an indicator of the faith of a nation, you are sadly mistaken. If you have spent time fighting to make our nation reflect only Christianity in its laws and policies, you have wasted precious time in the real fight for the Kingdom of God. Much like the heart of a person is not changed by outward conformity to God’s laws, neither are the people of a nation brought closer to the Kingdom by the whitewashing of their government. The failure to “keep God in the public” lies not with institutions- public or religious- but with God’s people, who are too willing to leave the work of the Kingdom to “the leaders” of our nation, rather than be the leaders themselves. Furthermore, when our religious liberty is taken from us, it will be the result of us trying to make our public institutions into mass outreach devices rather than using our freedom to be a light in our everyday relationships. That is how God remains in our schools, government, and nation- by being in your little piece of the world, through you.

Or is He?

Counterfeit detection?

Part of the training to work in a bank involves being able to tell the difference between counterfeit money and genuine currency.  This is accomplished, not by studying various types of fakes, but rather, by spending hours upon hours handling the real stuff.  This was the basis of a favorite analogy in the Fundamentalist Christian environment I grew up in.  The "moral of the story" was, of course, that one did not need to be familiar with other beliefs to be able to share the "Truth".  (This applied not only to other religions, but other variations {perversions} of our own Christianity).  We were encouraged to remain within the safety of our little bubble, only venturing out in groups, and properly "armed", lest our "Truth" be challenged.

Even as a youngster I was troubled by the implications: if our "Truth" is infallible, can it not withstand a challenge?  Am I to assume that everyone that believes differently than I do has malicious intent to deceive me in some way?  

Nevertheless, I have apparently always been very pleased with an opportunity to present a clever word picture, and I offered this one many times.  But cleverness doesn't always guarantee validity.  

Perhaps this well-intended analogy can still be redeemed?  I think so.  I believe that the analogy is simply incomplete.

It is certainly valid for a banker to spend countless hours studying the very purpose for their existence.  It is certainly important for them to be able to quickly identify someone intending to deceive them with a counterfeit.  However, I feel that it is also important to recognize that there are other civilizations out there with other currencies that, while different from your own, are not entirely without value.  While they may not have any value to you, and may not be valid to make a purchase in your system, they are not necessarily presented to you with intent to deceive.  The person carrying that currency truly believes in its value, and there are legitimate civilizations based entirely on that real or perceived value.

So, the moral of my updated version of the analogy is this: you are under no obligation to accept the currency of another culture, but I think it is important to differentiate between those that intend to deceive you and those who are offering you something they legitimately believe is valuable.  

To be clear: the original analogy is about how you view the currency you wish to distribute, and how you deal with counterfeit currencies that wish to devalue your own.  My version is really about how you will approach the people with different currencies, and whether or not you will devalue them.

Personal Politics?

So, this is a follow up to a previous post, in which I discussed my feelings on abortion.  Here's a quick summary:

I am content with the label "Anti-abortion".

My faith totally and completely informs my position on this.  I believe that life begins at conception, and should be protected from that time forward.

I think the term “Reproductive Rights” is bullshit.  (That’s the strongest language I have used in a public online forum to date, and I apologize if some of you find it offensive, but it is what it is...)

I don't believe there is ever an appropriate time for an abortion.  Certainly not as birth control.  And I think that two wrongs just make a really wrong situation, so I don't believe it is truly beneficial in cases of rape or incest.  Finally, when we're talking about mother's and/or baby's lives at risk, I'm just not confident enough in medicine and science to allow doctors to decide that certain death is necessary to prevent potential death.  That's personal- I'm here because my mom didn't buy it either.

So, where does that leave me?  Ready to outlaw abortion altogether?  Not so fast...

After that last post, a friend of mine asked if I was prepared to legislate my religious beliefs on the entire nation.  Yikes!  That goes against my position on religion and state.  Hmmmm, how do I reconcile these?

As I said, my position on the starting point of life is based on religious beliefs that I'm not willing to impose on others.  So, let's talk about science instead.  Let's talk about "viability".

Now, in the animal world, “abortion” is when a mother rejects her baby for one reason or another, and abandons it, leaving it to fend for itself.  “Viable” is when that newborn animal is somehow able to care for and defend itself, otherwise it is eliminated by “Natural Selection”- often contributing to some other animal’s “Survival of the Fittest”.
With that perspective in mind, I think it is safe to say that a human offspring could not be considered “viable” for a number of years after its birth. However, I’m going to assume that we’re not ready to legalize abandonment as a method of birth control.

OK, I'll admit that I'm in no way qualified to determine when a fetus might be "viable", which may be why I resort to my faith to inform my position. But I think I might have a scientifically acceptable compromise we can agree on: take the earliest recorded premature birth in which the child survived and make it illegal to have an abortion from that point on. I'm optimistic that many of us could agree to that.

Optimistic?  What does that have to do with anything?  A lot really.  See, I'm not optimistic that we could ever completely outlaw abortion in this country.  Furthermore, I'm not optimistic that abortion would stop even if we were able to outlaw it.  I think it would just become even more unsafe than it is.  So I would take that compromise as a win.  

But let's dig even deeper.  If laws couldn't/wouldn't stop this, then what is going on here?  Clearly, these are women and girls who feel that they don't have any other option.  They feel that they have no way to cope with it all: the pregnancy, and the responsibility of rearing a child.  Fear is a powerful thing, and I think the only thing powerful enough to combat it is love.  Law can't do it- it just makes it worse.  Piety only turns fear to hate.  If we want these girls to bring these babies into the world, we can't just tell them it's the law, or that they need to carry out their responsibilities- we have to love them and help them see the possibilities.  

Possibilities.  I don't know what all the possibilities are, but I think making adoption easier might be a good start.  And we need to make education more available.  And we need to turn the churches back into places of safety and love, instead of condemnation.

So, let me leave you with some other thoughts to stir you up even further:
If the church is so concerned about the welfare of babies, why are there so many babies on Welfare?
Given the option, which would you choose: an aborted baby, or a child adopted by a same-sex couple?
Why are most Pro-Lifers also in favor of capital punishment?

And finally, check out this debate for 2 more views on this topic.