Quote:
Originally Posted by Duncan Ferguson
But I do think that those people are unfairly maligned, and the best you can say is that it's done unthinkingly. Seriously, what do the Christians make of someone like T-Bone, who said to Shiloh regarding his promotion of physical child abuse that he would "treat him like an unbeliever". It's not lovely knowing that there are certain people who view us as, as a group, slightly below those who would promote physical child abuse.
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Duncan, that is a great point about us Christians. Being of dualistic natures, we tend to try to evaluate the right and wrong in every situation. Rather than 'being' Christian, we tend to get wrapped up in 'acting' Christian and in so doing, stereotype both Christians and non-Christians alike.
I will be honest with you, I fail tremendously at this but I hope to get to the point where I treat everyone (to a point) as I would treat Jesus, regardless of whether one is a believer or not.
In her song
Wide Eyed, Nichole Nordeman writes lyrics that provoke me to thought:
Quote:
When I met him on a sidewalk
He was preaching to a mailbox
Down on 16th Avenue
And he told me he was Jesus
Sent from Jupiter to free us
With a bottle of tequila and one shoe
He raged about repentance
He finished every sentence
With a promise that the end was close at hand
I didn't even try to understand
He left me wide eyed in disbelief and disillusion
I was tongue tied, drawn by my conclusions
So I turned and walked away
And laughed at what he had to say
Then casually dismissed him as a fraud
I forgot he was created in the image of my God
When I met her in a bookstore
She was browsing on the first floor
Through a yoga magazine
And she told me in her past life
She was some plantation slave's wife
She had to figure out what that might mean
She believes the healing powers of her crystals
Can bring balance and new purpose to her life
Sounds nice
She left me wide eyed in disbelief and disillusion
I was tongue tied, drawn by my conclusions
So I turned and walked away
And laughed at what she had to say
Then casually dismissed her as a fraud
I forgot she was created in the image of my God
Not so long ago, a man from Galilee
Fed thousands with His bread and His theology
And the truth He spoke
Quickly became the joke
Of educated, self-inflated Pharisees like me
And they were wide eyed in disbelief and disillusion
They were tongue tied, drawn by their conclusions
Would I have turned and walked away
And laughed at what He had to say
And casually dismissed Him as a fraud
Unaware that I was staring at the image of my God?
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~ Dan
All this flashy rhetoric about loving you
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
I talk of love - a scholar's parrot may talk Greek -
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
~ C.S. Lewis