tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post4194831699487520335..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: A Single WordAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-39011422072686848792020-06-15T20:08:27.451-04:002020-06-15T20:08:27.451-04:00I actually like those one word exegesis sermons......I actually like those one word exegesis sermons...Because of the familiarity breeds contempt of hearing certain phrases and passages year after year as we expect to hear them, as we want to hear them, as we are used to hearing them. I always leave church happier if I feel "I learned something new today. God isn't exactly what I thought Him to be. or What a jerk I am for thinking or doing X for so long...."<br /><br />As to the unity of believers, I love it. I came back to God as a young person in a Conservative Baptist Home Mission bible study at my godless university, that drew Christians, lapsed Christians ,and all kinds of atheists and others together into fellowship groups and Bible study. Interestingly , their main message was that we should NOT all become Baptists (join their tribe) but should go back to our own frozen or hateful or boring home churches and be salt and light....I remember it felt a bit like having warmed oneself at a fire in a mountain hiking cabin and having to go back into the rain and the cold and the wind along a treacherous path. But the idea was that the priesthood of all believers and that unity we HAD experienced was real even as we scattered...<br /><br />Muslims believed also in being united, before fracturing into sects. As Christians are fractured now into denominations, and between those more evangelical, more sacramental, more good works oriented, more mystical, etc within the various denominations. Not to mention the peculiar American specialty (exported worldwide) with the cult of personality church where people basically worship some individual minister who rules as a usually benevolent despot...and unite around being part of that exclusive mini tribe of choice (and despise those outside). <br /><br />I'm being a bit flip here, but I know that at one point when deeply involved in a wonderful evangelical church here, I found myself one day thinking snarkily about my former church and the denomination I was raised in, not with the legitimate criticisms one could make on polity, or theology, or preaching, or faithfulness to love thy neighbor, etc. But simply out of a "we have it here, and they don't...." It's a natural human temptation. In the same way, we have discussed in the past the harmless and not so harmless forms of tribalism everyone is raised with...<br /><br />Having said all that, the people I have been closest to and learned from and admired are mostly fellow Christians of a more evangelical bent, most of whom grew up in completely different places, circumstances than my own. We literally have next to nothing in common except loving God in a certain way....which is analogous (don't be offended) to the way dog lovers in an anti-dog world have fellow feeling. When a relative with issues vanished some years ago, my fears about what could happen to them nearly overwhelmed me. But I could not talk to anyone about it in my supposed peer group. The people I turned to at work were not my everyday work friends or people like me, but the most fervent Xians there, who literally dropped everything and began praying. Relative was safely found...Retrieverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09036341287285545932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-23127432079291111992020-06-15T17:02:13.852-04:002020-06-15T17:02:13.852-04:00Donald Sensing claimed that Christianity brought a...Donald Sensing claimed that Christianity brought a novel approach to belonging--there was something that superseded tribe. I'm not sure what his reference for its novelty was, though.jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.com