Jerry Falwell And Another Kind Of Christian
"i believe, collectively, christians talk a good game, seldom play the game and when they do play the game they desire to change the rules to fit their needs at the time - let me make this point, collectively, the "christian church" claims over 6 billion members - ok, and we still have poverty? we still have homelessness? we still have starvation? we still see only those "true republicans" as "true christians?" we still do not get the idea that we are suppose to make a difference in the world, not become part of the world?"
The quote is from a blog called Ginkworld and a post http://ginkworld.blogspot.com/2007/05/tune-of-collective-ass.html, written by John O'Keefe.
Assignment to class: compare and contrast Mr. O'Keefe, his faith and vision with that of the late Rev. Falwell.
I've read some stuff on blogs that is not kind to Jerry Falwell. I didn't much like him. I don't miss him. His right wing cant aside, he was the epitome of the of the "country club" church.
My thought, do you need to be a Christian to swell Mr. O'Keefe's six billion to make a difference in the world? This may be my liberal, commie, pinko inner self coming out; but, how hard, and how individually expensive could it be to reduce starvation in the world? Well probably not too easy as there are a lot of bad people and governments that don't have an interest in that goal.
Haven't thought this through yet, but it's attractive. Maybe Mr. O'Keefe needs to get together with a few Buddhists, Hindus and an athiest or agnostic or two.
9 comments:
Great post Dave. Do you need to be a Christian to change the world? I don't think so. You could be an athiest, a muslim, agnostic, whatever, and still have an impact. Just my 2 cents, and I'm a Christian :-)
Be blessed, be well.
I forgot to mention one thing. I do not know Mr. O'keefe personally, but I've read a lot of his stuff and he is very involved in the emergent church conversation. My guess is, he would not have a problem at all getting together with a few Buddhists, Hindus and an athiest or agnostic or two.
Actually, there are about 2 billion people who call themselves "Christians" - about 1/3 of the world's population.
From my experience, calling one's self "Christian" is as much a cultural designation as a religious one.
If preachers regularly exhorted "Christians" to follow Jesus's teachings, Christian ranks most likely would diminish rapidly. Really doing something for the desperate needs of others is just too hard.
Jerry Falwell's brand of Christianity, which promises the good life and makes you a member of the "in club" at the cost of an easy belief in being born again, is much less disruptive to our comfortable routine.
But fake Christianity is not Falwell's fault. It's those of us who choose it over the real thing who deserve the criticism.
religion just like everything else in our society/culture has unfortunately been tainted by the selfish, materialistic, opportunistic ideals that we're bombarded with on a daily basis through the media and entertainment.
There may have been a time when this wasn't the case, when religion, Christianity especially was "pure" and untouched by "outside" influences but those days are gone.
Key word in this comment: "Pure".
Hmm, reminds me of Al Sharpton...those who profess to be Christians shouldn't condemn other Christians...so I would say to Mr. O'Keefe: "you'll be very surprised on Judgment Day...some of the ones you expected to be there won't and some you turned your nose at will be breaking out in song...and I wouldn't wager either way on someone else's spirituality, Mr. O'Keefe (and Mr. Sharpton)."
Thanks for pointing me to another mind stimulating blog. I would love to see Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, atheists, agnostics and more really get together to work on what we all know to be good.
I too was never a big fan of Jerry Falwell. I'm sure he started off with good intentions but somewhere along the way it got skewed.
I also don't believe you have to be part of the "church" to be a Christian. I consider myself a Christian, maybe not a good one , but one none the less. I do not however attend church. I went to Baptist school growing up and saw a lot of hyprocrisy, so I choose not to go.
I don't think that makes me a bad person of a bad Christian, and I suspect that when we all get to Heaven many people in the so called moral majority will be surprised by how God sees thing.
This is a guess, but I'm thinking 85 to 90% of people who call themselves "Christian" don't really get the true message, the true miracle of Christ. His death wasn't the miracle, it was his life. He was a revolutionary who (in the Middle East of all places) felt women were equal to men. 2000 years ago, this amazing guy was telling people to love each other unconditionally. And 2000 years later, most Christians still don't get it -- they're all about the whole sin/heavenly reward thing -- rather than making a difference in the here and now. Falwell represented everything that is bad and ugly about modern Christianity and I'm so glad he's gone. Dave: Can you tell this is my favorite topic? :)
Calling Falwell 'Christian' was rather like calling neo-Cons 'conservatives' : accepting talk in place of performance. Labels are for marketing, not for conscience.
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