Being honest.

     I'm sitting here sipping on my chai tea, contemplating whether I should read more of my beloved Persuasion or my assignment for Comparative Worldviews. Guess which one I'm more excited about??? Actually, comp. wv's (as I like to abbreviate it) isn't that bad. On the contrary, I really like it.

     Last week we dissected humanism, naturalism, and secular humanism. It was really scary actually to see how much of our culture is permeated with bad stuff. What do I mean by "bad stuff"? I mean creating a perverted generation by exposing young children to ideas and concepts that have consequences through subconsciously educating them in areas that they shouldn't have knowledge of until older, if not ever. Music, television, books, public education especially. There were definitely some moments during that module that I just put my head in my hands and went, "you've got to be kidding me". Either that or I groaned because there's just so many lost people, and decidedly lost people at that.

     On one humanistic website I was reading one of three manifestos and decided to check out their "humanistic suggested reading." They gave out suggestions for books and movies that secular humanistic parents should show their kids. A list of recommended authors was on there, the first one being Louisa May Alcott....did I miss something there? And then they talked about the importance of children knowing bible stories because of how much they are referred to. But how they were to show their children these stories without them becoming religious was something else.

"...if Bible stories are read in the same way that one might read ancient Greek myths or the mythologies of other cultures, it's possible to understand them for what they are: Hebrew and Christian myth and legend. And then they can be appreciated and enjoyed without being believed."

And they continue to assuage the fears of these humanistic parents by saying:

"There's nothing to worry about in all this. No humanist child has been known to have "gotten religion" just from reading a children's book or viewing a video that tells Bible stories. Still, it always helps if a parent discusses any material with a child."

     Wow. It's really put my own beliefs into perspective. I've not questioned them, no; on the contrary they have only been strengthened. How others might view my "spiritual life" though is becoming more clear and I'm slowly realizing just why some people might hate Christians. "We didn't do anything wrong, we're just trying to show you the TRUTH!!!" <--Sometimes how I feel.

     Something the atheist Richard Dawkins said in a two hour debate I had to watch was that "religion is dangerous". John Lennox (the one debating with Dawkins, a Christian scientist/philopher with a great Irish accent) gave a marvelous point though. (And this isn't word for word)

"Yes, if religion didn't exist there'd be no 9/11, no Crusades, no holocaust, etc...but, and I'm only speaking for the Christian religion, every time that there was a tragedy of some sort that came about because of Christianity, it's always been because they weren't following Christ."

    Please note, that's just what I've pulled from memory that's already fading, I did not do him justice, but what he's saying is that when we don't follow Christ we will probably fail. And others are going to look at us and think that we're just another religion that posts ads on youtube and is headstrong and "love thy neighbor" but never does a thing about it. And yes, there are some hypocritical Christians, though, I don't know if they really are Christians, but that's not for me to discuss.

      I think that before we embark on an outreach or mission trip or just go shopping we need to realize a few things:
1. Everyone has a worldview and your worldviews are going to clash.
2. You won't be able to hammer Christ into someone and hope that the nail stays.
3. People of other worldviews probably have a misconception about Christianity (or maybe it's a correct assumption, but it's probably because of some previous bad experience with a Christian). So they might will almost positively think of you and your beliefs differently than you do.
4. There's a lot of headstrong people out there just waiting to pick a fight. We can't think that just because we're right we're going to be able to disprove all of their beliefs and make them convert on the spot. It's about showing love. Living out your mission. You could hand out pamphlets saying that we should all love our neighbors like ourselves and if you're burdened down you should pray, but if you don't "practice what you preach" (sometimes clichés just can't be replaced) no one is going to listen to you.

     Look at it this way, if someone tells you that you shouldn't listen to vulgar music but they listen to it themselves, are you going to actually consider their recommendation as valid? And if someone said, "you really should try and abstain from impure thoughts/actions" and they themselves have remained pure and are able to encourage you in the process, would you pay more attention? I think that I would.

     We're not going to be perfect. We won't be able to constantly be living out the 10 commandments, and that's not expected of you, but we need to be ready to humble ourselves and go, "you know, I'm struggling with the exact same thing."

     Christians, everyone sins. You sin, I sin, your great-grandma's cousin's child that died at the age of 1 sinned. And we can't go around telling people about their sin if we aren't honest about our own.
I think that statement sums it up.

    So, my friends, in light of that, here's something that I am honestly struggling with today:
I like to judge and not get into people's lives so that I can get to know them for who they really are. Granted, I'm always really happy once I have, and it's not that I go around and say, "Oh, I don't like them."
     In fact, I rarely say out loud that I don't like something about a person; but inside I have this...what might you call it, assumption of a person's character. And sometimes, it is probably true, but a lot of times I've been proved wrong, wrong, wrong. If I am just collecting data about a person from what they  set out there for me to see, I'll never get to know who they really are. It's kind of a two way train.
I need to make sure that I'm presenting my true self to people so that they will present who they really are to me and then I won't be tempted to think negative/false/presumed thoughts about them.

     So this has become much longer than I thought it would, my chai tea is gone and I have yet to decide if I'll read Persuasion or Making Sense of Your World. But whichever one I choose I'll at least have the knowledge that today I was honest with you.