Several Things
I feel the desire to make some things clear in light of recent posts and the resulting comments.

First, let me make it clear that despite all of our serious talk at times, we here at liquidthinking don't take ourselves too seriously. We feel okay to take shots at ourselves corporately and individually. As a matter of fact, I really enjoy making fun of Stephen both in front of him and behind his back. In light of this light hearted approach to ourselves, we also often feel free to not take other things too seriously either. Pretty much what that means is we like to make fun of everything else, too. You guys should relax, too. I liked the fact that when I made the PoMo trading cards, Doug Pagitt encouraged me to keep reminding people not to take things so seriously.

Second, for the most part the four of us who blog here have all been deeply hurt by church™. It also hurts to see people we care for being affected adversely by Churches™, organizations, and people who in the Name of Jesus act in ways contrary to the values of God's Kingdom. And know also that our hands aren't clean in this...we are aware of that.

Third, I personally think its okay to be angry. We've somehow confused social graciousness with grace. The two are not the same. The same Paul who rejoiced that Christ was preached out of impure motives also spoke plainly and strongly about those people who were preaching contrary to his understanding of the Gospel. In Galatians he declares "if anyone preaches a gospel to you other than what I preached, let him be eternally condemned...again I say to you, if anyone preaches a gospel to you other than what I preached to you, let him be eternally condemned." Basically, Paul was saying "if anyone jacks up your understanding of this gospel, I hope he goes to hell." Later he states that he hopes those preaching Christ and circumcision would go ahead and cut off their penises. So, in light of that example, I do rejoice that Christ is preached, but I'm going to also speak plainly about those things that I think go contrary to the gospel, his Church, and life in him.

Fourth, there is no one set "idea" we're trying to present here. As you can see from the comments we frequently disagree with each other. This is just a public forum for us to post our "working out" of all these things because we've found that it often connects with what others are going through. We don't have a lot of answers. We don't offer models on how to make it better. We only share what we have seen and heard.
posted by Jimmy at 5:17 PM | |