Well, I’m not feeling very inspired today, and I don’t know how many of you check out the “Recent Comments” menu in my sidebar, but since a visitor decided to comment on one of my older posts, let me point you toward that thread, with her comment and mine of course being at the very end of things. And, I’ll have a couple quick things to say below after you’re done.
The Tongue Is a Consuming Fire
I’ve mostly said what I wanted to in my comment to christina. But, I can add a couple things.
First, I’m not going to ever hesitate to criticize a fellow Christian, or a branch of Christianity, if I feel the need. The Word of Faith movement, in particular, troubles me with it’s credo that faith will bring prosperity meme. Because the flip side of that is that if you suffer or lack, you have failed God in some way. That God is making you poor or you are keeping yourself poor because you just don’t pray hard enough. That’s such a dangerous attitude, and an arrogant one…and so out of line with the Word of God that I think it borders on heresy.
I am not shy about admitting my own failings, which are many and frequent. And I also won’t hesitate to point fingers when I see supposed Christian brethren leading people astray or doing harm to the psyches of those whom they case aside or essentially ridicule for not being good enough because they aren’t successful enough.
Anyone who acts like they have all the answers to all the questions is arrogant. And when they lift up worldly things as evidence of God’s favor…and have us chasing after such things instead of cleaving closer to God’s Word with actions and concerns outside of our wants and desires…that’s just wrong.
I agree with you on the folks who think that all suffering is a result of evil. Jesus actually preached against that mindset.
Excellent point. At the end of the day, none of us have all the answers to think we know the mind of God is complete foolishness.
Boy, now that I look back on today’s brief post, I should have read it before hitting “publish” and done some copyediting.
😛
I prayed like hell to get cured of my gender dissonance, and it just got worse and worse. Then, a couple years after rejecting Christianity, I rejected my white male privilege. I changed my name, the gender marker on my drivers license, and started living as a woman. I changed my social status from top dog (white male) to one or two up from the bottom (white queer trans woman). Then Christians started rejecting me! And life started getting a lot better…
Hmmmm… Is there an object lesson here???
Well, sometimes, when a Christian rejects you for being who you are, it’s a pretty good indication that they may not be following Jesus’ model of embracing people and reaching out.
😉
Not that I’m saying every Christian should accept every person as a friend or never steer clear of certain people for their own safety, but steering clear of a person simply for being transgendered would indicate to me that such people are a bit weak in their Christian charity, love, etc.
I think it’s interesting, though, that – following the “word of faith” logic – I violated all the “laws of God” (well, maybe not quite ALL), and failed at the prayer, yet still got the reward as if my faith moved a mountain. Pretty cool. But kinda flies in the face of that particular credo…