My response to a sermon a friend asked me to listen to - it can be found here
Sermon from 5/18/14 at Chase Oaks Church.
I sent my notes to the preacher, Jeff Jones, his personal assistant said he would be responding shortly but he never did.
My friend said my notes made her think, I asked her about talking to her preacher about a few things out of curiosity. She said although she had been attending there for five years she had never actually met or talked to the guy. Interesting.
I don't think you need to listen to the sermon necessarily to read the notes but you can if you would like to:
I sent my notes to the preacher, Jeff Jones, his personal assistant said he would be responding shortly but he never did.
My friend said my notes made her think, I asked her about talking to her preacher about a few things out of curiosity. She said although she had been attending there for five years she had never actually met or talked to the guy. Interesting.
I don't think you need to listen to the sermon necessarily to read the notes but you can if you would like to:
This will be sort of stream of consciousness from notes I took
as I listened to the sermon, "Boycott the boycotts". I might use the
language of speaking for all non-believers when I don't, just like I know the
preacher does not speak for all Christians.
Starts with comparing the church's outlook to DNA. Its
interesting to me that religion tries more and more to relate to science. One
can respect science and be religious, but any effort to make religion seem
scientific when it has no regard for evidence makes me suspect.
"We all have tricky relationships'…. Yes part of the
human condition J
Breakdown of Christianity vs. culture…
This is where it kind of lost me logically. It’s a false
dichotomy, an "us vs. them",
in-group/out-group thing that is frustrating about religion to begin
with.
And it avoids the issue that within the faith that dichotomy
exists on its own. Culture is ALL of us in the community, Christians contribute
both good and bad to the culture as much if not more so than non-Christians.
Especially given the fact that Christians whether they feel marginalized or not,
ARE the majority.
"the people of this culture think differently from the
bible"
GOOD. One does need
to ask the difficult question: is the bible even worth following? It espouses
genocide, infanticide, rape, murder and slavery. The atonement of Jesus
bypasses the question of could a loving parent deity not just forgive? why not?
Why demand a blood sacrifice? Many non theists today are not unfamiliar with
the bible. They don't abandon it to sin, they looked at it, examined it closely
and reject it due to its own lack of merit. Christians don't need to bear a
burden of exposing us to the bible. The claims of Christianity are already
accessible.
Scientifically, markers of well-being improve the less
religious a society is.
Then there were questions raised in the sermon about the Christian
influence and does it cause the desired influence or more backlash. Then the
scriptures were gone to specifically in Corinthians. Detailed description of Corinth and comparisons to
Vegas, etc. Which I had many head scratching moments of wondering where the
evidence for all these claims were. Do we have any historical evidence for this
information of Corinth
outside of the bible itself?.. but laying the lack of back up details to the
back burner …
- lets move on to the topic. I'll paraphrase but the general idea I got was that this chapter sets up the premise that it is ok to judge and rebuke fellow Christ followers for their sins but the church does not have that jurisdiction outside of the church.
Then the sermon took a dark turn for me in the details of how to rebuke fellow church goers "get in their way" "get them off the path" (on the path to sin) We may reject you from the fellowship because that IS biblical.. because we love you and don't want you on that path. It felt like a kind way of thought policing the congregation, sic them on each other. I’m sorry but that would keep me out of a congregation even IF I had belief.
- lets move on to the topic. I'll paraphrase but the general idea I got was that this chapter sets up the premise that it is ok to judge and rebuke fellow Christ followers for their sins but the church does not have that jurisdiction outside of the church.
Then the sermon took a dark turn for me in the details of how to rebuke fellow church goers "get in their way" "get them off the path" (on the path to sin) We may reject you from the fellowship because that IS biblical.. because we love you and don't want you on that path. It felt like a kind way of thought policing the congregation, sic them on each other. I’m sorry but that would keep me out of a congregation even IF I had belief.
Then my notes go on… I jotted down 'individual is king', 'Christ
followers are family of god' - 'different standard', my memory is fuzzy but I
took some umbrage at this false dichotomy as well.
Of all the "family" references I think it overlooked that many people that consider themselves humanists do look at the entire global community as family. The human family, all with shared trials and issues. In fact many humanists like myself are absolutely appalled at all the social injustices that continues everywhere. The overhead at churches alone could feed so many starving children, help end child pornography, etc. Now I don't want to create my own illogical comparison. Churches do offer community support and help with social causes and freethinking groups have overhead as well. It just seemed to me there were a lot of made up problems in this sermon that aren't even on the docket of the worlds most pressing problems. First world Christian problems if I may borrow a popular phrase.
Of all the "family" references I think it overlooked that many people that consider themselves humanists do look at the entire global community as family. The human family, all with shared trials and issues. In fact many humanists like myself are absolutely appalled at all the social injustices that continues everywhere. The overhead at churches alone could feed so many starving children, help end child pornography, etc. Now I don't want to create my own illogical comparison. Churches do offer community support and help with social causes and freethinking groups have overhead as well. It just seemed to me there were a lot of made up problems in this sermon that aren't even on the docket of the worlds most pressing problems. First world Christian problems if I may borrow a popular phrase.
Then from this point it was, if I could so crassly sum up:
Be nice to the world because people are starting to think we are jerks. Its not
our job to picket… side story about gay week at Disney, which I think if I had
been a gay member of the congregation would have made me very uncomfortable, While
there was no degrading of gay people there was an air of "they are the
out-group" to that example. And it was noble of Disney to treat them as
guests. Which, while that is absolutely true. We need to move on from that even
being a conversation. Gay people are just
people. Plain and simple, they don’t need anyone's ire or noble "I'm
pointing out that we aren't pointing you out because we want to be good Christians"
Then admonitions to engage culture vs. fighting the culture.
Increase your opportunities to have influence. Life is better when you follow
what god has approved (ignoring for a moment that even across Christianity that
can't be agreed on), Infiltrate and influence.. live so that people want to
know where your peace comes from so they ask what your reason for hope is.
This is where I have a few things to say about that:
This is where I have a few things to say about that:
1. Christians already have vast influence in culture,
schools, politics, and the market.
2. You put a lot of pressure on your congregants to exude
happiness at all times, they have been challenged to represent Christianity
with their glowing stories so that others will see their reasons for hope.
There were people listening with very real problems and probably some with
depression or other mental illnesses. They don't need the pressure of being the
poster child for Christianity.
3. There is also the connotation that non-believers,
atheists like myself don't have hope. We can, and do live lives of
happiness, our countenance can also be inspiring to others and people can be
influenced with our happiness and love even when our basis for that is not
rooted in Christianity (or any faith) for that matter.
4. Many Christians speak openly about their faith ad
nauseam. It might not be adding to the goal Christians have. Many of the people
that are leaving religion (that number is rapidly growing) are asking very deep, very probing questions.
Trite pronouncements of faith and hope and love is not moving the conversation
forward.
SO in short, I am very pleased with the concept of showing
love more than judgment. Those nuggets I was impressed with but overall I think
there was a lack of understanding for the group in which you labeled 'culture'
and excluded yourself from being a part of.
It might come as a surprise but to some degree Christians
like Westboro Baptists are considered (while completely vile) more
intellectually honest. They unabashedly take the Bible at its face value,
Christians that move the goalposts, claim truth but speak in vagueness confuse
me more. Address us all as the humans that we are, address your religion with better
evidence and that will gain more influence for those not engaging with
Christianity anymore.
