(no subject)
This is another one of those entries where Paul talks about religion and stuff so if that offends you, go away.
Holy shit with some extra emphasis on the holy.
Tonight was, perhaps one of the strangest nights I have had in a long time and I’m going to share it with you. I don’t even really know where to start but I guess that hasn’t really stopped me before.
One of my new favorite things to do is lay on the porch swing in our backyard while actively engaging in prayer or meditation. Yesterday I was involved in such activity as I was doing my best to quell my nerves prior to the InterVarsity barbeque. Though it’s been a long summer and I’ve been to most every InterVarsity related event, I still tend to get nervous because that’s the way I am in most social situations. Can’t help it much, but it’s getting better. Anyway, while doing some praying, my focus was on guidance for the future because what else could I possibly ask for?
So, I wrapped up my time outside, came back in, and started to chat away on the internet because that’s what I do. Not 5 minutes after I’d come back in, I received an e-mail from Amanda. She’s the president of IV this year and the girl that had originally invited me to InterVarsity in the first place. I tend to listen to her when she says things because I believe that God puts people in your life for a reason and she’s certainly been influential in moving me along my path, whether she knows it or not.
Anyway, the e-mail was an invite from her to everyone to check out Lighthouse tonight. Lighthouse is the college group at Woodside, the church I used to go to. If you remember my last entry which dealt with God related things, I stopped going to church and turned my back on a lot of Christianity because I hated the experience at Woodside. But I have been a couple times recently, and Keef and I actually went to Lighthouse about a month ago.
The reason Amanda was inviting people was because they had just started a series on social justice issues. We all know how much I love social justice so of course I was intrigued. I figured I would give it a shot and then went on with my Saturday and did other things.
Fast forward to today. I’m not really sure why I decided that I was going to go to Lighthouse by myself because I never do anything by myself. I’ve barely been able to go to the IV Bible Studies alone because I get nervous and awkward and am generally a mess. I knew that there were several people I could have probably asked to go with me, but for some reason I wanted to prove to myself that I could do something alone. Keep in mind; this is a strange college program that I’ve only been to once before with people I don’t know. There are a few IV kids that attend, but I had no idea if any of them would be there (though I suppose I sort of figured Amanda would be there as she’d sent an email telling others to go).
Anyway, this was a pretty big step for me and I was nervous but thankfully (with some encouraging words from both Kyle and Jenny) I got over it and went. I got there a little early and sat in the car listening to Wolf Parade for a few minutes and finally worked up the courage to head inside.
And that is where things started to get strange for me.
About two seconds after getting out of the car I hear someone yell “Jason...er, Paul!” Of course, it turned out to be Amanda who happened to be parked right in front of me. So, instantly I was less nervous than I had been a few seconds ago because I no longer had to go into a strange place by myself. So, we walked inside, I made fun of her for calling me Jason, blah blah blah.
I took a seat and was soon joined by Adam, a pretty cool guy from IV, along with some girl I didn’t know and Amanda. Things were pretty normal from that point forward. There was some chatting, some opening worship music, and then Tony, the college pastor took the stage.
He started talking and I was like “Yay, social justice! Let’s figure out how to end poverty, AIDS, and all of that! I’m a crazy leftist and need to cut my hair!”
But that’s not where the conversation went. He said that originally, tonight was supposed to be about racism, racial reconciliation, and all of that fun stuff. But last week (which I missed) had been an open forum to talk about social justice, and while he had intended to talk about racism, it never once came up. Instead, homosexuality came up multiple times.
As you may recall, homosexuality and the Christian response has been a subject which has become very important to me since my return to the Christian faith. After Chapter Focus Week, when I wrote my last entry about all of this, I was still a little on the fence but since then I’ve done a lot more studying and I can say that I firmly believe homosexuality is NOT a sin, and I can actually defend this belief a lot better than I could three months ago. You might also recall that it’s a subject I HATE discussing with other Christians, since most of them are on the opposite side of the issue and a lot of people don’t really want to discuss it rationally and it just turns into pointless arguing. Of course, as fate (or God) would have it, it ALWAYS seems to come up anyway. I wasn’t sure exactly where things were going to go but at the very least, I was intrigued.
They started out with a short video about Matthew Shepard. There was no music and the entire room was silent. From Matthew Shepard, it went to Fred Phelps and his church of inbred fucks. Again, no music, and pretty eerie, especially seeing some of the shit those people like to wave on their signs.
Then Tony started to talk some more and things got really interesting. Quite honestly, he didn’t pull any punches. He pointed out that the church should be somewhere where EVERYONE can feel safe, but that was certainly not the case. He also said that he knew that if we did start inviting homosexuals and if they actually showed up, he knew that there would be people in the audience that would stop attending. He also said that when it came right down to it, Christians don’t really love or show love towards homosexuals. He then pointed towards a verses in Matthew which, strangely enough, I just wrote down YESTERDAY while doing some research for an essay I was planning to write. The verse is as follows:
Matthew 22
34But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
So, I thought it was a little weird that I had just written that verse down a day ago, but it’s a verse which is used quite a bit. In fact, I do believe Gregg said something about it in one of his comments after my CFW entry. I’m too lazy to double check on that, but I’m probably right.
Anyway, that was weird. But then Tony started pulling more things from the Bible. The next verse he used was 1 Corinthians 13: 1:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.
Why is this strange? Well, since February, I’ve been keeping a private journal to chronicle tales of faith and other things I don’t really feel like boring the internet with. I’ve also been reading through the New Testament and I finished up 1 Corinthians on August 10th. That verse, along with the other 12 verses that make up Chapter 13 really stuck out at me, and I copied them into my journal, and proceeded to write between 2-3 pages on them. I even wrote that it was one of my favorite passages in the Bible that I’d stumbled across so far (because it’s really good. Even though Paul wrote it).
So, again, something I had just been reading/thinking about/studying a few days prior. I was a more than a little freaked out at this point because it seemed to me that God was really trying to show me something and that is always kind of scary.
And, so, we get to the last series of verses which were also creepy and have relevance to my life. It was the story of the woman and the alabaster jar which is the story that I had to lead the Bible Study on at Chapter Focus Week. He even used the verses from Luke (I think the story is one of a few that actually appears in all four gospels) which is the book that we used for the Bible study.
I’m not sure if this is really creepy to anyone else but it certainly was creepy to me. In fact, the whole day just seemed to be a series of strange coincidences, but as I don’t believe in strange coincidences, it seemed like a series of God saying HEY PAUL PAY ATTENTION TO ME. I’m not crazy enough to think that I have conversations with God where he actually talks to me and tells me to go to war or other silly things, but I do think there’s times when he intervenes in my life to show me something and I have to believe that this was one of those times. You might think I’m crazy but that’s okay.
Most of the things Tony said were things I agreed with him on entirely. Of course, we definitely disagreed on whether or not homosexuality was actually a sin, but I expected that much. I don’t really expect to change that many minds with what I now know, but I can argue my point a lot better than I could before and I know my shit. Tony said that there were 4 verses he’d studied which had lead him to that conclusion, though there are 8 verses in the Bible which are typically used to paint homosexuality as a sin, and two of those relate to Sodom and Gomorrah, which doesn’t actually have anything to do with homosexuality, anal sex, or anything like that.
He also mentioned the Exodus International, though he said he was wary about it because he hadn’t actually done much research on them. I HATE Exodus International, and if you look into some of the methods they use to, it’s really messed up. Not to mention I don’t think that being gay is something you can cure, so their entire existence is pointless. I don’t want to talk too much about them, but the vast majority of people that they “cure” don’t start being straight, they just lose sexual desire all together. Of course, you don’t really hear about that.
But he invited anyone with questions or opposing view to e-mail him sometime this week and he is definitely open to dialogue. I’m certainly going to take him up on that offer.
I’m really excited about the entire social justice thing they are doing. I certainly preach social justice all the time, but as far as actually living it, I’m kind of a slacker. I want to become actively involved and actually try to live out the message behind the teachings of Jesus. Next month, InterVarsity is actually doing an outreach thing on campus to raise money and awareness for AIDS and I’m VERY excited about participating in that.
So, that’s about all I have right now. I must work early. Also, I love you guys. I hardly ever say nice things about my friends, but y’all are the best, even if you didn’t take the time to read anything I had to say.
Holy shit with some extra emphasis on the holy.
Tonight was, perhaps one of the strangest nights I have had in a long time and I’m going to share it with you. I don’t even really know where to start but I guess that hasn’t really stopped me before.
One of my new favorite things to do is lay on the porch swing in our backyard while actively engaging in prayer or meditation. Yesterday I was involved in such activity as I was doing my best to quell my nerves prior to the InterVarsity barbeque. Though it’s been a long summer and I’ve been to most every InterVarsity related event, I still tend to get nervous because that’s the way I am in most social situations. Can’t help it much, but it’s getting better. Anyway, while doing some praying, my focus was on guidance for the future because what else could I possibly ask for?
So, I wrapped up my time outside, came back in, and started to chat away on the internet because that’s what I do. Not 5 minutes after I’d come back in, I received an e-mail from Amanda. She’s the president of IV this year and the girl that had originally invited me to InterVarsity in the first place. I tend to listen to her when she says things because I believe that God puts people in your life for a reason and she’s certainly been influential in moving me along my path, whether she knows it or not.
Anyway, the e-mail was an invite from her to everyone to check out Lighthouse tonight. Lighthouse is the college group at Woodside, the church I used to go to. If you remember my last entry which dealt with God related things, I stopped going to church and turned my back on a lot of Christianity because I hated the experience at Woodside. But I have been a couple times recently, and Keef and I actually went to Lighthouse about a month ago.
The reason Amanda was inviting people was because they had just started a series on social justice issues. We all know how much I love social justice so of course I was intrigued. I figured I would give it a shot and then went on with my Saturday and did other things.
Fast forward to today. I’m not really sure why I decided that I was going to go to Lighthouse by myself because I never do anything by myself. I’ve barely been able to go to the IV Bible Studies alone because I get nervous and awkward and am generally a mess. I knew that there were several people I could have probably asked to go with me, but for some reason I wanted to prove to myself that I could do something alone. Keep in mind; this is a strange college program that I’ve only been to once before with people I don’t know. There are a few IV kids that attend, but I had no idea if any of them would be there (though I suppose I sort of figured Amanda would be there as she’d sent an email telling others to go).
Anyway, this was a pretty big step for me and I was nervous but thankfully (with some encouraging words from both Kyle and Jenny) I got over it and went. I got there a little early and sat in the car listening to Wolf Parade for a few minutes and finally worked up the courage to head inside.
And that is where things started to get strange for me.
About two seconds after getting out of the car I hear someone yell “Jason...er, Paul!” Of course, it turned out to be Amanda who happened to be parked right in front of me. So, instantly I was less nervous than I had been a few seconds ago because I no longer had to go into a strange place by myself. So, we walked inside, I made fun of her for calling me Jason, blah blah blah.
I took a seat and was soon joined by Adam, a pretty cool guy from IV, along with some girl I didn’t know and Amanda. Things were pretty normal from that point forward. There was some chatting, some opening worship music, and then Tony, the college pastor took the stage.
He started talking and I was like “Yay, social justice! Let’s figure out how to end poverty, AIDS, and all of that! I’m a crazy leftist and need to cut my hair!”
But that’s not where the conversation went. He said that originally, tonight was supposed to be about racism, racial reconciliation, and all of that fun stuff. But last week (which I missed) had been an open forum to talk about social justice, and while he had intended to talk about racism, it never once came up. Instead, homosexuality came up multiple times.
As you may recall, homosexuality and the Christian response has been a subject which has become very important to me since my return to the Christian faith. After Chapter Focus Week, when I wrote my last entry about all of this, I was still a little on the fence but since then I’ve done a lot more studying and I can say that I firmly believe homosexuality is NOT a sin, and I can actually defend this belief a lot better than I could three months ago. You might also recall that it’s a subject I HATE discussing with other Christians, since most of them are on the opposite side of the issue and a lot of people don’t really want to discuss it rationally and it just turns into pointless arguing. Of course, as fate (or God) would have it, it ALWAYS seems to come up anyway. I wasn’t sure exactly where things were going to go but at the very least, I was intrigued.
They started out with a short video about Matthew Shepard. There was no music and the entire room was silent. From Matthew Shepard, it went to Fred Phelps and his church of inbred fucks. Again, no music, and pretty eerie, especially seeing some of the shit those people like to wave on their signs.
Then Tony started to talk some more and things got really interesting. Quite honestly, he didn’t pull any punches. He pointed out that the church should be somewhere where EVERYONE can feel safe, but that was certainly not the case. He also said that he knew that if we did start inviting homosexuals and if they actually showed up, he knew that there would be people in the audience that would stop attending. He also said that when it came right down to it, Christians don’t really love or show love towards homosexuals. He then pointed towards a verses in Matthew which, strangely enough, I just wrote down YESTERDAY while doing some research for an essay I was planning to write. The verse is as follows:
Matthew 22
34But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
So, I thought it was a little weird that I had just written that verse down a day ago, but it’s a verse which is used quite a bit. In fact, I do believe Gregg said something about it in one of his comments after my CFW entry. I’m too lazy to double check on that, but I’m probably right.
Anyway, that was weird. But then Tony started pulling more things from the Bible. The next verse he used was 1 Corinthians 13: 1:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.
Why is this strange? Well, since February, I’ve been keeping a private journal to chronicle tales of faith and other things I don’t really feel like boring the internet with. I’ve also been reading through the New Testament and I finished up 1 Corinthians on August 10th. That verse, along with the other 12 verses that make up Chapter 13 really stuck out at me, and I copied them into my journal, and proceeded to write between 2-3 pages on them. I even wrote that it was one of my favorite passages in the Bible that I’d stumbled across so far (because it’s really good. Even though Paul wrote it).
So, again, something I had just been reading/thinking about/studying a few days prior. I was a more than a little freaked out at this point because it seemed to me that God was really trying to show me something and that is always kind of scary.
And, so, we get to the last series of verses which were also creepy and have relevance to my life. It was the story of the woman and the alabaster jar which is the story that I had to lead the Bible Study on at Chapter Focus Week. He even used the verses from Luke (I think the story is one of a few that actually appears in all four gospels) which is the book that we used for the Bible study.
I’m not sure if this is really creepy to anyone else but it certainly was creepy to me. In fact, the whole day just seemed to be a series of strange coincidences, but as I don’t believe in strange coincidences, it seemed like a series of God saying HEY PAUL PAY ATTENTION TO ME. I’m not crazy enough to think that I have conversations with God where he actually talks to me and tells me to go to war or other silly things, but I do think there’s times when he intervenes in my life to show me something and I have to believe that this was one of those times. You might think I’m crazy but that’s okay.
Most of the things Tony said were things I agreed with him on entirely. Of course, we definitely disagreed on whether or not homosexuality was actually a sin, but I expected that much. I don’t really expect to change that many minds with what I now know, but I can argue my point a lot better than I could before and I know my shit. Tony said that there were 4 verses he’d studied which had lead him to that conclusion, though there are 8 verses in the Bible which are typically used to paint homosexuality as a sin, and two of those relate to Sodom and Gomorrah, which doesn’t actually have anything to do with homosexuality, anal sex, or anything like that.
He also mentioned the Exodus International, though he said he was wary about it because he hadn’t actually done much research on them. I HATE Exodus International, and if you look into some of the methods they use to, it’s really messed up. Not to mention I don’t think that being gay is something you can cure, so their entire existence is pointless. I don’t want to talk too much about them, but the vast majority of people that they “cure” don’t start being straight, they just lose sexual desire all together. Of course, you don’t really hear about that.
But he invited anyone with questions or opposing view to e-mail him sometime this week and he is definitely open to dialogue. I’m certainly going to take him up on that offer.
I’m really excited about the entire social justice thing they are doing. I certainly preach social justice all the time, but as far as actually living it, I’m kind of a slacker. I want to become actively involved and actually try to live out the message behind the teachings of Jesus. Next month, InterVarsity is actually doing an outreach thing on campus to raise money and awareness for AIDS and I’m VERY excited about participating in that.
So, that’s about all I have right now. I must work early. Also, I love you guys. I hardly ever say nice things about my friends, but y’all are the best, even if you didn’t take the time to read anything I had to say.