10 March, 2006

Random Thoughts:

I no longer desire any other material things, but to have books, books, books! Not leather-bound or hard cover or gold leaved, but dozens and dozens of second hand paperbacks, rare and out of print finds from used stores. I love the atmosphere, the very smell of used book stores, whereas new books, are like, evil. The way the smell: that fresh parchment. The nonconformity of the binding when you try to open them. The feel that by merely holding them, you are depreciating them. Oh, but old books! To open one, have it fall naturally to the page that was most significant to the previous owner. To find a note written in it that's thiry years old...

I've always said I was a writer, but I'm like someone who says, "Yeah, I'm gay, and I'm still gay, even though I haven't had sex in six years."

On Christianity:

I may or may not find that all Churches of Christ have Hon as a pastor. I don't know; he's the only one I've known. He had some qualities I really respected. Not many people would take an hour a week to talk to someone like me, knowing there wasn't going to be a big profit for the church in tithes. But he kinda psyched me out a little. Like, I didn't realize they were one of those churches who thought they alone were the ones doing everything right, and everyone else was totally wrong. That's like impossible, given that we believe that no human being is perfect. I really think Hon thinks he is. Like I asked him, so if you think that unconfessed sins must be accounted for when you die, what do you do? And he was like, well, I just don't sin at all. And so I was like, so wait a minute, you think that everyone except people of Church of Christ are doomed? Only they are saved? And it blew my mind when he said, "No, I wouldn't say just everyone of Church of Christ. Mostly just the ones in my church." ! It really made me mad that, when my friend told him I'd decided to keep going to the Lutheran church, he was like, "Well, we tried." Implying that he'd tried to rescue me from damnation or something. Like I'd chosen to go back to life as a crack whore or something.

Another thing I don't understand is the "Early Christian Church" thing. Church of Christ's big hangup is immitating the church as it originated in the New Testement, with the exclusion of any kind of practice or doctrine not outlined in the Bible. That is why they do not use musical instruments. Even though there are references to them in like Psalms & such. Not in the New Testement. But the original churches didn't have flushing toilettes, either. We owe the precursers of those to the Cretes, a pagan tribe who practiced human sacrifice. And what made the first Christians so perfect anyway? It's not like Jesus even established Christianity. Those that did--the apostles and Paul and them--did a great job globalizing the Word. But they're not perfect. And the first churches were confounded with problems. That's why we have the Pauline letters.

It's kind of a touchy area to start trying to interpret God's word with too much supremacy. Too many inconsistancies arise from trying to understand everythng the Bible\God says\means. The real problem I see is that people cannot accept their human limitations. They think there must be absolute truths. I think some absolute truths may exist, but as long as we are human, and imperfect, many thngs will be elusive to us. I'd love to see more Christians unite to try to understand God, His will, His ways, and what He asks of us, instead of slandering each other and card-stacking.

I'm going to a Baptiste church again, because I think that their doctrine follows the Bible as closely as I can imagine. I see them trying to understand and follow God as best as they can, although there are things that they believe in that I think are flawed. For example, they believe in this like salvation experience--this single, definative moment in one's life at which he "accepts Christ", "is forgiven", "gives his life to the Lord", etc. They call it being "saved", "inviting Jesus into your heart", "accepting Him as your personal Lord and Savior", etc. I think it is important to do so, but I scruple a little over it being this one, big thing. Like, one minute ago, I was "lost", and now I am found. I think that Baptistes and similar denominatins, usually called "Evangelicals", teach this "conversion experience", this "Sinner's Prayer", because they realize that something must be done to become saved, to accept God. But, in general, I don't think that the Bible gives us enough of a blueprint to be sure how this is to be accomplished.

All churches seem to have theology to provide for the philosophical baffles our minds create and for which there seem to be no answers. They do it because they can't accept the incompleteness of the map the Bible provides, but I think it is dangerous to fill in the blanks with our own inventions. It is vanity to believe that, as mortals, we can ever fully understand God, but I believe that His love is available to everyone--even to those who cannot read the Bible, as they are illiterate, cannot be baptised, as they live in drought, and cannot take the Eucharist, as they live in famine.