I’ve been reading Donald Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Chrisian Spirituality
. I’m not a Christian so I ended up nosing around a few websites that I’ve never seen before.
It’s always fascinating seeing a group of people you don’t normally hang around talking, more or less, amongst themselves. You pretty quickly learn that people are people and whether there are talking about God, politics, horror movies, beauty pageants, baseball, Spanish cooking, WHATEVER - I don’t care what the subject is, but certain patterns of human behavior emerge. It’s the Serious Diehards vs. the Loosen Up, Dudes. It’s the One True Way vs. the Let’s Get Modern. It’s the Prickly Intellects vs. the Emotionals.
So here’s an interesting video of Christians bickering about some inside baseball Christian pastor stuff. The body language, the defensiveness — all very human. It’s also worth noting that they seem to have a whole TV show dedicated to it. Debate is healthy.
Chandler and Furtick from Harvest Bible Chapel on Vimeo.
I found this video on a blog I liked a lot, by thw way — Carlos Whittacker’s Ragamuffin Soul. Interesting discussion of authenticity there that would be of interest to any Seth Godin fan.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Not all Christians are interested in bickering. Theology is usually in play in this sort of scenario. There is a difference.
I may be totally reading this wrong, but I’m a little stoned, so let me know if I’m offbase: you seem surprised that religious people are prone to being… exactly like everyone else. Either surprised, or trying to point out the obvious to people who would be surprised. Either way, I appreciate the observation. In my opinion, christians tend to argue more with themselves than with other/non-religious people. Come to think of it, that’s probably true of all religions, except for Dawkinsian Athiests (anyone that dedicates their entire life to something that they don’t believe in, as Richard Dawkins does, is religiously athiest). Hell, muslims definitely argue more amongst themselves than with everyone else (unless you count “Allahu Ackbar!” as an argument).
But I think this is true when, instead of “religion,” substitute “passion,” as you (a prochoice man) found out when you tackled the planned parenthood lie. It doesn’t matter if they break the law. It doesn’t matter if the clergy are pedophiles. It doesn’t matter if the scientists admitted to fudging the data.
I’ve rambled. My apologies. I hope this made sense.
No, makes total sense — I’m not surprised, I’m just doing what I try to do over here and point out stuff that I find interesting. The specifics of the discussion and a lot of the tone / body language is really compelling.
As an evangelical pastor who works in the same milieu as Chandler and Furtick, I find these sorts of debates/dialogues very frustrating because they take something that should be understood as a “both/and” and turn it into an “either/or.” While I have no doubt there is merit in discussing the practical theology of the church, oftentimes these discussions amount to little more than adventures in missing the point because they’re poorly or incorrectly framed. Worse, they usually end up deterring people from ever setting foot in the church. “I don’t have a problem with Jesus, but his followers drive me nuts!” But once again, I appreciate your interest and willingness to at least explore something that most on the left lampoon or completely discredit.
danno, thanks for your perspective — I really appreciate it.
Lee,
Don’t know if you’re interested, but if you’d like to read a fascinating “outsider” perspective on the evangelical subculture I’d highly recommend “The Unlikely Disciple” by Kevin Roose. I think there was an article about it a year or two ago on Huffington Post. For the record, I am nowhere near as conservative as most of the students at Liberty (neither politically or theologically), but I thought Roose’s perspective was accurate, balanced and far more gracious than I would have expected from a student at Brown University. If nothing else, he’s a tremendously talented author who is enjoyable to read.
Boy Mr Stranahan you are really growing up fast. Ive always wanted to write a whole spiel about how humans when left to their base mammalian instincts are of course going to be territorial over things like breeding partners, land, shiny objects, pack status, and food. Race, religion, class, gingers, native language, culture, sport team clothing, uncommon personality traits, etc.. are really just convenient dividing lines because they can be lazily perceived by total strangers. Anything that can be perceived from a total stranger from hearing one sentence or one glance will probably have a war over it at some point. In fairness to religion is that some in their original teachings at least try to teach restraint and consequence of base instincts. Modern American protestant theology after centuries of no common leadership have sadly become an incoherent mush followed by those who would grow angry at seeing a bible burned but never get around to reading one.
I think of the Law of Moses, which seems brutal to us but the world it was given to was a “might makes right” caveman world. Under an “eye for an eye” for instance if someone broke your arm you were only allowed to break their arm. Not murder and steal everything they owned. At the time it was an early form of law above the jungle law. See Mathew 5 -when Jesus states the law of Moses was replaced with a new higher law to live by. Where thoughts counted as seriously as actions. And justified revenge was to be replaced by undeserved forgiveness. I know of no people on earth who have managed to live up to that one yet.