The Almighty says he can get me out of this mess, but he's pretty sure your f**ked.

"The Almighty says he can get me out of this mess, but he's pretty sure your f**ked." You might recognize that quote from one of the battle scenes in Braveheart. It is one of my all-time favorite movie quotes. It also happens to describe the attitude many of us evangelicals have toward those who have not been “Born Again”. We have gotten caught up in a regimen of “Sin management”. We are focused on our behavior, we don't swear, we don't lie, we don't watch “R-rated” movies, so we are “IN”. Then, when we think we have our sin managed, we begin to take on everyone else's sin. We make sure that they don't do those wicked things that we used to do and if they do we make sure to try and shame or humiliate them into being just like us. When you see Christian's marching with signs that read “God Hates Fags” it just makes people line up to be just like us. Okay, well maybe not.

This “Sin Management” program is really only effective in one thing, keeping us from doing what Christ called us to do in the beginning. In Matthew 22:37-40 he says:

...‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

If we would concentrate on these commands we would be kept busy for a lifetime. I believe that it is the devil who gets us so caught up in worrying about morality because it makes us worthless. We believe we are saved by grace yet we waste our lives trying earn our salvation instead of loving our neighbor. If we begin to look at the ramifications of what it means to love our neighbor it would blow our minds.

In future updates I will talk more about just what "loving our neighbor" really means. But for now I just want to encourage fellow Christians to try forget about sin management and begin to live a life that Christ would applaud.

I have included a link to a video of the song “Grace” by U2 it defines what Grace is in a beautiful way.

Naked Aliens

Over the last several years I have become increasingly more uncomfortable and disillusioned with my belief systems, some things just didn't “fit”. Over and over I told myself I just needed to accept it all by faith. I'm not just talking about my religion, though that is a big part of it, but also my politics, my attitudes towards the world around me, the people, the planet, the systems I had grown to trust to keep it all working in harmony, everything.

I began to explore and search, reading books listening to podcasts. I really came to believe the old proverb, “When the student is ready, the master will appear”. The more I searched the more I sought, the more the answers started showing up in areas where I wasn't even looking.

I would stand back and stare at it all, and scratch my head. It was like staring at a naked alien, all green and slimy, not quite sure what I was looking at but I knew it wasn't quite right.

That's the purpose of this blog to study this naked alien standing before us and try to make some sense out of it. I promise to keep my posts short and (hopefully) interesting. I hope you'll read this and see, not something new, but something familiar, something that when you read it it's more like remembering something you had forgotten.

I hope you are entertained and informed, even if you don't agree with everything. Please feel free to comment and contact me if you like.

Paul

***In my next post I will share my favorite film quote of all time.***