A Word in Time

Today is the celebration of the festival of Christ the King and this week's appointed bible readings focus on the theme of "The King of Kings". Bible study written by me over at A Word in Time.

Faith in Your Damnation

I don't have faith in your damnation. You whose Christianity doesn't meet some standard of "good enough". Or you who are a Jew, a Muslim, a Bahai'i, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Pagan, or maybe "spiritual but not religious", I don't have faith in your damnation.

Don't get me wrong. You and I might both very well be damned. But, thanks be to God, it's not my job to decide who, if anyone, is damned. That job belongs to God.

However, you might very well have got the impression from many of my fellow Christians that the main meaning we Christians derive from our faith is that you are damned and we are not. And I don't blame you if you've got that impression because I think that's the main message that Christians have communicated.

After all, some would argue, why be a Christian if everyone else is going to get into heaven too?

We've made the "good news" into the message "Good news! God will love you if you are just like us and believe exactly what we tell you to believe." But the flip side of that belief is "Bad news! God doesn't love you for who you are."

The only people who can't seem to see through this message is us.

That's a funny kind of faith - a faith that mainly focuses on the question of who is outside the Holy Fence. To talk to a lot of Christians, it's as if there isn't actually any meaning, reconciliation with God or salvation to be found inside Christianity, so we need to find our meaning in the idea of "Thank God I am not like that sinner." (Oops, didn't Jesus have a parable about that?)

Do we Christians really believe that there is good news at the heart of Christianity? Can we stand before God, just me and God, and find forgiveness, reconciliation, transformation of life? Or can we only feel "saved" if we have the comforting knowledge that there are some people who God just doesn't like - not now, not ever?

Obama, a Socialist?

I thought my American friends might find this post by my friend Doorman Priest interesting:
Joke of the Day

The Democrats are to the Right of our Right wing Party, the Conservatives. Our Left Wing party, the Labour Party, is Socialist. To any American readers please be aware that European Socialism is not the same as Stalin's Gulags or Kim Il Jong's worker's paradise. Some of you would get along just fine here: democracy, free press, a fairly civilised political landscape ... oh no, not that last one: you wouldn't recognise that. And we tend to lock up dangerous people rather than giving them talk shows to host. Just saying.

I become mildly offended when some folk insist on discussing Socialism as if it's symbol is 666. Really people, think before you speak!