A few things that are on my mind this morning.

Persecution Is a Sign You Might Be on the Right Track — Fight ‘Da Power

I’m not one to jump on the “Christians are always being persecuted” bandwagon, but in China (as in the Middle East), it is a reality.

I think the fact that Chinese Christians are being persecuted is a good thing. (Don’t confuse this with me liking the fact they are being oppressed.) I think shows that they’re on the right track. The true cross is an enormous threat to existing power structures. The fact that our government embraces the Christian religion ought to tell you something. Christianity in the United States supports the existing power structure rather than defying it.

Christians Don’t Have Rights

I just read someone on Facebook saying something about “standing up for our rights as Christians” against gays, Muslims and atheists who would take those “rights” away. Really? What rights? The right to walk in the power of the Living God? NO ONE can take that away! No one! Jesus never said we should have the “right” to pray in schools, etc., nor did His early disciples. They were put in prison for crying out loud, and kept on keeping on anyway in JOY — not righteous anger over losing some perceived “right.” Wake up, people!! The true power of the Holy Spirit has NOTHING to do with where we are permitted to pray or whether or not Chick Filet is a popular eatery. :-/ And anyway, don’t forget that there was plenty of “prayer” in schools when black children weren’t allowed to attend those schools because of their perceived inferiority. Why fight for the right for what must have been empty, repetitive words?

The Log in My Own Eye

So yeah, this sort of blindness is aggravating me to no end. I wish I felt more love than judgement about this. I suppose it comes from a couple of things: my despair at seeing the world in this state when the gospels so clearly state it could be otherwise if we truly followed Jesus, and my frustration at being told how to believe by Christians who themselves are not living a life of Light. I want to scream, “You whitewashed tombs! You are blocking the WAY!!” I mean, when my church split up because of a vicious marital breakup and I watched everyone take sides while cruelly maligning others, it completely blasted me into the reality that most often, Christianity is nothing but a bunch of blah, blah, blah that doesn’t hold up to the test. And that infuriates me, because I believe the Way of Jesus is the closest we will ever get to absolute truth in this dimension.

But then I remember that NO ONE on Earth really and truly knows what’s up, and that we’re all looking for a leader of some sort to follow. For me, of course, that’s Jesus. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt hopeful that a Christian preacher, yogi or monk had the absolute answers so I wouldn’t have to impatiently wait to be taught by the Spirit. So I need to ditch the anger about other people being on the wrong track, because shoot, we’re all on the wrong track to some extent.

I know I seem fanatical about all this, and I am. I have my reasons, which I’ll likely write about in my next post.

Until the next brain dump, Cheers!