2023/11/12
Posted Tag: #Personal
Other Tags: #Linux, #Windows, #All
I go to CNN's site regularly just to see what is going on currently and that doesn't mean I always agree with CNN's reporting. It just means it is easy and I do not use sites like Fox News because their site is in a word "loud". My local PBS site is "loud" too. I mean there is a lot going on when I just want headlines and CNN does that very well. TV I like PBS News Hour but that may just be due to me getting older. I guess I am getting a little more liberal as I age. Not that I feel that PBS News Hour is liberal leaning. I guess I am trying to take politics out of what I am going to say here and I am not doing a very good job of it.
I was on CNN's site this morning and read an article by John Blake of CNN about a book Jon Ward wrote entitled "Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation". I haven't bought a book in a very long time but it was because of a question John Blake asked Jon Ward about something he apparently wrote in his book. The question was "Who or what gave you that permission?" Ward's answer was "Becoming a journalist.". They were discussing how he changed from how he was raised in a "Christian bubble" as he said to how he feels now.
What I am going to talk about here is how I was given permission within my own faith by my father when I was about eight years of age. My family had been attending a particular church mainly because my mother's family attended it. I think my father had us attend it out of respect toward my mother and her family. I do not remember at what age I started attending. I just remember Sunday school with other kids and how we did projects and such. I should say my father was raised in a very strict Christen household where he said his father would not let the kids play with Old Maid cards. I understand why my grandfather didn't want the kids playing with them but I am not getting into that here. In my family we played cards all the time when I was young. My father was probably raised in the "Christian bubble" this author wrote about but he had his own way of dealing with Christianity.
When I was around eight we suddenly stopped attending church and I am not really sure of why other than my father said it was something about a sermon given one Sunday about divorce. Whatever the reason we never went back. But what happened a few weeks after we left completely set me on the course I took through my life within my path pursuing Christianity.
My family got a letter from what I remember to be I think a few women of the church congregation. They expressed how my brother and my souls would be lost by not attending church. It was multiple hand written pages that my father sat my brother and I down on the steps of the front porch and read to us. I do not remember it all but do remember the jest of it and really remember what my father said after he finished. He said "Don't ever let anyone tell you what your relationship with God is." and "It is personal to you and only you can define it." My father never knew how much of an impact what he said that afternoon had on me.
Jon Ward in his book apparently talks about being given permission to question his Christian faith and he said becoming a journalist lead to it. I may be paraphrasing his book here but I was immediately taken back to a summer afternoon on the front porch steps of the house I was raised in some fifty three years ago. I knew exactly what a book I have never read is about.
Many declared Christians in this country have lose their way. They let a letter written to my family many years ago creep into their understanding of our Constitution which is meant for interpretation much as the Bible is. The framers of the Constitution were very aware of that. The First Amendment states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...". They knew that if you let the church into our government is a losing proposition. As a Christian I agree with that. I went into the Navy because I agreed with it and I was willing to die for the Constitution.
There are a lot of issues in this country and the world really right now. And it all is about power. A power any true Christian never wants because it is dangerous. It corrupts faith and has lead to many wars in our history but apparently we never learn anything. We just do it all over again. The church needs to stay out of our government and to want it in is about power over others. That is not a Christian belief no matter how you want to package it.
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