Bubble Church

When I checked my rearview mirror... I could see the church in the distance.. A large building with large walls... built sturdily to ride the storm like a mighty Ark.  But instead of a rainbow arched over the top (evangelicals no longer believe in rainbows).. I saw a giant transparent sheet of plastic... domed over the roof.  A see-through protective barrier like a  bubble boy.  Except it was a bubble church.... Isolated from the contaminates of the world... disconnected from everything... from life.... from other churches.. from reality.. ...from everything but it's dogmatic doctrines.. conservative cohorts.. and peer pressure politics. As it turns out... there's a whole world that exists out here.. and so Im wondering how it all ever got locked down to (relatively) a few people... inside a few buildings... for a few hours on a Sunday morning.  I needed it all to be bigger.  And what I wanted to know was... is there anything else out here?...anything in the world besides strained bootstraps and disapproving eyes. My eyes scanned the streets and sidewalks for signs of life...  and I rememberd 11th street.. which in Tulsa Oklahoma is route 66... maybe I'd head up North to Chicago or out West to California... Then I turned my head down.. and turned off of 71st street north... down Sheridan Rd. towards 11th street... Waving bye-bye to the church and it's Tulsa sized Bible Belt... all the way singing Walk on the Wild Side... (Lou Reed.. #223 on "the list" ).

Disclaimers:
1).  This is a blog about the journey of life.  It's not about religion.  For me.. it involves religion at times because that's part of my journey.
2).  my church is not off of 71st street.  I changed the street name to protect their identity.
3).  The religious issues I have aren't with a church...  But a movement (primarily evangelical fundamentalism as it exists). 
4).  There are people in this group who've committed their lives to love without condition.  They are a minority but they are persistent.  Im incredibly thankful for these people.  God Bless. 

Lost in Mistranslation

Labels never quite stretch out big enough to encompass the totality of a real..... live.... person.

I have a friend who... if identified by his labels... would be "a trip" at best.  He's a Gay... Evangelical.  He's registered as a Republican, often voting Democrat... He watches Fox news and Glen Beck but last election voted for Barak Obama.

He attends events like "Pride" (GLBT event) and "Hill song concerts" (evangelical worship event).  He's also a heavy smoker.

He believes in the real Resurrection of Jesus and the end of the world with a  rapture..... but he often jokes (or at least I think he's joking) that he has stocked his cellar with hundreds of cartons of cigarettes with the expectation that... judgement and divine apocalypse aside... he won't, "make it the first go round."

He hangs out primarily with gay men, (or whoever else feels comfortable enough with him) and at work he smokes with anyone who will smoke with him... including one of the obvious floor homophobes... who he seems to treat as a really good friend.

He often talks religion and God and has even lost multiple friendships with gay skeptics... because of his unwillingness to abandon his faith.  However he believes being gay is not a choice.  He knows "what the bible says"... on "the gay issue".... but believes the language comes from a pagan culture where there's something "not entirely right" about how certain words and phrases have been translated.        

He would one day like for his country to recognize the rights of himself and his other GLBT friends to form legal and binding commitments to the partner of his/her choosing.... and believes it's a tragic mistake that his friends don't share all the legal rights afforded heterosexual couples such as access to  lower insurance premiums... the right to make medical decisions on behalf of partners...  etc.

He would also like for he and his gay friends to be welcomed into (as he puts it) a "bible believing" church (should they so choose to attend one).. that "teaches about Jesus"... and he wants to be accepted for the faith that he has... regardless of differences of opinion on gay issues... much like many people who have been divorced and remarried (some.... multiple times) have differences of opinion on divorce issues.. ("a topic Jesus specifically speaks on"... as he notes) yet have been graciously received by those same types of "evangelical" churches.

What is he?

Conservative....?  Liberal...?  Evangelical?  Orthodox?  Heretic.... ?  Mistaken?   Mis-translated....? Misunderstood....?

What do you do with a guy who won't fit the mold?

The Real Jesus Forgives Your Jesus for being an idiot.

Axe to Grind:

I have a friend who hooked me up with a link to a site that sells bumper stickers.

One of the bumper stickers reads...

"The real Jesus forgives your Jesus for being a conservative warmonger".

The site is politically biased.  However my friend is not.  He's one of those (non-churched is the name he's given) believers that finds himself in a lot of different places politically.  Neither left... or right... And so consequently has a hard time in the existing religious world.

The website (and bumper sticker) came up because he was talking to me about a post that went around Facebook a few weeks ago...  It was one of those posts demanding that if you agreed... you had to repost it... so people would know you were a great Christian... or patriot... Or whether you believed certain things about Aids... or politics.. or ice cream... or cheese.

This one was political.  It read something like this:

Let's be clear on this:  Obama did not kill Bin Laden....  An American Sailor.... did.  Obama just happened to be the one in office when our soldiers finally found Bin Laden and took him out.  This is not an Obama victory, but an American victory.  Repost if you agree.  

My friend talked to me about how most of the reposts he was getting were from his Christian friends.  But he was frustrated because as he noted "the logic of the post" was all wrong.

"It's not an either/or... thing"... he said.  It's not Obama... or "the sailor".... but everyone had a job to do...  Sailors don't do things without commands... and leaders sometimes have to make tough decisions.  And so... his conclusion was.... everyone had a role to play... right?...

Which made total sense to me.

But what he told me was that as he posted that as a comment... all the "Jesus Sharks" came out... Snapping at him about George Bush...  and who deserved more credit... And all the other things wrong with Obama (in their view) and by the time he was done...  he told me... I never said anything political at all....  I just said the truth.  Then he added... "Christians don't really care much about the truth... do they?"...

And I've been thinking about the question ever since.

Do Christians really care anything about the truth?