Addison Road

38 Responses to “Church [R]ejection”

1. 1 michael lee
   30 March 2006 at 6:04 pm

   the guy with the beaded necklace is hot!

   Am i missing the point?

2. 2 harmonicminer
   30 March 2006 at 9:20 pm

   Wonder who got nailed by the walker on its way down? Remember one of the golden rules of walker safety… always know your target, and beyond.

3. 3 Stick
   30 March 2006 at 10:53 pm

   I don’t like it.

   I don’t think that spring mechanism would have enough force to launch a person (or two, in the case of the “arm around the guy” guy who is probably gay) high enough to “remove them” from the building. And along those lines, is there some sort of hatch that opens in the ceiling and roof and then closes quickly behind them causing them to roll down the roof, or are they launched to a central point in the room where there’s a giant funnel to catch them leading to a chute into the basement?

4. 4 aly hawkins
   31 March 2006 at 9:09 am

   If you guys don’t teach me not to ask open-ended questions, nothing will.

5. 5 Morphea
   31 March 2006 at 9:09 am

   Cold-hearted bastards, all of you. This is just the sort of thing that gets my woo-woo, liberal little heart right off.

   Especially that lush string pad and the killer beat at the end.

6. 6 Morphea
   31 March 2006 at 9:12 am

   By the way, what I really think is that even though it’s a commercial and our cynical little minds make fun of it, see right through it, you’re-not-fooling-anybody, it needs to be said, I’m glad somebody’s saying it and I hope many will be glad to hear it. I hope that those churches represented live it.

   The prejudice against snitty, blond, well-heeled hetero family members gives me pause, however. [smile]

7. 7 Chad
   31 March 2006 at 9:26 am

   I guess for me… Morphea’s last comment kind of ties it up, even if she’s joking.

   I don’t mind changing my views / behaviors to be part of the solution, but I am a little weary (as a Euro-descended, middle class, white, American, heterosexually married man) of being painted as the entirety of the problem. Or… a willing accomplice to the problem.

   I know this is just a little ad, and it’s creators mean well, but for me, the pfffft factor will always outweigh if I feel like the people behind the propo…err…author’s message, are not willing to look past their own stereotypes when asking me (the viewer) to consider mine.

8. 8 Stick
   31 March 2006 at 9:37 am

   Yeah, what he said.

9. 9 Morphea
   31 March 2006 at 9:54 am

   Please. It’s just like the Christmas wars. I think as people get more accepting of other cultures, preferences and colors, the pendulum IS going to swing in the opposite direction for a while. It WILL be unfair for a while. Maybe for a long time. I fear it myself, being white and hetero and all that.

   Just like holiday concerts for kids may for the moment include any religious or cultural song except for Christian and Anglo-American. Saying “Merry Christmas” is non-inclusive but nobody’s going to frown at you for saying “Happy Hanukkah”. It’s discriminatory, sure, but what do we expect? America’s been so white-bread for so long for the majority of pop culture (most culture, really) that of course there’s going to be a backlash for white and straight. It would be great if we could sort of peacefully enfold non-white, non-Anglo, non-hetero, non-patriarchal culture to live in harmony and equality, but I don’t think that’s how it works. I really think it’s going to be uncool to be white/hetero/male for a while, I think we kind of deserve it, and I’m going to accept it. For a while. I wouldn’t get tired of it just yet, because I believe it’s just getting started.

   All my opinion. “Prepare to reap the whirlwind, gentlemen!” -what movie, what movie??

10. 10 Stick
    31 March 2006 at 10:02 am

    I don’t see what the big deal is. If everyone would just act, talk, look and believe like us white guys, everybody would get along just fine.

11. 11 Morphea
    31 March 2006 at 10:06 am

    I think the church could have conveyed “you’re all most welcome, whoever you are, really” without the tennis family. But I guess it wouldn’t have been as funny or punchy or memorable.

    Humor without unkindness. Something I despair of ever learning very well.

12. 12 Chad
    31 March 2006 at 10:22 am

    Uh oh.

    It’s on.

    To the very best of my knowledge, I have never done a thing to purposefully harm someone for the specific reason that they were different then me, in skin color, creed, or sexual preference. If the liberal, secular humanist movement that we’ve been enmeshed in is really about celebrating the beauty of the individual, and lookng beyond stereotypes, and pushing into the realm that a man or a woman should be judged solely on the content of his or her character, then why is there still some wiggle room to kick my white ass around the room? Is it possible that some of those peace loving folks out there are really just kind of pissed off, and enjoying this little 20th and 21st century swing their way?

    It reeks of bullshit, and everyone knows how I feel about bullshit.

    Yeah, I take it real personal. How else can it be taken? I guess it’s not really enough to change behaviors. It’s not enough to treat gays and lesbians with respect and decency. It’s not enough to purposefully cultivate relationships with people from other races. I still have to submit to the public ass-whoopin that my great grandaddy deserved?

    F*** that. That won’t solve a damn thing.

    The problem I have with liberals as I understand them is that I have observed that many of them lack the moral will to actually act upon the tenants of their spoken values. If this “movement” doens’t have the ability to take me (Chad C. Reisser, white American male) as I am, to treat me fairly, and judge me for the content of my character then they lack spine and courage. They’re just as prejudiced as the assholes that came before them. Well… they have better music, so that IS an improvement.

    For the record, I have all ALL ALL ALL ALL kinds of problems with conservatism and conservatives, but that’s gonna have to be for a different thread, cause I got my Red State Mojo workin today, I guess.

    (Flame suit. ACTIVATE!)

13. 13 Chad
    31 March 2006 at 10:31 am

    For the record as well,

    I realize that white men from europe have done countless awful things throughout time. There is no denying that. I just refuse to be a part of a movement that isn’t about the dignity and decency of all people, including those of us descended from whose where not decent and dignified.

    Every race has it’s share of barbarians and tyrants. Is it time to stop kicking each others asses around for things we didn’t do to one another?

14. 14 Morphea
    31 March 2006 at 10:58 am

    Yes, yea, absolutely, no argument here.

    My point was that people will be unfair the other way because they’re human. By people I mean any group that was/is oppressed by hetero white men or what have you. They’re flawed, which means they’re not empirically ANY BETTER than those dickheads that made people so miserable in the past and even in the present. But they’re also bearing the weight of past pain, which right or wrong influences their behavior today. That means that they feel entitled, which means a world of hurt for you and me for what our great-grandfathers (in my case, my grandfathers) did. I may be wrong. Maybe as these groups grow in strength and influence - and they will - they’ll be kinder and gentler about it than our ancestors were, because of these past lessons. I hope they will be, I really do.

    I’m including myself, by the way, even though women were and still for some purposes are still an oppressed minority, because women enabled their own oppression in many ways. So I guess my grandmothers, god rest their souls, are culpable as well. And boy, were they. Grandma T. told me when we left for Africa not to take up with any black boys. And she still called Brazil nuts n***** toes. Eek.

    Hey, I live in Seattle, where us liberals are always patting ourselves on the back for our tolerance and open-mindedness while freely and poisonously ridiculing our conservative American siblings. It makes me sick and - though I revelled in it when we first got here, Texas’ll do that to ya - I’ve stopped engaging in it. It’s just as stupid and hurtful as the oppression us liberals rant against. So few liberals really do understand that everyone, is entitled to their opinion and way of life. Everyone. Conservatives, yes, but also racists, sexists, homophobes, right-to-lifers, pro-capital-punishmenters, anti-Bushers, everyone. Provided that they do no harm, which is where the rub is, right? Who really is doing no harm? I’m not doing no harm. You’re not either, though I think your fingerprint, Chad, is lighter on the world than most other people’s just by your nature.

    In summary (sorry, I could go on all day and night and therefore seldom let myself even address this issue), I’m on your side, brother. It’s not fair and I hope the unfairness settles down. I don’t think it will, since the minority groups are still fighting, and will continue to fight for a long time, for basic legal rights and equal recognition. While they fight they’ll be angry, and mostly rightly so. But self-proclaimed open-minded and/or oppressed persons are no better than anybody else, including the tennis families, which means the fight might not be pure, fair, or very pretty. But it could. I pray it will be. Ghandi and MLK haven’t been dead that long.

    Cerise

15. 15 Chad
    31 March 2006 at 11:05 am

    Hey…

    Shoot…

    You’re too nice. Here I was gearing up for a tussle. I thought about something as I drove from my home to the office, where I now sit. I reaized that I may indeed, due to my euro-centric, conservative roots, still be in serious need to teaching regarding the issues of relationships with other cultures and mindsets and traditions.

    I guess… I guess I just feel like there are a whole lot of us white guys who are really trying hard… and we just kind of take a lot of heat. It feels bad. Your expression was lovely, however. More than lovely, I believe it to be true. Thanks.

16. 16 Morphea
    31 March 2006 at 11:22 am

    You’re welcome.

    I know you are, love. My brother is a white male doctor, so he feels your pain. Hell, I feel your pain - I carry my own portion of white guilt. I effing hate it, but I think it shapes me into a person better-equipped to keep flowing with inevitable change. I hope.

    As for you, I believe, as I always have, that good people will form their beliefs one person at a time, which means that those who come in contact with you who are worth their space on the planet will love and value you for your excellent and very heartening (for me) effort and kind heart.

    I’m sorry, too - fiery as I am, I hate tussling. Wish I could indulge you. I would’ve gotten into it with Aly and HarmonicMinor re: poverty, but I’m easily confused, easily riled and on shaky philosophical ground for their purposes. But I still have strong opinions about it. [smile] Can of worms.

17. 17 Kansas Bob
    1 April 2006 at 6:34 am

    Even though I didn’t like some of what the video suggested I have to say that it was way too representative of Evangelical America (EA). EA has embraced ‘The Cult of the Perfect Christian Family’ head on and is impotent to deal with those ejected and rejected people that the film speaks to.

    I found this out in 1994 when my first wife died and our children started to have emotional issues … one of these kids, who spent their whole life going to church and in children/youth ministries, was labeled as rebellious. When I tried to get help for them from the pastors I was pretty much patronized and ignored … these ‘professionals’ had no clue how to help someone in that much pain.

    I think that the typical EA church labels, rejects and ultimately ejects people that they don’t understand and don’t know how to help because tehse people make them feel insecure. These rejects and ejects are the reason I quit my job and got into ministry one year ago … every day it seems that I have opportunites to cry with and minister to people who have been wounded in life and, unfortunately, rejected by EA.

18. 18 harmonicminer
    1 April 2006 at 9:03 pm

    We’re all descended from slaves, and slave owners.

    There isn’t one of us still living who has not flinched from taking what we know is necessary corrective action for evil behavior (other’s at least as much as our own), because we’re just plain chicken.

    This whole discussion IS related to the “leaders drawn from the poverty-stricken” discussion, AND it’s related to the whole issue of church membership.

    The short story: I think churches have every right to determine standards of several kinds for who will be accepted in leadership roles… they oughta shaddap about membership requirements… and if those two gay guys can stand listening to the occasional sermon the refers to sexual morality, absolutely no one should tell them they can’t come in the door, or aren’t welcome.

    And… one of the requirements for being accepted into a leadership role in ANY church ought to be the willingness to hold a standard of response to individuals and deliberate, specific avoidance of stereotypes that WOULD allow a “poor person” to be welcomed in a leadership role, if they met other necessary standards.

    BTW… I made fun of the walker bit in the ad, because I do not know of any church that discriminates against the elderly and infirm… though not enough of them make provision for people who are hard of hearing. So the ballistic walker was put in for sheer shock value… which diminished the central point. I haven’t heard of churches that don’t want people with babies…. and in fact, the “hi-brow” churches are usually rich enough to have special rooms for mom and baby to view the service. How many modern churches don’t want black people these days? A white person in South Central is more likely to raise an eyebrow than a black person in Glendora.

    Since no other categories of people were shown (lots of blastoffs, but no info on why), it suggests to me that the ad was only realistic in one category… portraying the discomfort some have with gays.

    But they couldn’t make the ad only about that… So off they went into the other areas.

    Sorry… but not buying it.

    Now, personal truth: I’ve been rejected by more than one church, and I am a white male who bathes. I’ve been rejected from leadership roles I was in and doing well, and I’ve been rejected just as a parishoner. So stuff it, everybody. Get used to it. Move on. Grow up. And that applies to everyone rejected for any reason.

    Rejection hurts. Woe unto those who do it.

    Morphea, I was impressed that you recognize that typical liberal group-speak IS a form of rejection of conservatives. The reverse, of course, has long been recognized…

19. 19 aly hawkins
    2 April 2006 at 8:40 am

    Phil, I agree that this discussion is totally related to leadership/the poor and church membership, and I agree that the ad was over the top. But I think the point is still valid: The Body of Christ is the place where the rejected are there by invitation. The standard rules for “in” and “out” do not apply, and where they have been applied in the kingdom, serious re-thinking needs to happen, posthaste. The Church cannot afford to live by the same rules as society, and the longer it does so, the longer “the kingdom” is just the romantic idea of this pretty nice guy named Jesus, instead of a radically subversive and redemptive force in the world. I reiterate my earlier pulpit-pounding: This is not idealism, this is Good News.

    In one way, I resonate with your “get over it” challenge; we CAN get over it because we truly belong… we are no longer “rejects” because we’ve been invited into the kingdom and embraced by God when we least deserved it. But where the Church still practices rejection (and it does), we must 1) not say “get over it” to the rejected, but instead invite and embrace, and 2) insist the button-pusher disable the fuse box. Sure… rejection hurts, and sure… it happens to everybody. But it should NEVER happen in the kingdom of God. If and when it does, it makes us all Pharisees.

20. 20 harmonicminer
    2 April 2006 at 9:44 am

    Hmm.. The ad is more than “over the top”… it’s flat misleading about the kinds of people likely to be “rejected” (a pretty strong word) by most churches. It conflates several things at once… a propaganda gimmick used by people who want to piggyback their own personal issue onto the (perceived) respectability of another.

    Aly, there are a lot of things that should NEVER happen in the Kingdom. But we are fallen and fallible… so all those things are going to continue until God calls time. One of our thrusts should be teaching people how to cope with that fact. That’s why I recommend Bonhoeffer, a pragmatist who realized that Christian community makes room for the rejecters, too… and challenges the rejected NOT to use rejection as an excuse to avoid Christian community.

    Let’s be clear about words… people are rarely “shown the door” by churches (though it has happened to me). It’s a mistake to confuse “feelings of rejection” with actual REJECTION.

    I was wrong when I listed the “rejected groups” in the ad. At the very end, an apparently poor person sits down… causing the “perfect family” to move over. If you have much experience with the homeless, you know that the real problem is trying to get them in the door of a church, not so much what happens after they walk in.

    We’re only Pharisees when we don’t try to do something about the problem in our local churches. If I saw something even vaguely related to the ad in my church (ignoring the improbable physics), I’d be up and resisting it… as would many others. We actually run cars and vans to the homes of people without easy transportation to get to church… that isn’t because they’re big financial contributors, obviously….there are almost no “homeless” people where I live… they’d freeze to death.

    Can anyone reading this give specific examples of “rejection” by churches of people you personally know? It would be interesting to gather some data… I’m just not sure it’s all that common a problem, systemically speaking. Are those rejections due to membership in some minority, or were they more personally specific (my case)?

21. 21 aly hawkins
    2 April 2006 at 10:52 am

    In my experience (and yes, the ad is highly misleading about this), most of the rejection practiced in the Church is a rejection of ideas rather than rejection because of ethnicity, gender, etc.

    Yes, there is a difference between rejection and feelings of rejection, but (speaking from my own experience) often times there is not much difference in the end result. I’ve never been forcibly ejected by the Church Bouncer, but I have been made to feel that my wacky views about women and evangelism and worship and politics and the Church’s involvement in culture are not welcome. “You don’t belong here” was the message intended and received. At that point, I had three choices: 1) Shut up and stay, pretending that I did belong. 2) Stay and insist that I belonged, regardless of my red-headed step-childness, thereby making everybody unhappy. (I actually tried this approach, in hopes that we could all learn something along the way. What I learned is that I had no time left to actually live all the ideas I was proposing because I spent so much time trying to explain myself with patience, kindness and understanding.) Or 3) leave.

    I took the third option, and I take responsibility for my choice. But the circumstances that led to my having to make that choice should not have happened. (Yes, yes! I know we’re all fallible and fallen human beings, but what’s the Holy Spirit for, anyway? And why was Jesus so crazy in love with the idea that we could be different? And why were Paul, Peter, James, et. al. so obsessed with challenging the early Church to get it right?) The Church should be the place where everybody throws out their wacky ideas and then we all talk and pray about them together. This even goes for those with swell ideas about the beauty and necessity of rejecting others (the “rejectors”). Yes (Bonhoeffer), we shouldn’t be shocked or scandalized when fallen, fallible human beings (us) have stupid, nonsensical, prejudiced, illogical or just plain wacky ideas about life, God and the universe. That comes with the territory, and that’s why we all need Grace. But we should also pitch a big enough tent that we can all have a little bit of space (and Grace) to come in out of the rain… and maybe roast some marshmallows after a rousing chorus of “Kum-Bah-Yah.”

    The Church can be a tent that big. We’re commanded to be a tent that big.

22. 22 harmonicminer
    2 April 2006 at 1:21 pm

    “The Church should be the place where everybody throws out their wacky ideas and then we all talk and pray about them together.”

    Uh… got a scripture on this?

    Or maybe you were waxing metaphoric… substitute the word “wacky” with “carefully considered, scripturally based, spirit filled” ideas (the preceeding is a list of ANDS, not ORS), and we can talk.

    Anyway… I don’t fundamentally disagree on this point.

    But… the ENTIRE history of the church is consumed with heresy and schism. The doctrine developed via response to heresy (it’s enough to make you believe in the dialectic…). Schism was perhaps necessary at a few times, but practiced universally anyway, in small ways and large, for mostly venal reasons. There are days when I think nothing useful has happened in church history since about 150 A.D…. or maybe 200.

    For the determinists in the audience (if any), it’s hard to see God’s overall intent in much of the history of the church, though His Hand is surely visible here and there. For you free will types, consider how our very theology might have developed differently in the absence of so much conflict, political ambition, etc.? What if the church had not itself murdered dissenters down through time? What if we could point at a tradition of dissenters to the murder of heretics, and what if THEY were the great writers and thinkers whom we now lionize? But it didn’t happen that way, and the ones we often quote were acquiescent to horror.

    One last question: for whatever Christian community in which you now participate (presumably more accepting of dissent, right?), what will happen if someone enters your fellowship who radically disagrees, on careful scriptural grounds, carefully and prayerfully considered, with the dominant perspectives in YOUR group, specifically on issues near and dear to your hearts? Might someone experience the strength of your reaction to them and their ideas as “rejection”? Might you say, “Wait, really, we LOVE you, we just wholeheartedly DISAGREE with you, a great big bunch, and we can’t allow you to teach this stuff to our children!”

    Ay, there’s the rub. No answers to all this coming from my direction…. I’m usually the one disagreeing with everyone in sight. Shoot… my handle “harmonicminer” is a reference to that very fact.

    We’re fallible, shortsighted, (add enormous list of adjectives implying finitude here). But we have to make decisions sometimes, based on the best we know. All ideas aren’t equally good. We have to choose, sometimes. We’ll be wrong a LOT… and even if we know that, we STILL have to choose. Some will be hurt when their ideas aren’t chosen by the group they want to be in. It’s lousy.

    It’s the only game in town.

23. 23 aly hawkins
    2 April 2006 at 3:22 pm

    Grrrrr… If there’s anything worse than an “idealist,” it’s an “idealist” trying to have a conversation with a pragmatist. So many “Yes, buts…”

    Dude, you’re totally right. Church history is not a good marketing piece for the big tent of the kingdom of God. We have yet to get it right, even with 2,000 years of practice. We’re f * * *-ups, totally, completely, absolutely, yes. But…

    It doesn’t have to end that way. (Holy Toil Nor Spin lyrics, Batman!)

    In answer to your question re: dissent in the Christian community in which I’m currently a part: I disagree with my husband all the time. (Okay, not all the time, but a lot. I’m kinda hard-headed, if you hadn’t noticed.) When we disagree, he does not experience my disagreement as rejection. Nor do I experience his disagreement with me as rejection. The trust we have built thru hard work, mistakes, good intentions, and dumb luck makes space for us to dissent with one another without risk of the whole thing going into the toilet. And okay, not every relationship with every brother or sister in Christ can be like that… but there’s a good reason marriage is such a powerful metaphor in scripture. You’re not allowed to call it quits when everything goes blue and wibbly.

    And yes, I was waxing metaphoric when I used the word “wacky.” Someday I will learn to be precise instead of silly. Maybe.

24. 24 harmonicminer
    2 April 2006 at 4:24 pm

    Wibbly? Wibbly? What’s WIBBLY?!?

25. 25 harmonicminer
    2 April 2006 at 6:57 pm

    For what it’s worth… I think of myself as an idealist, who’s had to accept that others have different ideals than mine.

    Of course, no one is more cynical than a frustrated idealist.

26. 26 michael lee
    2 April 2006 at 7:23 pm
    xcde > en

    alright, I’ll jump in.

    Most people identify strongly, and personally, with their ideas. The difference between “You are not welcome” and “Your idea is not welcome” is not, maybe, all that different to the hearer. I certainly wouldn’t be motivated to continue building relationships in a community where my ideas were a constant source of disagreement.

    Which leads us to this problem - the christian faith is, in some critical ways, a commitment to a set of ideas. Some ideas are exclusive; believing them to be true means believing other ideas to be false. I can’t believe that 2 plus 2=4 and also believe that 2 plus 2= not 4. So what happens when a community of faith proclaims a set of ideas that, by nature, carry with them some exclusivity toward other ideas? Is that community excluding the people who hold those ideas, or excluding the ideas themselves? Will the person who holds to the excluded ideas perceive any difference in that distinction?

27. 27 aly hawkins
    2 April 2006 at 8:47 pm

    I hereby move that we ban all analogies that compare faith with math. This is because I’m not good at math (and only a little better at faith), and also because it’s like comparing romance with geology: they both happen on earth, but that’s about it.

    Yes, in crucial ways, the Christian faith is a commitment to a set of ideas. [And here's the] But I don’t think people should have to hold to those ideas to be welcomed in the Church. How will they learn about the ideas to which the Christian faith is committed if they can’t get in the door? We’re not airport security. And once they have an understanding of that set of ideas, they can decide if they want to embrace them or find another tent. Very few people will want to stay just to muck things up, and there is good biblical advice for dealing with such people. (The problem is, we often follow this advice for people who aren’t deliberately trying to muck things up. Most people are just trying to figure it all out, even when they look like heretics. Believe me, I know.)

    Wibbly: I think it’s onomatopoeiac, and also British.

28. 28 harmonicminer
    2 April 2006 at 8:50 pm

    That’s the problem in a nutshell.

    I’m going to sound like some kind of starry-eyed touchy-feely type here (I know…. not in character), but while we can’t STOP people from feeling rejected when we reject their ideas, we probably can GUARANTEE they’ll feel rejected by our manner towards them, and the spirit we portray (or don’t) in our disagreement.

    We’re back to “unity in essentials” and “freedom in everything else”, I think. Having said that: we need to have a little humility regardless of which side of a particular fence we inhabit, the “bringer of new, challenging ideas” side, or the “cling to the way it’s always been” side. There is very little in scripture or church history/tradition that makes me think anyone has ever “had it all”… including the apostles, whom we now recognize to have been confused about a few things, particularly whether they lived in the “end times”. Every generation seems to look back and say, about something, “How COULD they think THAT?”

    I wish we had the nerve to admit that, right up front, in all our institutional machinery… and then said something like, “We may be wrong about this or that… but through it all, nearly EVERYONE in thie Christian tradition has believed the following.” And proceed to list the essentials… which is a pretty short list.

    Personally, I have days when I think megachurches are the root of all evil, because they appear to love money so much. But: they do serve, don’t they? And Jesus had some comments to make about others doing good work in His name, when the disciples complained about the competition.

    Is pride chief of all sins? mebbe so…. in which case, I’m in a lotta trouble.

29. 29 Phil Shackleton
    3 April 2006 at 7:37 am

    OK, I’ll bite: What is “wibbly” onomatopoeiac FOR? I know of no animal or natural process of any kind that makes a sound which is transliteratable as “wibbly”.

30. 30 aly hawkins
    3 April 2006 at 7:50 am

    I don’t think it has to be a natural sound, does it? (e.g. “bling”) I think it’s onomatopaeic for that weird wavy static you get when the VCR is not tracking right. Okay… maybe not onomatopaeic in the strictest sense. What do you call it when a word sounds like how something looks?

31. 31 Phil Shackleton
    3 April 2006 at 12:41 pm

    Psychodelic
    And yes, I know how it’s really spelled… but I meant it this way.

32. 32 Morphea
    3 April 2006 at 10:33 pm

    Oh, man, I wrote this whole thing, but I just can’t do it…

    HarmonicMinor, I respect you and your prodigious mind and would love to sit down and discuss this sometime over wine, truly, but I’m not a good enough writer to engage you when you use the words “Get over it. Grow up” to refer to the hurt (real or perceived) of groups of people who have my heart in this society. I said I was crap at this sort of thing and I meant it.

    Aly’s the better debator and she’s basically saying what I think, anyway.

    Cerise

33. 33 Phil
    4 April 2006 at 9:18 am

    Hmm.. Can I ask that when we quote, the context be complete?

    In the post your referenced, I had just mentioned that I’VE been rejected, and in away, since I’m a member of no minority, the rejection was far more personal, because it was aimed at ME, not just some subset of which I was a putative member.

    Here’s what I said earlier:

    “Get used to it. Move on. Grow up. And that applies to everyone rejected for any reason.

    Rejection hurts. Woe unto those who do it.”

    There’s a reason why my very next comment was about the feelings engendered by rejection, and a (not very) veiled promise of retribution to come for those who do it.

    I’m THERE… but we do the rejected no service by giving them the “out” from having to make personal moral choice by saying, “Well, no wonder you have a hard time doing right, you’ve been REJECTED!” Who does this help, exactly? Yet that’s the exact subtext (IMHO) of all the focus on the “rejected minority”. We’ve ALL been rejected sometime, and will be again… and the best thing we can do for the rejected is to welcome them into OUR community, insofar as it’s in our ability to do so, while challenging THEM to “get over it” and move on, and continuing to hold a high standard of what “the right” is.

    Again, I speak from personal experience… I simply hated churches for years (some bad experiences as a child in a parsonage, and more later as an “adult”), before I grew up enough to be able to accept the humanity of everyone, including those who style themselves as the “arbiter christians” for the rest of us. One of the things that helped me: a friend (a TRUE friend) who pointed out, to my discomfort, the ways I don’t live up to my own expectations of myself… and asked pointedly why I expected I had a right to anyone else doing better. To be honest, I’m still working on this… I still get hurt feelings when I’m misconstrued, or feel personally attacked… so I have some growing up to do, too. (I think I mentioned elsewhere in these pages that I orbit [highly elliptically] the emotional age of 13.)

    Observation: I would not have been able to listen to someone else say this to me… but this was a person with whom I had years of history, who was truth-telling. I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t hide. He knew I was using my hurt as an excuse to “disfellowship” myself. The message I take from this: there are those who claim some sort of leadership of “minorities” of all kinds (or extra-special sensitivity towards them), whose main message is, “Oh, those nasty church people were mean to you. Shame on them!” To be a true Christian leader, you MUST also stress the corollary that we’re STILL responsible for what we do and how we shape our lives, even if we’re treated badly.

    To put it bluntly: Somebody threw you out of the boat you were in? Sorry about that. Here, get in my boat, and welcome. Now, start rowing. We have a long ways to go. Okay, you can wait till you catch your breath…. that was a long swim… but don’t be all day about it. This is a family and we all pull our weight here.

    Sidebar: this has NOTHING to do with our absolute responsibility to pick up those who can’t swim OR row…. but if you can walk around the boat and lift a coffee cup, I suspect you can row.

    Re: Aly’s comment on welcoming with open arms, I have to agree! But the best people to deliver the message above are the Christian leaders who are already “in fellowship” with the rejected…. Unfortunately, WAY too many of those “leaders” have made a career of stoking the hurt feelings of the flock in their charge. It’s their power base, after all.

    Besides: Aly’s not a debator, she’s a debatrix. (I know… gender discrimination post coming soon.)

    hey, morph, I think you’re a sweetheart! Although I’m thinking about being offended at that crack about “prodigious mind”…. sounds suspiciously like “fat head” to me. If you wanna just send me email and talk, that’d be great. Do I understand you live in the great northwest somewhere?

34. 34 Chad
    4 April 2006 at 9:28 am

    Addison Road : Home of Aly, the debatrix.

35. 35 aly hawkins
    4 April 2006 at 9:57 am

    Sounds kinky. I like it.

36. 36 Morphea
    6 April 2006 at 8:53 am

    All right, HMiner, all right. [sigh] I’m still not going there with you about the following: 1. minorities, 2. the poor, 3. politics or social commentary in general. I realize that by doing this I’m cheating myself out of a great chance to tweak my own personal roadmap (thank you, M. Scott Peck), but for some reasons these discussions are really wigging me out for the present. However, I do feel the need to come on and let you know that if I thought you were a fathead I’d sign in and call you a fathead. Ask anybody. “Prodigious mind” from my lips (or fingers, I guess) is a good thing and I meant what I said about looking forward to discussing this fun stuff with you face-to-face. If you’re not a wine-drinker, though, we have no future together. Unless you like microbrews.

    Gentle contextual rebuke noted, brother. Sorry about that. Since we’re giving out kind reminders about how we all like to debate (or not-debate, in my case), let me in turn ask that you assume from now on that I know the “correct” (arguable) gender-specific prefix, suffix and/or pronoun and choose not to use it for personal reasons, okey-dokey? Ask Michael - if I have a sense of humor at all (also arguable), it flies right out the window when gender sh*t rears its head. It’s a failing of mine and for that I apologize. [smile]

    Cerise

37. 37 harmonicminer
    6 April 2006 at 11:54 am

    Shoot… i just wanted to say “debatrix”… because I never had before.

    I like new words.

38. 38 Morphea
    6 April 2006 at 11:55 am

    Well…I do have the guilty pleasure of watching Mom turn green when I talk about Mary being considered for “co-redemptrix” status by those Catholics. [smile]