judging the judgers: lessons i learned studying fundies and rednecks

lately, there's been controversy surrounding a wedding anne is supposed to be in. the controversy revolves around the attire that the bridal party are must wear. due to the flavor of christianity the officiating pastor subscribes to, the bridal party must wear dresses that go to the floor, are long sleeved, and cover the collar bones. there must be no dancing. and all the music must be pre-approved by said pastor. as expected, many of the people involved in this wedding are pissed. honestly, i think it's kind of funny. do i think this pastor is a legalistic, judgmental, ignorant person? yes. do i think that the flavor of christianity that he and his church follows has anything to do with jesus or anything jesus came to do? probably very little at best. does it drive me crazy that people buy into this stuff? yes. the charge i keep hearing thrown around is that they (the pastor's church) are just so concerned with appearance. they just care about what's on the surface. but in the midst of the idiocy, hilarity, the anger and mind-numbing frustration i have to ask: am i guilty of the same thing?

we went bowling yesterday. the bowling alley is an interesting place to do some people watching. well, it is but it isn't. at first it's fun gawking at the uber-mullets, nascar jackets, and bud light t-shirts, but after a while you get used to it because everyone just looks the same. as i'm there i almost start feeling bad for these people. there's more to life than deer-hunting, nascar, camouflage, country music and bowling. at the same time i start getting frustrated because i'm judging and stereotyping. i know it's wrong to assume everyone at this bowling alley lives this stereotypical redneck, white trash life; that they're all that shallow; and for that matter, that my way of life is superior to theirs. but isn't it though? i mean for gosh sakes, try some other kind of beer!!! you don't know what you're missing!! expand your horizons! the very fact that you think budweiser is a good beer shows that i'm superior! these are the thoughts that go through my mind. there must be some sort of objective way to judge cultural superiority. trying new foods, trying new wines, listening to new music, watching documentaries, reading books, watching cable news other than fox-- these things must show that i'm superior.

i really didn't know how to process all this. i kept thinking, "what am i missing?" Then these two guys came over to bowl in the lane beside ours. one had an incredible mullet; just stunning. it looked like the mullets professional wrestlers wore in the 80's. the other just had short hair with a baseball cap. they both had beer guts and t-shirts with sports teams on them. they were like all the others; just an average pair of working-class guys. but there was something about them, however, that was far superior to myself. they were kick-ass bowlers. in fact almost everyone there was. they had the perfect form and the wicked curves. they had their own balls, shoes and towels. and when they started bowling i started feeling pretty inferior. the guy with the short hair would line his toes up on the dots, run up, bring his arm back and around over his head, back down and release. the ball would start going straight for the gutter, but then, just as it was about to go in, make this dramatic curve and crash right into the strike pocket.

my theory for bowling is much simpler. i don't give a damn about form. i come at the alley from the right with my arm in line with the gutter throwing the ball on an angle toward the center. the only thing i care about is hitting the strike pocket. if i can throw the ball and get a strike then i don't care what it looks like. if it works, then that's what i'm doing. form is completely irrelevant.

anytime i go out to eat with my friend joe, he always asks our server, "in x amount of years you're 100, how do you know that you won in life?" last week in church a woman shared her story about how she came out of a life of drugs, alcoholism, stripping and total hopelessness and met christ in such a way it permanently changed her. today our pastor said that after one of the services where she shared her story a woman came forward to say that she had been contemplating suicide and that she was dealing with those same demons. whenever i hear something like this emotion swells up inside my chest because somehow, mysteriously, the God who is love and who from all things exist became incarnate. and in the midst of the most tragic circumstances and hopeless existences, this incarnation continues. in the end, culture is nothing more than a mask and behind that mask the fundies, the rednecks and myself are all just human beings that need love, grace, peace and hope. and i'm sure that that has much more to do with winning at life, because, after all, form is meaningless.

one helluva post (UPDATED)

***after reading an article on hell, i learned i was incorrect in saying gehenna is thrown into the lake of fire in revelation 20.***

my prolific blogger homey joe wrote a post that inspired me to post this. it's a post that has been sitting in my drafts bin for a while. enjoy!

my theological beliefs about heaven, hell, creation and salvation are in a constant state of evolution. i don't claim to have all the answers on these issues. yes the bible talks about all of these, but i'm still learning what the bible means, how to interpret it, and what other scholars who know way more than me about the bible, history, the culture of the people who wrote the bible etc. have to say. i think it's dangerous and ignorant to come to a point where you say, "ah, i'm all done learning and seeking. i have all the answers now, and now i can go convince others. and if they don't agree with me, then that means they're rejecting the truth and going to hell." i know i'm painting a caricature and i don't mean to put words in other people's mouths, but this is the overall message i get. it seems that every time i think i have it figured out i learn something new that changes everything.

i love it when people say, "well, the bible clearly teaches..." or, "the bible plainly says..." i want to say, "plainly to you!?" for instance, the topic of hell. some christians will say that the bible plainly teaches that hell is a place of fire and brimstone. it's a place of eternal torment for those who don't believe in jesus. here's the problem with this. the two words that mean, "hell" in the NT are, "gehenna" and "hades." gehenna was and is a real place. in jesus' day it was the town dump. they put their garbage and their dead there, and to get rid of the trash they lit it on fire. it was called a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth, the place where the worm never dies etc... so when jesus talks about being thrown into gehenna, he's referring to a real live place. it would then be fair to say he's using this term metaphorically unless one believes the unsaved currently reside in the ancient jewish town dump.

the other word, "hades" translates to the hebrew, "sheol." sheol was simply the grave, or death, or being put into the ground. when you get into the book of revelation, you find death and hell (sheol/hades) being thrown into a lake of fire. it then says the lake of fire is the second death. if you're reading this with no presuppositions it looks as if the lake of fire is symbolic and it symbolizes the end of death and hell-- the annihilation of those things and not a literal lake of fire. after all, the book of revelation is a hugely symbolic book, and death and hell are not people. saying they're, "thrown into the lake of fire" as if they're actual beings is a picture of a greater truth. it's not literal. it then says that those whose names aren't written in the book of life are thrown into the lake of fire.

so here's a recap: the book of revelation is highly symbolic. death is not a literal person. hell, in this verse, is hades-- a greek translation of the word sheol. these two things, for lack of a better term, are thrown into a lake of fire. then people whose names aren't written in a book of life are thrown in too. here's a question: if death and sheol aren't literal beings that can be thrown into something and revelation is a highly symbolic book to begin with, then why is the lake of fire and book of life treated as actual literal objects?? as if God really needs a book to remember who goes to heaven! and this doesn't even get into the symbolism relevant to the ancient world of fire and sulfur (brimstone). can you see why i don't know if i, "literally" believe people who don't believe in jesus are thrown into a lake of fire and brimstone for eternity? i say all this not to argue for a specific understanding of hell, but to point out that the bible-- once you seriously begin studying it-- isn't as, "plain and clear" as many christians believe.