Today is the day after "the day" in American politics. We've voted and most of those votes have been counted. If you hadn't noticed I fell silent for some time - Facebook statuses became fewer and more far between and I haven't blogged in weeks. Why - because I felt that I couldn't be responsible for putting out any other message at a time when there were so many messages being shoved down our throats as a society. Whatever side you align yourself with, I think we can agree that we were targeted by ads, status updates, news feeds and conversations. It made my brain turn to mush. It made my head and more importantly my heart hurt. I know we are a broken world. My profession I'm trained in is based on that there is need for healing in this world. However, I felt that we, American society, have gone to a new low. No one truly won in this mess of a political system. I admit we need some form of government and I'm thankful I have the freedom I do have. However, the way we interact with each other, the way we speak of "the other" is more troubling then any political platform I heard. So I pray that now that votes are calculated and the ads stop running that maybe American society can go back to trying to be a world leader - to trying to make a real difference in the world and at home. Maybe we can try to like "those people" who are different then us. I hope and I pray.
In a conversation with a more conservative Christian then me (take in mind I call myself a bed-wetting liberal and I’m also a big time Process Theologian) the person started rambling off scripture quotes (proof texting really) to make a point. I have never claimed to be a great memorizer of anything. And even though I have read the Bible many times and own many copies of the Bible, I am still not a person who can just pull out scripture references in mid conversation. I do have several verses that I turn to and love dearly but I can’t tell you word for word what John 2:5 or Ruth 1:4 says. This got me thinking, why do Christians really feel the need to qualify their faith based on the amount of scripture that they can recite from memory? While it may be very handy to be able to quote scripture in a variety of situations, I believe that this can be dangerous. Proof texting (pulling scripture, from any religion, to support an argument without careful and learned consideration for its cont
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