I mean, I understand it perfectly, it'll just never stop being weird to me.
I found the profile on myspace of the Jr. High group and wanted to add it because it would be an even easier way to stay in touch with my kidlets.
And I was promptly rejected with a message from the youth pastor saying, "sorry, but i can't add you to [group name]-- your content is a little mature for j-hi and you have some direct links to friends w/stuff that is definitely not for j-hi."
Here is the supposed 'mature content.'
Does anyone else think this is funny?
Does anyone else think this is sad?
And why do I make them nervous? What is it exactly about me? I mean, in all honesty, I live a very quiet respectable little life. I work in a nice little office, go home to my cats and water my plants and read old books and get to bed on time. When I really wanna make mischief, I make prank calls. I mean, seriously, where's that smell of scandal coming from? Why have I always made them so scared? What is it exactly that they're afraid I'll do?
Is it because they rightly sense that I don't live in constant fear of their personal idols of appearances and shame? I mean, I'm supposed to kick my cousin out of my top 8 because her picture is racy? Sorry, she means something to me and do I have to remind a youth pastor that God doesn't only love the shinyhappypeople? She's a part of my life, whether or not we set up our lives or our myspaces the same way and why do we need to 'protect' the Jr. Highers from that concept? If he thinks they can't understand loving someone HE would call a sinner, than he's seriously underestimating them.
I think my response will include the point that if Jesus had a myspace, a hooker and a tax collector would be in his top 8.
And if he thinks my content is a little 'too mature,' I'll go with that, in any context you like.
I found the profile on myspace of the Jr. High group and wanted to add it because it would be an even easier way to stay in touch with my kidlets.
And I was promptly rejected with a message from the youth pastor saying, "sorry, but i can't add you to [group name]-- your content is a little mature for j-hi and you have some direct links to friends w/stuff that is definitely not for j-hi."
Here is the supposed 'mature content.'
Does anyone else think this is funny?
Does anyone else think this is sad?
And why do I make them nervous? What is it exactly about me? I mean, in all honesty, I live a very quiet respectable little life. I work in a nice little office, go home to my cats and water my plants and read old books and get to bed on time. When I really wanna make mischief, I make prank calls. I mean, seriously, where's that smell of scandal coming from? Why have I always made them so scared? What is it exactly that they're afraid I'll do?
Is it because they rightly sense that I don't live in constant fear of their personal idols of appearances and shame? I mean, I'm supposed to kick my cousin out of my top 8 because her picture is racy? Sorry, she means something to me and do I have to remind a youth pastor that God doesn't only love the shinyhappypeople? She's a part of my life, whether or not we set up our lives or our myspaces the same way and why do we need to 'protect' the Jr. Highers from that concept? If he thinks they can't understand loving someone HE would call a sinner, than he's seriously underestimating them.
I think my response will include the point that if Jesus had a myspace, a hooker and a tax collector would be in his top 8.
And if he thinks my content is a little 'too mature,' I'll go with that, in any context you like.
6 Comments:
i'm positive that any kid familiar with myspace has FAR more experience with "mature content" than you could even dream of.
It's funny how lots of "church" people are more judgemental than others.
Seriously VJ, did you expect otherwise?
Nick, of course church people are more judgemental than others. Church people claim a standard of behavior while others tend to hold a 'if its right for YOU, then it's OK' mentality. This is true of other religions as well, not just Christianity. If you want a good look at judgement, check out Islam.
lol zompus well said.
Knowing Jesus as God is not about following a moral code, or conforming to standards of behaviour. Sorry to be deep and theological on ur site VJ, ;) but I think most people would find if you look into the bible, the phrase "morally acceptable behaviour" and all the negative stereotypes people associate with it, are not in it, and neither are they the point. The point is being connected with God, because He wants to be connected with us. (p.s. I don't use He because I think God is male either, only because His Son told us to refer to Him that way)
Getting to know and be part of Jesus' mission on earth, is not about simply avoiding hell and going to heaven either. Jesus loved to hang out with the people who were'nt "in", he dug the excluded, disenfranchised, and the outcast. He rebelled against all the religiosity and all the systems that kept people from experiencing God in a real way, because they were made to feel "not good enough".
Why do you think he trashed the Temple? It wasn't just to do with the money changers, it was to do with people being denied access to God, because they were considered "impure" by the religious leaders. If you were a woman/child/disabled person/foreign/not jewish, you couldn't enter the presence of God, that was how the Temple was set up.
Jesus came to give us access to God, not to set up another religious system to deny us it. That's why the Temple Curtain was torn from top to bottom at His ressurection.
*takes a breath*
Sorry, sermon over.
Got a bit carried away there.
*has a sit down and a cup of tea to calm himself*
Well put. ^
Following a moral code is intrinsic to religion. Consider for a moment that morality has no serious meaning outside of religion. Morality requires a sense of good and evil and we get our ideas of good and evil primarily from religion. That goes for religion in general. In particular, knowing Jesus as God requires a sense of sin and judgement. If there was no judgement, there would be no need for Jesus to die on the cross. I sure hope I am preaching to the choir here because this is christianity 101. No deep issues here.
The fact that some Christians are judgemental should not be surprising at all given that human nature is how it is. People love to justify their prejudice and often seek justification in religion. A good example of this is how some of the preachers preaching racism from the pulpits in the 60's. I am by no means advocating this, but I don't think this behavior is surprising in the least. It seems to be the rule of human behavior throghout history, not the exception.
As far as VJ's instance goes, we should not be surprised because of the tendancy of certain parents to want to control what their kids are exposed to. It is the responsibility of the youth pastor to be respectfull of this as he has the implicit trust of the parents. Actually, VJ, I am quite surprised that you are surprised. Another response might have been to question the tactic of protectionism from society. Again, I am neither advocating or castigating the tendacy to shelter the children from the world.
BTW, God has no gender. Gender references to God are for our benefit only to help us understand our relationship to God given societal norms.
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