From Pole to Shining Pole

The current landscape of religion is changing. 15 years ago a conservative and progressive could sit together on a pew (though I understand that 50 years ago they could not). They would disagree in Sunday School and agree to disagree during the worship service. The disagreements were not small either, but the faithful understood being faithful was more important than being right.

Since that time the Christian church has polarized from Conservative to Liberal. Conservatives talk as if Liberal is a curse and Liberal's as if Conservatives are all evil. Remember though this was also the time before the internet and before 24 hour news channels were popular. There has been a unification of the religious and political poles, and no one respects a moderate. The Christian Church has forgotten there are two sides to every story, and we are generally not the progenitors of the story, we are but hearers and opinion holders.

No one knows that many churches still do good work, work with the poor, and work toward peace. There are still many Christians who believe that, “We can agree to disagree, and still fellowship together.” It is a problem when the conservatives loose themselves of liberals and vice versa. Polarizing topics can create a moderate base or polarizing topics create different churches. The Christian church is separating Liberal and Conservative like we used to separate black and white. This time though the demonizing takes place on both sides.

It is possible for someone who believes that God Inspired means 100 percent accuracy to sit next to someone who believes God Inspired means that God was behind the writing. It is possible for two people who disagree on the governments role in our lives to sit next to each other and sing Amazing Grace. It is possible for someone who disagrees with gay marriage to sit next to someone who does. Why do I believe this?

The church service, Christian faith, and God, have little to do with individual. We love to talk about the polarized issues, then hate one another for them, and the poor still go hungry. We love to phrase questions to figure out if someone is Liberal or Conservative, but it doesn't change the fact church and community members are losing loved ones due to illness and crime. We love to demonize the other side as evil, but our children refuse to come back to church.

I believe that we focus on these topics because we are scared of doing the actual work of the church. Feeding and clothing the hungry is hard, complaining about the Liberal Agenda or the Tea Party is easy. We spend all this time getting “our house,” in order, and look up to see the neighborhood has fallen down around us. Do we forget that two like poles in magnetics can't touch? The north cannot touch north and south cannot touch south, they need their opposites. Why do we reject ours?

I would rather work with a church that bore fruit with imperfect doctrine than find a church with perfect doctrine surrounded by death. The American Christian church is like a whitewashed tomb. Pretty on the outside, and filled with bones. We hurt others because we can't get our shit together.

Uh oh did you just see that guy typed shit?