I spent one decade submerged into a subculture which I didn’t even realize existed at the time. As I found myself escaping the subculture, I realized I was living life only in the “Christian subculture“. Now, after spending a decade on the outside of the “Christian subculture“, I don’t consider myself bitter about the “Christian subculture” but alarmed about it!
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CHICAGO, May 15.—The Rev. W.W. Reynolds, pastor of the Brightwood Methodist Church of Indianapolis, recently wrote to Capt. Luke Colleran, Chief of the Chicago Detective Department, inquiring if the use of the bicycle among women had affected their morality in any perceptible manner. Although not offering statistics, Capt. Colleran’s reply deals with the subject in a positive manner.Read the rest of this entry »
It is totally possible to be raised within a grace-based system, and yet develop a performance-based sense of religion. Note that I don’t say “sense of faith,” because by definition performance is not faith. Faith is trust. And level of trust is not a measure of our performance, but of our relationship. God knows our difficulty with trusting, when so much in life is broken. He’s both capable and willing to earn our trust, much as we don’t deserve that grace. But that’s the point of grace.
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“Grin and Bear It” has been a popular idiom for generations. It means to not only endure but happily accept a bad situation because there is nothing you can do to improve it.
I would call that hopelessness.
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I recently found myself embarrassed to call myself a “Christian“. It was brought to my attention how annoying, high maintenance, self-indulged and super spiritual someone appeared.
I’m not in the same “camp” as that person. They talk about being a Christian and use “Christianese” in almost every sentence. This particular lady came across as if she had something nobody else had and nobody else could ever obtain the level she had attained. This is someone from a group of people that thought it was adorable that an 8 year old boy would say “God told me to tell you to stop at McDonalds”.
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