Ok, so everything on this site can’t be serious and stale. If we don’t have a sense of humor about the absurdity inherent in the state of affairs we find ourselves in we’ll only get mad and throw things. In that light I wish to share with you a story from my recent life and my thoughts concerning it.
The other day my friend Emily told me something that made me do a double take. You see, she moved back home over winter break to her parents house in Iowa. Now her parents aren’t exactly what you would call extremely rational people. They are more like you would call extreme religious weirdoes with nothing better to do with their time than provide me with a constant source of sad but very funny anecdotes of faith gone awry. Emily recently decided she didn’t want to attend her family’s place of worship anymore and decided that she would adapt a more moderate stance to religion in hopes of finding truth amidst the absurdity that is the protestant church. To add to this, while she had been away at college she had been turned onto some Stephen King books, which I suppose she should be commended on getting through, and rap music, of which I have little opinion.
Now her parents being the weirdoes they are did not like her bringing such things home with her and made no bones about it. Telling her not to play it around her younger siblings, leaving these tainted items laying about so their impressionable young minds wouldn’t be diseased by the horrendous content they possessed. Now she followed these rules over break and came back annoyed that at every chance they had had, her parents tried to convince her she was in trouble of leaving the faith of Christianity and that she was not living a Godly lifestyle. This was cause for some chuckles because Emily attends the local Nazarene church like clockwork and loves being around the members there. By all accounts you could probably say she’s more religious and Godly than I am, not that it takes much effort to do so.
However, a couple of days ago she was talking to a friend of her younger sisters who had been there the day after Emily had moved back into her house for break and the day Emily was out perusing the old stomping grounds. The friend revealed that not was all as it seemed. It turns out that that day, while Emily was gone and without her knowledge or consent, her mother invited a group of women from her church over to her house to do some…rituals. It seems that they went up to her room, and proceeded to go through her belongings, one at a time, anointing them with oil, and praying other them in hopes that “the evil spirits will depart from them.”
Now you and I chuckle, but Emily was not happy at all. Her room had been gone through not only by her mother, but by total strangers in hopes of casting the devil out of her Stephen King novels and whatever else they might have happened to find. All in the name of the Godly way of life and all. Of course, while humorous and shocking as it is, its not something i was entirely suppressed about. Her parents have treated me, in the times have had the misfortune of being in their presence, like I’m the leader of a secret movement to destroy all things church. Emily was forbidden to visit my house recently, didn’t stop her, because of the same “evil spirits” that apparently inhabit my house and make it a den of suffering and despair for all who enter. Though with my brother in the house who knows, right?
At any rate, the crap really hit the fan when Emily decided to show them this site. To wit I am told they found it appalling, disrespectful, full of “earthly logic” and “arguments” (more on that in a later issue) that they just wouldn’t lower themselves to commenting on, and bordering on heretical. I guess i get the fundamentalist seal of approval then. They really liked the article on speaking in tongues, describing it as “a mockery of the holy spirit” and “a source for divine retribution.” So now I’m even more infested with evil spirits and the like.
The point of the story, besides the obvious humor, is the sad fact that they, unlike me, are not prone to making light of anything relating to God. And so it follows that they really believe the stuff they are spewing from their mouths in an attempt to “glorify god.” If anything they are glorifying their piety and their own acts. Is this what most christians today are like? Because whether or not they really are all like this, this is how they are perceived by the populous who are non-christian, you know them better as, those people we have to save, precisely because of people like this. The image they project of how Christians really are is that of irrational people who condemn everything they disagree with as “of the devil” and proceed to make fools of themselves, and the rest of us too while they are at it, trying to rid the world of whatever it is.
People, including Christians, have the right to decide for themselves where they are going to be spiritually. If someone wants to be so spiritual they rid themselves entirely of worldly things, so be it. If they want to wallow in sin, we can help and suggest, but we cant force. If we force, like in this case of the anointing, we not only invade the other person’s space and life, we drive them away. Emily is still hopping mad at her parents as far as i know. Driving away your own child is sad enough, but a child is still bound by blood to their family, a run of the mill “sinner” is not. They will easily take this kind of behavior as representative of all Christians and you will have lost a soul because they didn’t want to hear how evil their life is and how they aren’t as good as someone else. The moral of this story is, don’t be a fundamentalist, be a Christian. Be like christ, live among the sinners and understand why they sin and talk to them about it. Ask them why, if they don’t want to talk about it, that should be the end of it. Let them come to you and let them know you are there for them to come to if need be. Be an example, not a rubber stamp.
So thats it for my little story of absurdity. As an aside i should point out that if her mom can sense evil spirits so well, it must mean she’s a medium and therefor a sin in and of herself. (Take that one) And for those of us who think this behavior is retarded. I have a wallpaper just for you. Tell them you aren’t going to take their abuse by admitting to their accusations! Warning: Infested by genuine Evil Spiritsâ„¢.
#1 by tw on February 2, 2006 - 12:55 am
T-shirt, t-shirt!
#2 by Ryan on February 2, 2006 - 4:05 pm
I don’t think you should engage in a “who knows the Bible best” contest with this sort of family. Either they will refuse to acknowledge your citations as superior to their own, or if they do acknowledge them, they will be crushed, and feel demoralized, feel as if “they have been outwitted by an evil man.” There has to be a healthier way to deal with this, for everybody’s sake.