Conservative Liberal or Liberal Conservative
Okay so I’m not sure the title does this one justice but couldn’t think of anything better to call it.
Last night I was at a friend’s concert (she’s a Christian artist – which is great, actually she was the opening act for another band) and her set went really well. Afterwards my son and I were looking over the merchandise when the MC, who was calling out door prizes, said “Don’t you just think we should all be billboards for Jesus?” Now granted he was talking about t-shirts, which is fine…but that’s where I think he and I stopped agreeing with each other.
It’s not that I have issue with what I think may have been his basic premise, that we as Christians should model the life Jesus lived, but seriously? “Billboards for Jesus?” Billboards just stand there and have a message plastered on them as you pass by on the highway. Somehow I’m not quite sure that’s what the Big Guy had in mind.
I don’t want to be a billboard for Jesus.
And considering some of the t-shirts they were selling, I’m pretty sure it’s just as well I didn’t get to talk to many of the people there. Somehow I don’t think I’d fit in, even if we do claim to both follow the same God. They had one I found particularly annoying that had a picture of a Chimpanzee on it and the caption said, “My Ancestor Wasn’t A Monkey.” Well, they may not have been a monkey but they weren’t very smart either. A Chimpanzee is an APE! Okay, so it may be a minor thing to some of you, but seriously, if you’re going to insult the work of fine intelligent people, at least know what it is you’re talking about.
It’s funny considering myself as the liberal. In most of the relationships I have I’m probably the most conservative person I know. That’s been definately true in my personal/intimate ones. But I don’t consider myself particularly conservative either. I like to think of myself as the pragmatist. For example, I have no problem with the Theory of Evolution. It works for me, it’s been proven by science to be the best model for understanding why we are the way we are. God can still have started and remained active in all this. It doesn’t say in the bible what kind of dust Man was made out of. Ape dust works as good as anything else for me.
I suppose part of my frustration comes from that fact that for a majority of people (a generalization I know) it seems to be that science and religion MUST be in conflict and that’s just not the way I see things. Science and religion answer fundamentally different questions for me, uplifting and supporting each other. Science is our best explination for how this wonderful creation God made works and how we got to be a part of it. Religion offers us purpose and meaning, providing the context for living in a world of rules, actions and re-actions. I don’t believe that God seeks simply blind obiediance from us. God wants to come with our eyes wide open, fully accepting the great work God has planned for us.
Organized Religion may prefer the former. It helps to keep people quiet, to not question authority or status quo, to keep people secured/kept/locked/hampered. God offers to free us and if my faith is true, what have I to fear? I struggle with that one even though I may have less reason than many to question. I don’t struggle over the question of God’s existenece, that has been proved to my own satisfaction. I just struggle with how/where God is going to be in my life. And in that sense, I struggle.
There was a t-shirt that I had in college that I absolutely loved and people from both the Left and the Right used to get so angry at me for wearing it I knew it must be good. It said, in big red letters -
“JESUS” with a picture of him with arms wide open
And then in tiny black letters underneath -
“Protect me from your followers”
I LOVED that shirt because it summed up for me the feeling I got when I was around many so-called “Christians.” And I vowed that I would stay true to my God without being that kind of follower. I don’t know how well I’ve done but I saw a sign outside a church last night that really touched me as we were on our way home from that concert. As I was musing over some of these questions and getting all angsty and worked up over who/what I am it said -
“It’s never too late to be who you might have been.”
As those of you who’ve read my blog know, I’ve struggled with that type of question a lot over my life, especially this past year. But there it was in black and white…God’s promise that in God “all things are made new.”
So the question becomes now, without being Liberal or Conservative – just me, WHO might I have been?
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