Neanderpundit

that I don’t like Christians. I do, I love every damned one of them. But what most people call “Christians” and what I consider a Christian are vastly different things.

See, a real Christian would probably be driven barking mad by what is labelled Christianity today. That’s why I feel that they must be rare as hens teeth, because they’d have to have had almost no exposure to the outside world.

The very best most of us can do is to try to process the hundreds of thousands of conflicting signals we receive every day.

It’s bad enough to deal with the churches. I mean, the Catholic Church has more than a few bodies buried here and there, and some of them are pretty horrendous. That by itself is troublesome enough, but at dozens of points in the history of Christianity, various leaders, sickened by what they saw as a perversion of the Church, split off to form their own groups. The eastern rite.The lutherans, The puritans, the calvinists, yadda yadda. At each split, they changed the rules so they could be the “one true church”. And they convinced their faithful of that. Everyone could find a bible passage that spoke to them and say “without a baptisim by fire you cannot be a true Christian” or whatever.

Catholics will tell you they’re the one true church. Lutherans the same. In fact, the more obscure and bizarre the denomination, the more likely you are to hear “Nobody but US does it right!”.

Let me tell you a little secret: They’re all wrong.

So how do you know what it takes to be a Christian?

Fuck if i know. If you figure it out, let me know. If you think you got the answer from Jack Hyles, or Joel Osteen, or John Cardinal Ratzinger, you’re either totally wrong, or you’re missing something vital.

I do this: I look into my heart. I try to do the things I think Jesus would want me to do. My heart is not always as pure as it could be, and I’m sure that a lot of times I get it wrong. In fact, I’m pretty confident the only reason I’m still alive is because they’re having trouble preparing my special spot in Hell. But I don’t stop trying, because I believe the God of Abraham is not an asshole. And I believe he wants us. Even me.

And I don’t flavor my political beliefs with my Christianity, or my attempts at it, my political beliefs are strictly practical and pragmatic. There are people who are not Christians, and I shouldn’t ask them to conform to my beliefs- but neither should their beliefs conflict with my ability to worship in a way I see fit.

So don’t get your ass in an uproar because I don’t think you’re a Christian, by my definition, I’m not either, and though we should all strive to be, I bet most of us fail every day. And yes, Jesus died for ALL our sins. Otherwise what would be the point of what he did?

Fuck the rat race.

They make it through the system a lot faster than you’d think, and they latch onto everything on their way through.

I did this recreation, just so you could see what it was like.