Pharisees. That's all I see when I think of Christian elitists on either side of the Christian political spectrum.
Just pharisees, signaling their virtue by judging others as less righteous than they. (I am not pointing the finger at you,
@ReesePiece23 you make good points and your post wasn't judgy or mean-spirited, nor am I pointing at anyone who has posted in the thread for that matter. I am just sharing my thoughts on the topic)
We are called to be humble- not to think ourselves more righteous than others- not to judge others- and certainly not to look down on others with contempt while trying to rule their lives and control their actions.
Whether something be right or wrong, God never called on us to become bullies. And that goes for both sides of the Christian political spectrum.
Jesus called us to love our enemies and to do good to those who persecute us. I still don't quite know what that looks like or how to truly do it.
I think of the book, Ender's Game. The old saying/wisdom is to "know your enemy", but the character Ender, takes it a step beyond. He says to know your enemy- to truly know them- is to love them... But I suppose I'm rambling now. Lol, carry on
It's nice to see that you made a distinction between having individual standards and being sanctimonious. God knows us all for the imperfect beings that we are, and yet loves us anyway. He isn't impressed by things like looks, money, station in life, or attempts to seem holier than thou.
This is the thing.
Ultimately what it comes down to is my respect for Christianity. The complex work He does for each one of the individual 8 billion people on Earth, at each and every second of the day throughout our lifetimes is exactly why His art needs to be sold with peace and love front of mind.
The world is such a hard place to make it in. It doesn't matter what you're doing or who you are, the challenges can be crippling - even at the best of times for the most affluent people (why did most of my favourite musicians die from heroin overdoses and alcohol related problems before 30 otherwise?)
What we don't need is even MORE pressure from people - who don't respect the
actual message of peace and love, by being autocratic, egotistical and scathing, whilst potentially ruining people's lives. We need to actually start encouraging people to just be natural, and add the flesh to the skeleton from there. "Work hard and be good" they say - well, why do you need to work hard? What does "good" mean? Why can't you just find peace?
So what? You're watching things you shouldn't be - well, if you're encouraged to be natural you'll soon find your passion, and then you'll start thriving in your own lane - guess what happens next? In a year from now, you WON'T be watching anything other than an infinite abundance of joy trickling into your life, courtesy of Him. Telling people to be 'this' or burn in hades for being disgusting and sinful isn't going to change the behaviour, it'll make it worse. And then as the generations pass, church numbers decline and more people start playing around with witchcraft, no doubt.
God is a constant anchor in my life - but He's more than that, He's a friend. When I pray at regular intervals (regardless of what I'm doing - yep, I was a hungry drinker back in September/October) He never leaves me wanting for anything. If money becomes tight - He pays me with gratitude. When money is in abundance, He asks me to pay it forward by helping someone else out (a fair trade right?), when I'm down, He inserts a little note of encouragement, and when I'm up, I'm the one instructed to lift others by paying that same note forward. Because Christianity IS "paying it forward" - it's not handing down sanctions and misdemeanours.
I see Christianity in such depths, that I see a purpose for more than less everything (except crane flies), and the bible is FULL of people just like us - so what are we doing trying to be perfect? How does that actually help OUR story?
This is not the place for harsh teachings and strict rules, you should be able to post anything here and be encouraged and listened to, not shot down and shamed. I should be able to walk into a church, empty the contents of my mind, and be greeted with wisdom and sound teachings, not judgement.
Sin isn't a rating system. Whether you marry a man, commit a robbery, or overindulge at Christmas, it's the exact same thing - and the very thing Jesus paid for 2000-odd years ago. Bad, questionable or inadvisable choices do NOT make a person bad, or any more sinful than a monk.
The question is what we do moving forward to enrich the human race as a whole. Someone on this forum actually said that they don't want to associate with non-Christians - that's a major problem already.
Anyway, don't worry Mojo, I'm the biggest rambler in the house.
