Monday, January 12, 2009

A tale of two Christianities

Sully flags a Christian who doesn't seem to like Jesus much. For some Christians, it's all about keeping score, about knowing you're better than a lot of other people out there and taking solace in that you're getting into Heaven at the end of your days--while all the people you hate are going to go to Hell. For other Christians, though, talk of the afterlife is avoided because the thought of so many people living forever in torment is unimaginable, and keeping score and that sort of moral vanity are unthinkable because we know that our "scores" are incredibly low and we don't for a second believe that we're morally superior to anyone.

I, of course, identify with the latter group.


I always blanch at saying that someone's Christianity is less than mine, or isn't legitimate, but in this case I will make an exception: one of these versions of Christianity is illegitimate. And it isn't mine, if one actually looks at what Jesus said.

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.