Sure, it has it’s plus side – you can curse without retribution. But sometimes cursing just doesn’t meet with general standards of decorum. Like in the case of the guy I just met who has Tourette syndrome.

I met him at church. Not my church, but at A church. He was a music leader for a young adults group. And dude could NOT stop saying “F@# YOUR A@!#$ M@$@$#F*&)@#”. I mean, every 5 seconds. Same phrase every time.

For some reason, when he was singing, it didn’t happen, but as soon as he stopped, “F@# YOUR A@!#$ M@$@$#F*&)@#.” Including when he would pray. He was pretty good at taking the mic away from his face when he would say it, but you could still hear it faintly. And occasionally he wouldn’t quite get the mic moved in time, and then he would say “F@# YOUR A@!#$ M@$@$#F*&)@#” through the PA system, which was VERY strange to hear in church.

I’m not going to bag on this guy. He’s clearly making the best of his lot in life by trying to serve. However, I’m not sure I agree with his choice of servitude options. Someone who frequently blurts “F@# YOUR A@!#$ M@$@$#F*&)@#” isn’t necessarily the best choice for on-stage performance. Nor would the job of church “greeter.” A guest at a church doesn’t generally expect to hear “Good morning, welcome to our church. F@# YOUR A@!#$ M@$@$#F*&)@#.” Just like a guest at a church doesn’t expect the worship pastor to say “thank you God, praise God, F@# YOUR A@!#$ M@$@$#F*&)@#.”

There have to be more suitable ways for this guy to serve. Like the sound guy. Nobody can hear what the sound guy says because they stick him at the back in a booth. Or how about the drummer. Drummer’s get stuck at the back of the stage behind a soundproof plexiglass cage. How about janitor? People EXPECT the janitor to walk around saying “F@# YOUR A@!#$ M@$@$#F*&)@#.”

So in summary, it obviously sucks to be this guy. It also sucks that he has chosen a position in a church that lets him shout “F@# YOUR A@!#$ M@$@$#F*&)@#” 150 times per service. Through the PA system.

Did I mention how weird it was to have a conversation with someone who was super nice but who also interjected “F@# YOUR A@!#$ M@$@$#F*&)@#” every other sentence? Because it was weird.

Apparently the fact that Christmas is traditionally a celebration of Jesus’ birth, that sounds at least vaguely related to Christmas…

The school did not agree.

Read it for yourself here: Massachusetts Thinks Religion = Psychosis

Mercy Church Video Page (Click “Getting Close to God,” then click “Special Music Service,” then click the play button.)

I don’t like running sound.

We have to set up and break down everything each week… can’t just leave the sound system set up.

So, at 7:30 on a Sunday morning I get to do heavy lifting, then sound checking, then run-through, then service, then break everything down.

I’m theoretically in the band. I play bass.

I haven’t played bass in several months. We have been short on sound people in the rotation, so instead of doing what I like to do, I get to do something that I hate (which people say I’m good at).

I can’t wait for the day when we have enough people I don’t have to be in the sound rotation anymore. Ugh.

What I’ve discovered over the years is that there are really three types of Christians. The most common is the “Membership Christian.” These are people who go to church because of the social connection. They might somewhat believe Jesus lived and they probably believe you should be a “good person,” but mostly they’re there for the free donuts and the friends. If the pastor preaches something that hits them a little too close, they might just leave for greener pastures, or they might just tune him out. Actually living a faith-filled Christian life is not something that interests Membership Christians.

The second type of Christians are the “Functional Christians.” These are people who do believe in God, in Jesus, the resurrection, etc. At the same time, they understand that the “world” as Christians like to call it does not relate to weirdos. A Functional Christian believes that the way they should witness is by living THEIR OWN LIFE in a Christian way. After all, the Bible says that “by their fruit you shall know them.” In other words, if someone’s a Christian, they shouldn’t have to tell people, it should be obvious. Functional Christians have many unsaved friends, who are drawn to the Functional Christian because they like what they see…

The third type of Christians are the ones that get all the press, because frankly, they’re the most annoying. These are the Standards Christians. Standards Christians are extremely focused on rules, regulations, and standards. They take the verse “avoid every appearance of evil” to mean that they shouldn’t do anything that could ever be construed by ANYONE to be bad. They don’t watch R rated movies (which they arbitrarily picked even though PG-13 movies often have tons of crap in them), the men keep their hair short, they don’t listen to “secular” music, and they certainly don’t drink or dance.

The problem with Standards Christians is twofold. First, they NEVER think that they themselves are judgmental. Ever. In all my years, I’ve never met a Standards Christian that would ever acknowledge being one. Second, they look down their nose at anyone who does not follow their rules, regulations, and standards.

Of course, Jesus himself never looked down his nose at anyone. He didn’t judge people who were sinners, he forgave them (something which only he can do). Jesus understood that you can’t draw an unbeliever in by treating them like a second-class citizen. That’s why he spent his time with the sick, the prostitutes, and the tax collectors (the real dirtbags of his time).

Standards Christians are on a quest. They want everyone to follow their phoney-baloney-made-up rules. They try to impose them on everyone they meet, even if they’re doing it by quietly passing judgment on people. You see, quietly passing judgment is their way of guilt-tripping people into becoming a believer.

Have you ever heard the term “you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar?” Well, Standards Christians are vinegar.

Unfortunately if you were to break it down into percentages, you’d probably get something like 60% Membership Christians, 10% Functional Christians, and 30% Standards Christians. That means for someone on the outside looking in, 60% of the Christians look like hypocrites and 30% look like judgmental morons. That can’t be attractive to a non-Christian.

And it isn’t attractive. It’s evident from the national reaction to Christians. The media mocks Christians. Non-believers always claim hypocrisy and judgmentalism – and rightly so.

As Christians, we have a responsibility to refrain from judgmental behavior, from hypocrisy, and from phoney standards. This means not looking down our noses at people who are non-believers or who are doing something against our beliefs. It really is God’s job to judge people’s souls. We can know right from wrong without judging… those are two different things. We also have to refrain from hypocrisy. That doesn’t mean we have to be perfect, it means that we can’t say one thing and do another. If we have a problem with alcohol, then for Pete’s sake, we can’t go around telling people drinking is wrong!

And finally, we can’t try to impose phoney standards. I often heard the term “higher standards” when I was growing up. “We Christians need to have a higher standard.” What exactly does that mean? A higher standard than Christ? People who use that term are deluding themselves. Being Christ-like isn’t a set of rules. To say that it is misses the entire point of what Jesus tried to teach us by his example.

What would Jesus do? He’d start by not sinning (which he was good at), follow that with some teaching to anyone who WANTS to hear about Christianity, and finish it off with some good old fashioned wine and dancing.

To the non-Christians reading this, I’d ask you not to lump all Christians together. We’re not all the same, just as all non-Christians aren’t the same. There are churches out there that teach love, forgiveness, and kindness.

THAT SAID…

After Fox was diagnosed with cancer, he became the poster boy for fetal stem cell research. And not just any fetal stem cell research – TAX funded fetal stem cell research. He talks about how the right has forced their morality on him and is ruining countless lives. Yet he wants his amorality forced on US by making us pay taxes into a system that then funds something we find immoral. So how is he any better than those who oppose it?

Fox was a vocal critic of Bush’s ban on fetal stem cell research (which basically banned federal funds from being used). However, during the ban, there were several hundred existing stashes of fetal stem cells available to researchers that were exempt from the ban.

During the ban, multiple stem cell therapies were discovered using adult and cord stem cells. The number of treatments and cures EVER discovered from fetal stem cells? ZERO.

As a Christian, it’s impossible for me to accept that the ONLY way to find a cure for diseases is to destroy human life. PETA freaks out when we do tests on lab rats, yet somehow we think it’s ok to use a FETUS (Latin meaning “little one”) which is HUMAN. We have to have ethical boundaries in medicine, don’t we? Can we harm a few for the good of the many, or is that something we’re better than here in America?

If scientists agreed that we could cure Alzheimer’s by doing some destructive testing on gay people, do you think it would be ok? What if it only hurt or killed a dozen gay people but it saved millions from degenerative diseases? Fetal stem cell research is every bit as ridiculous as that example.

Fox has zealously pursued the fetal stem cell TAX funding question for years. He finally got his wish with President “No Fetus Left Alive” Obama. So that’s great – what does that give us?

Well, let me list off a few things:

- Christians with a moral problem with abortion are now helping to fund what we consider human testing
- We may or may not ever discover any cure whatsoever using fetal stem cells
- We have blurred the ethical line forever about using humans for testing

Fox clearly only cares about himself. He is understandably selfish because its his own health that is driving his decisions. However, he’s insisting on what HE wants at the expense of what many others don’t want. I fully agree with funding medical research that is ethical, but this doesn’t qualify. It’s easy to say say that those of us who are “born” are more worthy of life than those that aren’t born yet. That’s merely because the unborn don’t have a voice.

Let me preempt the question I’m positive someone will put in my comments. No, I would not accept treatment that hinged on destruction of human embryos, even if it meant my alternative was dying. Expedience and selfishness are not good ways to make decisions in life.

One of my favorite quotes was from G.K. Chesterton. He said “Tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions.” I can’t tolerate such an unethical practice, even if it does end up helping people. There has to be a different way to help sick people.

I suppose it’s easy to be judgmental when you are living in a vacuum. When all of your friends are out of the exact same mold, and when no one in your immediate group ever rocks the boat. Because some of the ideas floating around in churches are beyond wacky and stupid.

I went to a church… ok, several, but one in particular that really emphasized “speaking in tongues.” Now, I am enough of a believer in the Bible that I believe Pentacost did actually happen – and those people really did speak in languages they didn’t know. Yes, I have no trouble believing that.

I DO, however, have trouble believing that the girl who 5 minutes ago passed judgment on me for my hairstyle has now inexplicably been chosen by the holy spirit to speak in tongues. It’s especially difficult for me to believe when I know for a fact that every doggone person at that church makes exactly the same gibberish sounds when they “speak in tongues.”

However, wouldn’t you know – almost EVERY one of the people in this church who had been there for a while began speaking in tongues eventually. I literally watched leaders in the church COACH people about how to do it: “just start out by blabbing and then the holy spirit will take over.” Ok, that’s not only weird and wrong, it’s hilarious!

But back to my point. There were numerous people in that church who looked upon me with pity and/or judgment because I refused to allow peer pressure to make me pretend to speak in tongues. And yes, I said pretend. They are fooling only themselves – and each other.

That’s just one silly example of how peer pressure and mob mentality can create a bunch of mindless automatons who soak up BS and then judge those who don’t fall for it.

All that to say, when Jenna first started trying to drag me to church, I wanted no part of it. All churches seem reasonable the first couple times you visit them. I was SURE that Jenna was just being naive. I even warned her to guard herself so she wouldn’t be attacked for some silly reason. I didn’t want to see her getting hurt or turned off of her… dare I say it?… childlike faith. (to quote the Bible)

But I ultimately went, not for me, but to make her happy (partly) and to protect her (partly). She assured me this church was different.

After 18 months, I can tell you that Mercy Church is not like that. The church lives up to the name. I have never felt anything but warmth and care – not just from the pastor or the leaders – from every single person there. It’s a church of real people living in the real world with real problems. There’s no false pretense, no “higher standards” (what a retarded concept – higher standards – I feel a separate post coming on).

Now I’m heavily involved in this church, excited about their mission, and excited to help them execute it. My personal mission is to do everything I can to help Mercy Church keep that culture, even as it ramps up the messages and steps on people’s toes. There is a lot of pride, hatefulness, and judgmentalism floating around out there, and it’s about time there was an antidote. Last year the church did a sermon series called “God Loves Gays.” Really!

Here’s a quote from the website: “One important thing to know about Mercy Church is that we do not get into the legalistic judgmental stuff that is sadly such a part of Christianity. We love God and love people, period! No one at Mercy Church will look sideways at you for any reason … well actually, they will look at you funny if you act like you are perfect and if you act holier-than-thou-super-spiritual… but only then!”

Mercy Church Come and visit when you’re in KC (and make sure you look for me… I’ll be the bald guy holding the bass!).

I’ve never been one to give into peer pressure. I’ve never even felt pressured by peer pressure. I truly couldn’t care less what people think of me. I spent most of my childhood, teenage years, and early 20’s being crapped on by snooty religious people who enjoyed looking down their noses at me. You’d think they’d reserve that for genuinely bad people. But you’d be wrong.

You see, I wouldn’t allow them to force me into their mold of religiousity. To be a snooty religious person, you have to have the right haircut, the right friends, the right type of words, the right kind of prayers, the right kind of job, and the right kind of image. Sure, there are some snooty religious people who really are Christians, but they serve as more of a blockade to non-believers than as a “beacon on the hill.” I mean, honestly, what sane person would want to go around acting better than everyone else. Where I come from, we call people like that “Jackass.”

Snooty religious people like to reinforce each other’s pride. They meet regularly under the guise of “Bible studies” and “prayer breakfasts.” I’m NOT saying that by default those things are always about pride. I’m saying that they are always like that when it’s snooty religious people. There are also genuine religious people, of whom I am not speaking. Those people are a rare commodity. Snooty religious people never THINK that THEY are snooty.

They sit around and embelish what the Bible actually says and add on their own silly, narrow-minded interpretations, forgetting that some of the most notable people in the Bible were royal screwups. King David is called “a man after God’s own heart” and is the same guy who had sex with a married woman and had her husband killed. Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived, and had 300 wives and 700 concubines. Jacob was married to two chicks. All three of these guys would have been condemned in the worst way by the snooty religious people.

I’m happy to report I never allowed snooty religious people to peer pressure me into becoming one of them any more than I let my drug-addicted alcoholic friends peer pressure me into drunken orgies with strangers. I’m just not that susceptible to it for some reason.

The odd part is that almost the entirety of the judgmentalism that’s been heaped on me over years has been for stuff that’s just simply NOT wrong.

Over the years I’ve been the victim of all sorts of judgmental goofiness. Everything from listening to “secular” radio, to being “creepy” (I was too shy to talk to people, so therefore I was a creepy perv), to drinking a beer. In the last couple years, numero uno thing that snooty religious people judge me for is having Jenna live in the same house as me. Because Lord knows, cohabitation = sin. (Or as we used to say in my high school – “You can’t have sex, because that might lead to dancing!”) Even though living together has no correlation to immorality whatsoever, except that if you intend to be immoral, it saves you gas money. How can I say this delicately… I had girlfriends where we crossed the line, and we DIDN’T frickin’ live together. If anything, living together makes you want to strangle each other. Obviously, if I’d met someone from KC I wouldn’t be living with her, but I didn’t… I met someone in Philadelphia. Life’s like that sometimes. Living with someone causes sex in the same way that a gun kills someone or a pencil writes a paper.

I’ve finally found a church that starts off every week by saying “Intense religious people scare us.” That describes my feelings 100%. I NEVER felt accepted or cared for in a church before this one. That’s unbelievably sad, because Christians are the people who should be BEST at accepting and caring for people. Jesus himself spent his time with the tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners.

The even more sad thing about it is, the people who ARE judgmental and cruel will think that it’s OTHER people I’m talking about. They are so full of spiritual pride they can’t even SEE that they’re prideful. It’s ridiculous yet ironic. Proverbs lists 7 things that are an abomination to God… guess what tops the list. Pride. You got it. Pride.

I know there’s no way to reach a person who’s let themself become a snooty religious jackass. They can only be reached, unfortunately, by their own personal failure and tragedy. Funny enough… when the snooty religious people DO fail or fall, their snooty religious friends will be the first to treat them like crap.

The worst part of these people is that they aren’t content just being a jerk in their own life. They want to interfere with everyone’s happiness around them as well. I have been a witness to this life-draining, happiness-crushing phenomenon more than once. And they always crush the people who are right on the fringe of not being sure of their faith. Just what they need – a kick over the side of the cliff.

I would rather spend my time with a bunch of athiests and heathens who are genuine and true than spend a single minute with another judgmental “Christian” jerk.

I left a church several years ago after a couple of snooty religious girls got into their heads that I was “creepy.” I never DID anything to them. AN. Y. THING. I was kind to them. But I was quiet and shy and that was the same as being a psychotic, perverted weirdo in their eyes. They told the pastor I was a creepy weirdo, and he literally took me in his office an confronted me about it. I honestly tried to stay at that church after that, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t wanted or accepted there.

I don’t harbor resentment towards the people that have judged me over the years. I just wonder what God will have to say about them crushing a young guy’s faith in people and faith in church community. I’ll tell you what, being around that type of people toughened me up more than any of the bad stuff that’s happened in my life.

This question is for any snooty religious people reading here: What are you going to say to God on judgment day about all of the people you pushed FURTHER away from God by being holier-than-thou and prideful?

I took me years to get really invested back into a church after that. Years. And I was dragged back kicking and screaming by the gal I live with. Stick that in your pipes and smoke it.

Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

Drudge Report is carrying a story right now in which Elton John calls for a total ban on religion, because religion is intolerant.

Uhhh…. Elton, I don’t think you fully grasp the concept of “intolerance.”

Can we all say a big “Duh” in unison for him? I mean, come ON.

It points out a very common occurance, though. How many times have I heard “We shouldn’t tolerate religion, because religion is intolerant” in one form or another. It’s probably the single most moronic things that Athiests and Liberals spout. (Please note that I differentiated between the two, despite their many simliarities.)

Ok, I fully acknowledge that religion as a whole is intolerant of certain behaviors. That’s… kinda the point, guys. Religion is all about teaching right from wrong. Which means that some things are wrong. Which we shouldn’t tolerate.

You may disagree on what those things are, and I think that’s just fine.

However, it’s rather damaging to your “accepting and all inclusive” relativistic BS argument when you say that we should therefore be intolerant of religion.

Duh.

People constantly throw rocks at the Bible… it’s not inspired, it’s just an archaic old worthless book. It was written by men, who could have made up whatever they wanted.

I’ve heard them before.

Leviticus is the book of the Bible where homosexuality is prohibited. It’s also the book where about 900 other things are prohibited. So, why would God care (or for that matter, the “guy” writing it down) what people do?

Homosexuality, whatever else you might choose to put forth, was responsible initially for the spread of AIDS. It has crossed over to the heterosexual crowd, but it started out in the homosexual community (thus the belief many hold that it’s a “gay disease”). Now, it’s running rampant all over the world, and so far, we don’t know how to stop it. We may never. It may keep mutating and be impossible to create a cure or an immunization.

There’s no mystery as to how AIDS is spread. Sex. Needles. That’s really it. So, how come smart people like us can’t stop the spread of the disease? I mean, this isn’t 2,000 BC… when the Bible was being written… it’s 2006 AD. We have hospitals, education, and we KNOW EXACTLY HOW IT’S BEING SPREAD!

I know some of you will say, “Pete, the Bible (leaders of the time) had to prohibit things because the people were too ignorant to know what could happen.” However, in 2,000 BC, they didn’t know about germs, didn’t know about how disease was spread, etc. So how would “people” know to prohibit all of these potential epidemic starters?

The answer is, they didn’t. God knew. Further proof that the Bible is inspired.

But that’s really beside the point.

Let’s not JUST pick on gays. How about incest. That’s prohibited in the Bible. Why? Because it’s immoral, or because it produces genetic mutations (like the British royal family) that are harmful to the offspring?

How about “fornication” or multiple partners? That’s prohibited in the Bible. Why? Because it’s immoral, or because it spreads diseases like hepatitis, syphillis, and clamydia, as well as producing accidental and unloved, un-cared for offspring?

Even something as simple as “don’t eat pork.” Pork is a great way to get strichinosis, especially if you’re ignorant of the temperatures that you need to cook pork at to kill the disease. We know these things now, but we didn’t then.

So, am I saying that homosexuality will be ok as soon as we figure out how to stop the spread of disease? Not really.

What I am saying is this… maybe the Bible gave us a blueprint for living long, disease-free lives, and we’ve chosen to ignore big chunks of it because no one should be able to tell us what we can and can’t do…

The fact is, we DO know how to prevent the spread of disease, and for some reason we’re too fricking stupid to do what we need to do to stop it. We’re so selfish that we think we should be able to do ANYTHING we want.

Alright. Do whatever you want. You have free will. But if you do something immoral, and you get a disease, don’t be suprised if I say “God told you so.”