Who am I?

It hit me just now as I read a fellow bloggers most recent offering.

He has a list of blogs he reads on listed on his and mine is the only one which is a pseudonym; everyone else's he reads have their name listed.

What does this mean?

Perhaps it means nothing. Maybe I like the fact that people who do not know me and who happen to read my blog, don't know my real name (despite the fact that it's on my profile).

Perhaps it means I'm hiding something. Maybe, despite the fact people I know read this, I take perverse pleasure in pretending I can say what I like and nobody really knows if they can or should take me or what is said seriously.

Perhaps it confirms the fact that I'm actually - through and through - a geek.

I suppose you and I can now decide for ourselves, which we think is the case - and we may or may not agree. But isn't that where opinions are fun?

Bring on September 12!

The Myth of Secular Tolerance

I've just read an article for the second time with the above name.

With my theologically charged previous post, I figure that I might as well do another one - while I'm in the mood.

It is funny how today, this myth is prevelant in our western society. "Oh, we're so tolerant - we don't mind what you believe." Interestingly, the definition of tolerance - according to dictionary.com - is:

"a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own"

With the public outrage over the recent Mohamed cartoons, not just from Muslims, you would think that secular tolerance is at an ever increasing high. Never mind the fact that, while none of us would admit it, if we see someone who slightly resembles the myriad of pictures of terrorists that we are fed every day on the news, we ask ourselves "is he going to blow himself and us all up?" Maybe it feels a bit more real up here, especially with our imminent move to jolly old London what.

"Ah," says the secular tolerationist (made up word), "I know what I'll do. Because I can't attack the Muslims (after all, that would be politically incorrect), I'll attack religion itself."

But what nobody seems to realise, is that what they mean by religion, is Christianity.

Now before I go any further, I will qualify some of my comments. I do not (words split up for emphasis) blame Muslims for what the few extremists are doing, any more than I blame Christians for the brutal history we unfortunately have. There's no point.

Of course, getting back to the point, tolerance would then mean that people won't go on about Christianity as well - do we deserve it, somtimes, but that's not the point. If we were living in a secular tolerant society, we wouldn't get the crap we get so much.

Anyway, my point is that this pluralistic, tolerant society that we in the west treasure so much and believe in, doesn't really exist at all - it's bollocks.

The article is here http://www.jubilee-centre.org/pdfs/The_Myth_of_Secular_Tolerance.pdf if you're interested. It puts it a lot more elloquently than I have.

I'm a

What am I?

Have I been labelled, named, described? Of the many things that I am, one of them - the most defining one, is I am a Christian. Inspired by my previous post which reminded me of a discussion that I had with a lecturer of mine regarding that particular title.

There seems to be a move these days, in the emergent church at least, away from calling ourselves Christian's. In fact, because of the potentially sensitive topic of my previous post, I almost fell into doing the same thing. I almost called myself 'a follower of Christ' in place of 'Christian'.

It is this that I have a problem with.

As fas as I understand it, the reason for moving away from 'Christian' is so that the stigma that is attached with the word is forgotten/ignored/avoided.

The reality is, even if enough of a percentage of us did start calling ourselves 'followers of Christ' for the secular world to notice, we're still Christian's - we believe what we always have believed; we act the way we've always acted; we get seen as hypocrites like we always have been (cynical - I know) - but we're just called something different.

It doesn't matter what we're called. We need to continue to grow more Christ-like, and by the way we treat each other and the rest of the world that people will know we're different. The brutal past that we have won't matter anymore.

So I'm a Christian - the very nature of which is to be a 'follower of Christ'. What's the point of trying to confuse the issue?

Dare I say it...?

Not sure.

But oh well. I watched Brokeback Mountain last night. Now any conservative Christian would probably be having a heart attack that I committed this terrible sin.

Guess it's a good thing I'm anything but a conservative Christian. This movie has to be one of the most heartbreaking movies I've ever seen. Move over Jack and Rose... (not that I really found "I'll never let go Jack, I'll never let go" to be too significantly heartbreaking), anyway.

First of all, let me get the stuff that is easy to comment on out of the way. The movie is spectacular - not really any other way to put it. Ang Lee is very very very deserving of his best director oscar. We can say what we like about the US, but they have some incredible scenery - but more than that, there was a beauty and honesty in the way the movie was directed that I don't remember seeing in other films in this genre. The quick shot of Heath and the fireworks after he's smacked the two guys over left me wanting to see it for longer - but, again to praise Ang Lee, he cuts away from this shot so quickly that it doesn't look cheesy. One or two frames longer and it would have been, and the shot would have been ruined. There are scenes like that throughout the film - incredible.

Now to the stuff that's a bit harder to write about. Obviously, us Christians all got up in arms over the fact that this movie is showing a gay relationship. I read reviews saying there were graphic sex scenes - granted, I was much more uncomfortable watching the one sex scene with Jake and Heath, than I would have been had it been a man and a woman - but we don't get all up in arms with the copious movies which contain heterosexual sex scenes.

The tragedy of love found/lost/found/lost/betrayed/found/lost etc... is what made the movie so sad. We have the wives of these two men who, especially Michelle Williams' Alma, are being betrayed by the men they love - and despite his love for Jack, Ennis is so torn up inside with what it means and the risks involved that he is never able to embrace it; and so is destined for a life of isolation and lonliness. Is there anything sadder than that?

Now whether I agree with or understand that lifestyle is irrelevant. Those of you who know me obviously know what my beliefs are - however, it raised a question that has never really gone away for me since my first 'real' inter-action with gay guys last year. Now, mostly - shock horror - they are just like you and me (if you're a guy). It was this that challenged me - what is my response meant to be, as a fellow human being and as a Christian - (I almost fell into a trap then, which will require another post on the use of the word 'Christian', that is there more as a reminder for me than anything else).

Like I said, we all got upset about the fact that a movie showing a gay relationship was so popular, but why? Why do we always go on about this issue so much as if it is the worst thing anyone can ever do. It seems to me that there is no point in getting all worked up about it and all it does achieve if we do, is to alienate people and portray a God who only loves heterosexuals. Which is absolute rubbish. God loves us all equally and because of this, we need to learn how to live in a fallen world, as a community of sinners trying to do our best to be Christ-like, with sinners, that is likely the only way we are ever going to reach anyone who doesn't know Jesus as their personal saviour: we need to stop putting ourselves above everyone who isn't a believer rather than lording our imagined superiority of knowing the truth over them.

I guess this post comes with a lot of frustration from the past x years that Christians get more worked up about homosexuality than the poverty in the world.

So there, I've seen Brokeback Mountain and I enjoyed it in whatever way you can enjoy a story that is so sad. Well done Mr Lee!