Christmas Time
Free Your Mind... Let Love Run Wild

A Christmas greeting from my friend Jonny's blog. It's one of the funniest things I've ever read.

Dear Jon,

Remember: Whenever we say "Christmas," Christ always comes first. And whenever we say "X-mas," X comes first. Not many people know that Jesus Christ's real name is "Jesus Little." He changed His name to "Jesus X" to show that He was His own person and didn't need the white man's slave name... He was His own man. Which explains the meaning behind X-mas. It's just short for "X-Man's." Because the X-Men had superpowers... just like Jesus.

Jim

Happy New Year, everybody.
posted by Stephen at 11:40 AM | |

 
I Saw What You Did
How Modern Day Confessionals Point to Failures in the Body of Christ

Go on. Get it off your chest. Start the New Year fresh.

www.comeclean.com

Don't you feel better?

I thought this was rather clever. The site is particularly well done. Very entertaining. I could literally sit in front of this thing for hours. The only thing that dragged my wife and I away from it last night was a dinner date with some friends.

I pray for the day there is this level of transparency in the body of Christ. If you have it, you are blessed.
posted by Stephen at 7:31 AM | |

 
Ideological Inbreeding
The Ugly Side of Partisan News and the Blogging World

First of all, I guess I should apologize. Yeah, it's been a while since we've blogged. But at the end of a school semester, things get crazy (at least they do for me... all Jimmy teaches is Bible, and they don't do anything in that class, anyway). So thank you all for bearing with us. Hopefully we'll squeeze a few posts out over the break (I expect a good poop joke based on the last sentence from Blake E.).

I've been hanging out over at a blog written by and for people who are proud members of the left-wing of American politics. I'm from Tulsa, where most people use the word "liberal" as a pejorative term. But, lately, I've been doing a lot of political soul-searching. I think I just wanted to see what people who call themselves liberals REALLY think, since I very often hear what people who call themselves conservatives think, and I wanted to get it from the horse's mouth, not the sanitized version you get on the Sunday AM shows, and not the warped version you get from the conservative talking heads.

What I found didn't shock me, but it still disappointed me. People who call themselves liberals sound an awful lot like people who call themselves conservatives. Some are really intelligent and really cool... looking for dialogue in an attempt to sharpen their own minds and ideas.

Others, however, are just looking for confirmation of what they already think is true, and don't take kindly to people questioning their orthodoxy. Conservatives like to call people who disagree with them "socialists", or if they're of a more Christian conservative flavor, "morally bankrupt" and "godless." I know people who have said they don't know how a Christian can vote for democrats. I'm pretty used to hearing these things bandied about. Most of the time, though, they are used by people who have no idea what "the other side" really thinks, mainly because they haven't taken the time to talk to any of these people. They go off of assumptions, or worse, what they're ideological brothers TELL them about the other side.

Apparently, many on the "left" side of things aren't any better. They constantly refer to "red state" people as "ignorant" or "hypocrites." They carry around the security blanket of a stereotype that everyone who voted for Bush is either psychotic or an idiot. The elitism is disconcerting on both sides. "Conservatives" see "liberals" as carnal dogs who simply want to kill their babies, smoke dope, and burn flags. "Liberals" see "conservatives" as torch-carrying mobs of angry puritans who want to marry their siblings.

I used to think we'd be better off if news media would go back to how things were in the 19th Century: It was all biased, and everyone knew it. You just picked the news outlet that represented the viewpoint you wanted to read. In some ways, we have gone back to this in the form of the blogging world. This seems to be the way it runs when it comes to blogs that deal with politics, religion, etc. I'm not so sure if this is a good thing anymore, though.

I'm afraid the result is not too different from inbreeding. We don't allow it because, after the same genes have been recycled a few times, it starts to do funky stuff to them. The teeth get huge. The chin disappears. The eyes bug out. It messes with their mental faculties. The same is happening all over America, but it's happening in the mind. Ideas aren't challenged. They're simply held. Without any real opposition, those ideas atrophy. They wed themselves to other ideas that look just the same. They make offspring that are more extreme than they were. The idea mutates. It ceases to be based on any rational thought or on anything resembling reality and simply becomes... instinct. People only expose themselves to those ideas they agree with. The more distant those that disagree with me are, the easier it is for me to generalize, stereotype, and, eventually, demonize them. Instead of interacting with real people who actually hold the positions we think we disagree with so vehemently, we create cartoon characters of them and attack our fictional creations, then pat ourselves on the back for showing how anyone with half a brain can see how right we are.

Whether you only listen to Rush Limbaugh or his toady, Sean Hannity for your news, or casually refer to the President as "Bushitler" and get away with it because you honestly can't understand how any reasonable person would have voted for THAT MAN... it's all the same. Both disregard about half of the reality they claim to have contained in their philosophies.

It ain't good for America, people! And it isn't just happening in politics. It happens in the Church. It happens everywhere that people are able to have differences of opinion. The result is a divisiveness that some have started to recognize and regret. Take Robert Smigel, for instance. He's never one to pass up a chance to take shots at the right, but on his last T.V. Funhouse on SNL, it seems he had had enough of the growing paranoia about "red states." His cartoon has Santa Claus deciding not to give gifts in the "red states" as punishment for being so ignorant and hateful (as well as being stupid enough to believe in God), with the encouragement of Al Franken, Natalie Merchant, and Moby. In the end, a young girl from Kansas reminds him that "the Santa I know doesn't label people, but treats people fairly." That looks so stupid here on the computer screen, but it was pretty good on tv.

Anyhow, here's the point: "Conservatives" should be a little ashamed at how intolerance is almost something to be proud of. At the same time, "liberals" need to remember that they once thought tolerance was a virtue, and that they have often stood up for those who are being treated unfairly. Thinking that everyone who voted for Bush is either evil or an ignorant hick doesn't add up when you whine constantly about fairness and not stereotyping people. It's hypocrisy. Stop it.

If we know what's good for us, we'll all try a measure of objectivity, both in the news we seek out and in the viewpoints we espouse. Otherwise, the map of the U.S. will continue to get more red in the middle and more blue on the outsides. Two Americas, indeed.
posted by Stephen at 11:54 PM | |