Recovering Baptist

Colliding worlds

Posted in Church, Politics, Friends, Religion by RB on May 1st, 2008

I have a facebook page. I don’t know why. It’s the kind of timesuck that doesn’t appeal to me - virtual hugs, attacking zombies, or pretending to race. I just don’t get it. It would be a lot more fun to get together and play scrabble face to face over a real beer rather than spread the game out over days with a virtual opponent over a virtual beer…

I ran into someone at church last night, and I told her I was mad at her. Since we really don’t hang out that much, she was taken aback. But once I understood that my old church friends were suddenly able to find me, including an ex-girlfriend, she understood.

The ex-girlfriend and I left on good terms, and we’ve run into each other in the past without any awkwardness. But when I saw her profile I laughed. Her religious views are classified as “Born Again Christian” and her political views as “Very conservative.” Those phrases used to describe me.

Any orthodox Christian will tell you that Christ talks about being born again. But when someone describes themselves explicitly as a “Born Again Christian,” well, you know a lot about them from the start. It just seems that most of those people claim to cling to God’s grace while rarely exhibiting it themselves. My acquaintance and I laughed that our old friends from the megachurch where I once worked or the church where I grew up would probably say that we now attend one of those “liberal” churches since our pastor is handing out virtual beers and swearing online.

Liberals don’t go to heaven. At least, that’s what I used to think. I’d never say as much out loud, but honestly, the way “they” were demonized in my religious circles, it was a logical conclusion. I was an observer to an online conversation where someone stated that if conservatism were a country then anyone who claimed to be conservative but voted for Obama should be hung for treason. I guess I’m not a conservative.

My acquaintance and I agreed that we’re torn in how to handle our facebook friends from our old lives. On the one hand we really want to do something outrageous to throw our newfound freedom in their faces. On the other hand, we’re a little afraid. It turns out that I don’t want to be rejected by people who belong to the form of Christianity that I rejected. The human mind is a very strange thing indeed.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Church, Politics, Friends, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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