A Blue Like Jazz Fellowship
During welcome week, Cal Journey, or probably Campus Crusade as a whole passes out a book called Blue Like Jazz. In it, the author gives his views on Christianity in a very non spiritual way.
The author in the book goes to a college that is kind of like Berkeley in how liberal it is. In fact, from how he describes it, the college he went to is maybe even more "heathenish" than Berkeley. The Christians at this college are extremely radical in how they reach the greater student population. They are also pretty unorthodox in their living styles. Miller talks about how one of this friends says that the Bible is best enjoyed with cigarettes and chocolate. There are other mentions of embracing communities that tend to be ostracized by many Christian communities.
In a sense, I feel that Jesus is the person who was able to embrace socially shunned communities. He was able to hang out with the sinners, prostitutes, and the tax collectors. These men and women were able to say, "Jesus is the man. He doesn't hate on me." At the same time, Jesus never let down his moral or purity standards. This really makes me wonder sometime how he did this.
Anyway, the part of this post that relates to the title is after reflecting on this, I started thinking about how cool it would be to have a fellowship on campus that somehow embraced all non-Christians in a way that they felt safe and not judged. For me, I think it is interesting how I don't see many people at fellowship,that after large group, go outside and smoke. Or, why don't people meet together to enjoy a hooka and bible study. I feel that a lot of times, Christian communities give of a 'bad vibe' to non-Christians. Maybe if we were out tabling for a fellowship and smoking a pipe, people would come up and be interested in the seeming paradox of how someone can be a Christian and smoke a pipe. Maybe they would ask, "Hey how can you be religious but still be smoking a hooka." I feel that many non-Christians, and Christians have erected a facade of moral perfection that often separates Christians from non-Christians becuase of feelings that they can't relate. I know any desires I have right now to start smoking a pipe or drinking socially would be purely for image, but again, I think it would be neat to see a ministry that was like this.
For me, I don't exactly know if this would be right for me. In Romans it says that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Of course I know that smoking pipes and hookas are not illegal, but maybe this would be bad for my body? or maybe it would be done with the wrong motives.
Anyway, this is something that has been on my mind for a little while.
Talk to me about it.
2 Comments:
I agree with you that it would be interesting to see a fellowship that didn't crumble when its main attraction was the paradox of being a Christian but yet doing things that are considered sinful at the same time. Keeping that in mind however, I think that the root of this situation is based on what you said earlier-"how cool it would be to have a fellowship on campus that somehow embraced all non-Christians in a way that they felt safe and not judged"-and that although the earlier sitution seems like an interesting attraction to use, in a sense we don't "need" it and probably shouldn't use it because we would be sinning and as it is said, "actions speak louder than words"(and lose the fact that Christians are supposed to live what they profess). And in thinking about the fact that this situation is used to attract more non-Christians, not doing this would lose those potential Christians, but doing this would also lose non-Christians that look at this as hypocritical as well as potentially cause Christians to stumble in their walk. It is really amazing what Jesus did because he feels exactly what we feel; he was completely man, but then again, he is competely God as well=P. He knows who we are and everything about us, he knew exactly how to appeal to people and what to do. I know that it is really hard to relate to non-Christians on that level especially with the "facade of moral perfection" but "moral pefection" is just a stereotype and there's not much else you can do about it except set them straight and show them by your actions.
I was talking with Kevin about this in general-how sometimes good things can happen bad/sin situations-and he also mentioned that we have to be wary of those because good things that happen from sin are not from God and could most likely be from Satan trying to tempt us and cause us to stumble.
i think sometimes what comes into play is not if the hookah is right or wrong.. or where the line is, but just.. trying to be above reproach.
yurp.
anyway i didnt read the above comment.
- junbizz
Post a Comment
<< Home