I have always considered myself to be just another “Joe” on the street. Nothing special, nothing terrific, just an average Joe. I have always fought against this feeling of elitism that creeps in from time to time as I look around me and see how people live, what they do, and what they say. Not so much that I feel elitist, but that as differences appear, I fight the fear that I might become elitist. As much as I don’t want to admit it, education does bring about differences and distinctions between people. Often the distinctions make a huge difference in the institutions we find ourselves apart of and to which we are beholden. It can be embarrassing, and makes one wonder why certain people percolate to positions of influence and authority when they do nothing but cause derision or harm to their cause. Is it that they just yell more? Is it that they find people who are even less aware or rational or sensible then themselves, thus a following?
I fight an attitude of elitism. I know from where I came. I know that wisdom is born out of experience more than from education. Experience knows no boundaries between rich and poor, educated and uneducated. Wisdom is often found in what the prevailing culture believes to be most unlikely places. I know, perhaps because of my education, that I am not really just an “average Joe.” If I look at our population, those with undergraduate college degrees comprise around 30% of the population (depending on which statistic one considers valid). Those with graduate degrees comprise around 5%, and those with Ph.D.’s around 3% of the population. So, what does this mean?
comments? e-mail me

I wonder about the state of the Church. Of course, many have wondered about the state of the Church since the Church began. Nothing new, nothing different, but yet another person wondering why the Church shoots itself in the foot constantly. The Church, which is a broad and undistinguished term for all the people who belong to the institution, comprised of different sects and institutions. More accurately, I suppose, the Church, no matter what should be, is really the institutions made up of the leaders and those who yell the loudest and longest. I think most people just sit on the sidelines and get riled every now and then. The leaders run the institution, whether the Roman church or a Congregational church. Anyway, there you have it.
The Church is a fallible institution because it is made up of fallible people. An institution that is destined to fail in so many ways, yet through this institution God has chosen to make His appeal. Like the Hebrews of old (and even now), God chose a people to bless and to demonstrate to the world what it is to be a people under the hand of God. Wonderful. Nevertheless, the people always rebelled and could never find it within themselves to trust God. They new better. They wanted their own way, and God allowed it. They got what they asked for. Today, under the “New Covenant” of grace, the Church takes upon itself the position of being God’s representative. God chose this structure to make know what it is to live under His grace. But, like ancient Israel, we do not trust. We seem to think we know what is best for ourselves, and really for God, too. Perfection cannot be expected from the Church, even though many parts of the Church like to think they are in perfection. Self-righteousness has always been with us.
However, many within the Church do absolutely stupid things that do nothing but cause harm to the cause of Christ.
comments? e-mail me

More stuff from the court ruling prompted by another Focus on the Family e-mail update about gay marriage and public opinion.
“Most Americans Oppose Gay “Marriage,” Gallup Poll Says
By Steve Jordahl, correspondent
“A majority of Americans still thinks marriage should be
limited to a man and a woman. A recent Gallup Poll found
55 percent of Americans oppose same-sex “marriage”, while
only 39 percent said gay relationships should be given the
same rights and privileges as traditional marriage.
Jan LaRue, legal policy director at Concerned Women for
America, said this issue is a matter of common sense.
“This is morally repugnant to most thinking people,” LaRue
said. “Thankfully, the majority will prevail as to
preserving marriage to a man and a woman.”
They are depending on majority opinion for their justification of establishing laws that impinge upon the equal treatment of one group of people. By using majority opinion, they run the risk of majority opinion turning against their issue, their understanding of things, their desired morality and laws. If we look at additional studies, at least the results of which I have read from numerous sources, the trending majority opinion is against their desired end, so why continue to lift up that argument to justify their position.
As politicized Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christians, when the rubber hits the road, they don’t care about majority public opinion. They are simply using this argument now because it supports their position. They believe that God will support their campaigns and their positions, so therefore they will win. If their positions (which they consider God’s positions) are not supported by majority opinion, it is simply proof that our culture has rejected God’s ways, to our own destruction. If majority opinion does not support their positions, then they will discard majority opinion as a justification in a New York minute.
They continue to attempt to insinuate that anyone who is moral, sane, and intelligent will obviously support their position that marriage is only between one woman and one man, as the past 3,000 years of history supports. All one has to do is look at history beyond the past 200 years to see that most marriages really looked very little like marriages today, but they still attempt to demand that history support their position of one woman and one man freely marrying out of love.
Frankly, I really don’t care whether gay people are allowed to bind their relationship under the same name, “marriage,” as straight people, but within the civil arena gay couples whom so desire should have the same civil rights and responsibilities as straight couples who desire to legalize their relationships. This will become the prevailing policy because it is just, even just before God. Taking this position does not mean that anyone has to agree with homosexuality or stop advocating that homosexuals change. It simply means that a group who desires the same goals and morals supported by “straight marriage,” has the same civil rights and responsibilities of other groups who desire the same thing – to legalize their relationships and desire to bound one to another.
comments? e-mail me