I’ve been thinking a lot about faith lately, my faith, other people’s faith, and how people of faith are lumped together if they read from the same book, even if their interpretation of that book is vastly different. Suffice it to say when people say Christians do this or that thing, they aren’t usually talking about me. I imagine it’s the same for Muslims and Jewish folks or any faithful body who have serious disagreements with the loudest among their fold. These folks can usually quote from their holy book, but aren’t particularly interested in living it out.
I’ve watched askance as the Southern Baptist Convention threw out any church that ordained women to preach, including the largest church in their denomination, Rick Warren’s Saddleback church. I learned from a friend who grew up Southern Baptist and is now Presbyterian that Southern Baptists used to ordain women, so the math isn’t mathing on that one. Folks are so entrenched in their ideological difference that it’s like watching toddlers who can’t stop flailing even when you’ve given them juice and french fries.
“What I see around me in my faith community reflects what I see in our country. We are going backward; I’m worried we can’t stop it,” Kimberly Griffin writes. Photo by eberhard ? grossgasteiger on Unsplash
I’m struggling as a United Methodist watching with a broken heart as our church splits ostensibly over the potential of LGBTQ ordination, though frankly, I suspect that particular ideological difference won’t pass the smell test in a few years. What I see around me in my faith community reflects what I see in our country. We are going backward; I’m worried we can’t stop it. Racism, misogyny, and homophobia flourish among talk of family values and the greatness of bygone days. I’ll ask whose family and which days were so great for what people.
I see it in my daily work as our all-women fundraising team asks donors with significant capacity who say they believe in our work to give only a pittance of what we asked for or nothing at all or
Read original article by clicking here.