which list am I on?

There's a lot of judgment and condemnation flying around these days. Its in the church. Its in politics. Its in a lot of settings (even computer operating systems "Are you PC or Mac?")

There are mainline Christians, evangelical Christians, fundamentalist Christians, liberal Christians, conservative Christians, literalist Christians, those Christians for moral values (I've yet though to meet any Christians for immoral values!). Pre-millenialial Christians, Christians who only use the King James Version of the Bible, Christians who will only vote Republican, Christians who will only vote Democrat, pro-choice Christians, pro-life Christians, anit-gay Christians, gay and lesbian Christians (this is the one that seems to get the most debate these days) and friends of gays and lesbians Christians. There are post-modern Christians, Christians who are part of the emerging culture (and those who aren't?...that must mean we live on the same planet, but different universes). Its been a while since I've met a plain Christian. And then, does that mean they are a "member" of an organization called the church OR simply one who is an obedient servant of God in the body of Christ?

Anyway, there's a fella named Jason Clark who is from England and helps me to see things more clearly about God and the church these days. He has a blog http://emergent.typepad.com/jasonclark/. He put me on to something that is going to happen on May 9th called The Grilling of Brian McLaren. This will be by Andrew Jones, who I think is from New Zealand. He's another one of those helpful guys I find these days. Brian is someone we know who was with us in March of 2004 and I have been with a variety of times over the past 3 years. His trilogy of books has helped a lot of us sort out the assumptions and questions about what it means to be a Christian these days. But its those very books that have gotten Brian into trouble with some folks in those "Christian" categories I listed above. (we try to keep Brian's books in stock in our Fairlawn-West bookstore.)

Well, anyway and last of all, this all reminds me of a story about William Sloane Coffin, (here's another good link on Coffin) the great preacher and prophet and activist, who is dying of cancer in these very days. Coffin had served with the US Army in WW II with the forerunner spy agency of the CIA. After the war when he went to Yale Univ he was part of the conservative Christian groups. But in his early years at Yale his mind and heart shifted. He became a rabid liberal and social justice person which led him to decide to go into ministry. Anyway, Coffin's old prayer group folks on campus would lament over his idealogical or theological shift. They would come up to him on campus and tell him they were praying for him so he would see the "light." One day after a group of these folks told him he was on their prayer list, he asked," What's the difference between your prayer list and your shit list?"

I see liberals today use the same style, just different language..."we need to raise THEIR consciousness." Not much difference between being prayed for to change your mind and having somone try to raise your consciousness...seems to me. Both sound like shit lists.