Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Brian and Larry

Last night, with Jasen and I sipping some of my fine homemade brew and Holly with her fruity rum-mango cocktail in hand, we watched Larry King LIve at 9pm. We were tipped off by some friends who had told us that Brian McLaren would be on. We were also tipped off that Brian was just featured in TIME's latest issue on the 25 most influential people in evangelicalism (or was it Evangelicalism?). Interesting.

I gotta be honest, Brian is brilliant, but the show just led me to shake my head. You see, they were also interviewing Tim and Beverly LaHaye [read: LEFT BEHIND], Franklin Graham, and TD Jakes. Now Rev. Jakes was a hoot and actually came off with some legitimate and thought-through ideas/responses. Tim, Beverly, and Franklin... I was just kind of bummed out about.

I am not going to rant much beyond that because it just wouldn't prove useful, but I will say this: I am so grateful that in a time where I do not feel represented by most Christians with loud voices, I am so grateful that they had Brian on to balance the discussion.

Larry asked some great questions (most of which were passed over) like "Why would God make someone gay if it is a sin?" and "The Constitution says that the government is to stay out of religion... and vice-versa". But the best part was where Tim LaHaye was talking about how American values have been under fire for 50 years now and that the attempt at taking "Under God" out of the pledge of alegiance was an athiest pushing his/her beliefs onto the rest of us, but Larry pointed out that aren't we (and I can include myself in this because I believe in God) pushing our understanding of the universe/God by leaving it in. Curious dilemma. I mean, I am not for the removal of that line, but I guess I wouldn't be opposed to it.

Which leads me to my probing question: Can't we all just get along?

I was hanging with this Suni in New Mexico last October, and I asked him what he thought about other religions... and he responded by saying, "Why would God have created people so different, with different understandings of him/her if it were not good?" I dunno. I guess that could be a good point. Perhaps we would do well to listen to each other... even me to listen to evangelicals like Tim LaHaye? We'll see about that one.

Today begins the emergentYS Convention. Should be fun to see friends and have engaging dialogues. Ciao!

1 comment:

Danae said...

i feel the same way about the whole "under God" thing... and even with having the 10 commandments in court rooms and stuff. for me, it's the whole 'do unto others' thing. i wouldn't want to have to pledge allegiance to a nation under Buddha, or Muhammad... not that they're equal to my God in any way... but I'd be uncomfortable, to say the least...