"Condemnant Quod Non Intellegunt"

I happen pass a friend's blog post one day because I was bored and was looking for things to read. While reading one of her post, I was sparked by something that she wrote. I am not going to go into what it was specifically simply because every one is entitled to his/her own views on things. I told one of my good buds, Jo, about it and she was not a happy camper (Btw, the friend who blogged it was a mutual friend of ours and Jo's kinda a touchy person).

Anyway, we spoke about it on MSN and that was when I thought I'd address the issue which bugged me to begin with: conformity and the death of the individual.

I have said many times on this blog of mine that I am a Christian, not a perfect one, but one that tries to be better all the time. I have my good days and my bad days. My good habits and my bad ones. But one thing I have always maintained through the best of my abilities is my own personal ideas and ethics. What I see to be right and what I see to be wrong. Now, without getting into a huge spiritual debate about this, lets just say that yes, the Holy Spirit leads and guides but it is Man who must make the choice to follow. I believe everyone can agree on that. (Anyone who doesn't, stop reading now and go to some other more Holy webpage)

What angers me most about most Right-Wing Churches (are there any other kind?) that exist in Singapore is the way they often criticize something without understanding it; and often without even having looked into it. Lets take Harry Potter for example. Personally, I have nothing against it. It's just a story book. Yes, it talks about wizards and witches and magic, but the way the Church paints it is that the book is pure evil because it preaches the above-mentioned topics. Now, I find this unfair. How can the Church support works such as The Lord of The Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia and yet be so against Harry Potter? Both of those series deal with magic. Gandalf is a wizard for crying out loud. Is it simple because both authors of those books are Catholic and Christian respectively? So are we saying we are not against the story but rather the person who wrote it? I mean, make you arguments and you stands clear.

Why can't we take what's good about those stories and focus on that instead? I mean, if you look at Harry Potter. What is one simple basic Biblical principal that can be found in it? It's not hard. It's the love one has for his friends. If you take the story as a whole, you can summarise it into one single verse in the Bible: "Greater love has no other than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. ~ John 15:13". Am I the only one who sees this? I am not even a theologian, much less a pastor. Maybe instead on jumping on the band wagon of speaking before understanding, we could perhaps exercise a little more patience and restraint?

I my humble opinion, wisdom without knowledge is simply bullshit and knowledge without wisdom is just facts. Maybe we should actually put both together for once rather then make them mutually exclusive.

Another thing that got my mind running was the notion of conformity. When I was growing up in my church in Singapore (at least it was my church then), I was always reminded that we must set ourselves apart from the world. After all when Christ was here, he never conformed to the standards of the time. So we must also do that same, set ourselves apart. But on the flip side, they also tell me that I must follow the line when I am within the church. Do not break rank. Stand side by side. Conform to the standards that exist within the church. Trust me, this has caused me to have more then one crisis of faith. It wasn't until many years later that I finally could put that demon to rest. But the point I want to make is this; by doing that, you set a standard for the people within the church, you drive it into their mindsets every weekend. The end result will be this: The people (ok, Christians if you must) become self-righteous and they start to judge every one and everything in this world by their standards (sometimes without even knowing they are doing it but often they know).

How do I know this? I was guilty of it. And so where my peers. But I realized what I was doing was wrong. My question to the is "have you?". I think its easy to pass judgement on things you do not know, but would that be right? I always remember this: You'll never win people by judging them. You will win them by showing them compassion and you will keep them by showing your humanity and by accepting theirs.

Semper Fi.