"The Christians I Know"

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I wanted to place this as a sort of counterpoint to the dozens of references I've read on A2K to "the Christians I know" being ignorant, hypocritical abusers.
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An Icelandic Experience
The Christians I Know
By JOSÉ M. TIRADO

For the 3 years I have lived in Iceland now, I have had an ongoing debate with my friend J. in Illinois about our differing lives. In addition to politics, food and culture, we have regularly compared the remarkably different dominant strands of Christianity as practiced in the two countries.

Iceland being a Lutheran country with the State giving financial support and backing to the church, one might expect a dreamy American Christian nowadays to envy the high place Christianity has here. Think again. (Though there does exist a 24-hour Christian channel here, dominated by American evangelical preachers and their regular rants against Islam and liberals alike, most Icelanders hold a much different set of Christian views than what is seen there.) For example,

None of the Christians I know here think George Bush is anything but a boor and a bully, fearing him much more than any tin pot dictator the US supports then disposes of with growing fickle regularity.

The Christians I know might be against abortion, but they do not impose their opposition on women. In fact...

The Christians I know here founded the first women's political party in Europe and successfully elected the first woman President who was a single mother at the time.

The Christians I know are by and large socialists believing that poverty should be eliminated, hunger eradicated and that social equality should be the primary purpose of having a government.

The Christians I know oppose war, and regard it as evil. Period.

The Christians I know don't believe in oppressing anyone and that includes Palestinians.

The Christians I know value the Sermon on the Mount more than they do the Book of Revelations and it shows.

The Christians I know give to the poor without asking for allegiance to their version of God in return.

The Christians I know engage me and others in real interfaith dialogue, enjoying the comparative jostle while retaining a healthy respect for others of differing belief systems.

The Christians I know are actually curious about Islam and take seminars and courses on it and other religions regularly in order to know and understand more about the world they read about.

The Christians I know take none of the millennial, "end of the world" talk seriously, regarding it as silly, outdated and dangerous.

The Christians I know value reason and uncertainty, science and doubt and wear their faith in their hearts and not out on their sleeves.

The Christians I know don't think there is anything admirable about guns or militarism.

The Christians I know do not attempt to convert me nor do they attempt to convert anyone around me, respecting my freedom to be who I am and loving me nonetheless.

The Christians I know are worried about global warming (they see it daily here near the North Pole) and are constantly working to convert their economy towards more renewable sources of energy.

The Christians I know don't necessarily go to church often, if at all, but they are good, decent, hard-working people who are moved by their consciences not their ideological rigidity.

The Christians I know have differing political views but they are respectful of each other and don't engage in any of the viciousness I saw regularly in the States.

The Christians I know are not superstitiously afraid of practicing meditation or yoga and find that when they do it complements their own faith rather nicely, teaching them even more respect for traditions outside of their own, something they value as important in this modern world.

As much as I love living here, Iceland is no utopia and there are many reasons why I am a Buddhist and not a Christian. However, as I told my rigid, fearing-for-my-heathen-soul cousin recently, one of the biggest is that I was raised around them my whole life. Had I been raised here in Iceland though, things might have turned out differently.

Rev. José M. Tirado is a poet, writer and Green activist. He is also a Shin Buddhist priest teaching in Iceland.

http://www.counterpunch.org/tirado01142005.html

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When we knock the Chrisians who support Bush it is understood we refer to a class of Christians, not all of them.
Other than that, I have no doubt that most persons of Christian persuasion are fine people. My only argument is with the ones who overstep their bounds and want to force the not Christians into Christian lifestyles and beliefs.

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That article nicely reflects the difference between Christians and Americans.

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Snood... if only those type of sensible Christians held the reins of power in the United States, we'd be in a better place. Instead, we have rapture-driven Pentecostals & Fundamentalists running this government. That is what is giving all Christians a bad name.

Instead, we have government officials who believe they were chosen by God; we have environmental officers who say that their work isn't important because the rapture is coming; we have an attorney general who wanted all his staff to pray and sing with him. What we have somehow developed is a political party which has aligned itself so hard with fundamental Christianity that the other political party is perceived as their enemy, even the devil.

Sadly, we have moved to a political movement based on religion in a country where church & state is expected to be separate. If the people whom that article describes as Christians had any backbone, they'd stand up to the perversion which is happening and take back their religion.

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IF the Icelandic Christians stood up to the pervesion and "took back their religion" then they would be just as bad as the Americans Christian Fundementalists they are smart enough to leave it all well alone for the time being.

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Snood, first I would like to say one thing. That was the most beautiful piece of prose that I have had the privilege to read.

Secondly, I would like to say, "Thank you". Will you do me the honor of posting this on my WA2K radio thread?

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Oh, now I understand (read the pm first). If you haven't posted it already, I'd be glad to.

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Please do, Snood. I just responded to your PM.

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This really hits home. Thanks for posting this, it was an excellent read.

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I remember those Christians, the one that Jose talks about. I met a bunch of them one time in a little bitty town in West Texas called Robert Lee, look it up it may still be there. Those Christians laughed a lot, said I wasn't too bad a Christian myself for a Catholic boy and loved living and sharing and being born. They were curious, question asking, people who marveled or said "Shucks." to answers from a Connecticut Yankee short-haired Air Force outsider with a guitar and as many questions as they had.

Most of the men there worked about six months a year as sheep shearers, leaving their families in February to work the herds in New Mexico, then North through Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, catch a little work on the way back working sugar beets and winter wheat fields. They say they are Mexican the first time you ask them, when you become their friends they tell you that they are Indians, some say Comanche, some say they do not know.

They do know this, or did know because this was years ago and maybe things have changed, Christians love one another, they don't spend any effort trying to scare people into loving each other, or yelling at somebody to make them love one another, they just are.

I sang the Mass for them in a jammed packed little chapel every other Sunday for three years. (There weren't enough priests for every Sunday.) and I never was more humble nor more at peace.

Thanks Snood, I remember now.

J Nation

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Great reminiscence, Joe. To me, one of the most horrible phrases is "the fear of God" as in "I put the fear of God into him" or "We must teach him to fear God." There is something wrong with a person who fears God and even freely admits it. Doing something that is right out of a fear of retribution is meaningless and cowardly.

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Merry Andrew wrote:

Great reminiscence, Joe. To me, one of the most horrible phrases is "the fear of God" as in "I put the fear of God into him" or "We must teach him to fear God." There is something wrong with a person who fears God and even freely admits it. Doing something that is right out of a fear of retribution is meaningless and cowardly.

Oh, I don't think the fear of God is necessarily as negative a thing as you make it sound. But to have a discussion about that, we'd have to be on the same side of the street about whether or not there even is an Almighty, no?

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Who would want to be in a relationship with anyone, supernatural or otherwise, if fear was a factor? Which loving relationships are based in part on fear. None that I participate in, respect, sure, but fear, un uh.

Joe( so this is Love) Nation

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Right on, Joe. Putting aside the question of the existence or non-existence of a Supreme Being, if there is a God, man's relationship to that being can be only one of love, not fear.

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Snood, your post about what the christians you know do was a good one. But can you not say that the good people you know do this? Is their goodness a result of their creed or is their creed a result of their goodness?

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Fear of God = profound reverence for God, not generally used to mean you should be afraid of God

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I'm not sure you can say that is true, Idaho. In Luke 12:5, Jesus tells the crowd to "fear the one who can send you into hell."

However, Canon Law states that any contract entered into because of profound fear can be invalidated. It is an interesting point if one sees their compact with God as a contract, which in general, a Christian should.

Ahhh, this religion is such a wonderful miasma of contradiction.

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The reason I said a discussion about this whole concept of "fear of God" would be impossible unless we could count the existence of Almighty God as a given, is because I personally believe that there is an element of humility absent from atheists that negates clear communication on the subject.

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I guess you've never read any Daoist writings or you would not feel so comfortable saying that.

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...and I guess you have no idea of my comfort level at any time - including while I wrote that.

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