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An extremely tough, well written and thought out piece, John Kirkwood. I am not a football fan, nor do I understand much about the game, but I am intelligent enough to see the American contradiction around religion is kicking us in the pants. Your characterization of the national scene, "... We live in a post-Christian, narcissistic petri dish..." and that Tim Tebow has become pariah..." And now, as you say, "... the squeaky-clean Boy Scout is now a national pariah!" points to the weakness growing into a national phenomenon: blindness.
It is fine to question and wrestle with a belief system, Christianity, and arrive at the conclusion you do not want to be a part of that system, but the fundamental structure of American culture is Puritan, and it governs behavior and practice in our society! So, I question the silent claims of superiority held by many 'enlightened folks' (myself included) because our transitions are incomplete. What is replaced is just as important a choice as the serpent shedding his skin to renew himself.
Nationally Christianity, I believe, has not been rejected at the level the popular press is fond of prematurely claiming. Many of those hurt, and challenged by the rigors of fundamentalism are now in major positions to cast judgements upon moral stability in the lives of people they employ, and people who hold themselves, not others, to higher standards. Unexamined belief is just as deadly as unexamined unbelief. In fact, angry and unexamined unbelief leads to the same behavior and intolerance as the religious practices one walked away from as a thinking feeling adult.
Someone, and I know not who, observed us all, and said, "The past is where you learned the lesson. The future is where you apply the lesson. Don't give up in the middle." ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.11.13
An extremely tough, well written and thought out piece, John Kirkwood. I am not a football fan, nor do I understand much about the game, but I am intelligent enough to see the American contradiction around religion is kicking us in the pants. Your characterization of the national scene, "... We live in a post-Christian, narcissistic petri dish..." and that Tim Tebow has become pariah..." And now, as you say, "... the squeaky-clean Boy Scout is now a national pariah!" points to the weakness growing into a national phenomenon: blindness.
It is fine to question and wrestle with a belief system, Christianity, and arrive at the conclusion you do not want to be a part of that system, but the fundamental structure of American culture is Puritan, and it governs behavior and practice in our society! So, I question the silent claims of superiority held by many 'enlightened folks' (myself included) because our transitions are incomplete. What is replaced is just as important a choice as the serpent shedding his skin to renew himself.
Nationally Christianity, I believe, has not been rejected at the level the popular press is fond of prematurely claiming. Many of those hurt, and challenged by the rigors of fundamentalism are now in major positions to cast judgements upon moral stability in the lives of people they employ, and people who hold themselves, not others, to higher standards. Unexamined belief is just as deadly as unexamined unbelief. In fact, angry and unexamined unbelief leads to the same behavior and intolerance as the religious practices one walked away from as a thinking feeling adult.
Someone, and I know not who, observed us all, and said, "The past is where you learned the lesson. The future is where you apply the lesson. Don't give up in the middle." ~ Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 5.11.13
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