Monday, June 08, 2015
Get Used To Being In The Minority
This CT piece by Nish Weiseth about being an Evangelical in SLC is pretty informative:
We've become so "me" focused, we ask so much what church can offer us that we have forgotten that church, as the bridesmaid of Christ, is here to fix the world, not just us. And so the world does not care about us because we do not care about the world.
Not good.
church the world
The time I've spent learning about the culture here in Utah, and specifically learning about the LDS church has opened my eyes to my own faith and how I perceive myself in the grand picture of global religion. For the last 15 years of my life, I've been an active part of American evangelical culture. It's a culture that can take pride in having the moral and theological high ground, extend its political might to influence policy, and seem to make a living out of drawing lines in the sand.That's a really great point, but there is an ancillary point that needs to be made. The isolation she speaks of has lead, I believe to us losing our presumed cultural advantage. Her feeling int he minority in Utah will be a feeling tat most of us will experience throughout the nation. It may not be in contrast to the LDS, it may be in contrast to "spirituality," or even certain well drifted off the path mainline denomination, but it'll be.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of beauty and goodness within the American evangelical church, too. But it has its issues. We're quick to dismiss other faiths in their entirety, insisting if they don't follow Jesus, we have nothing to learn from them. As a religious majority, we can afford to be isolationist and individualistic. In other settings, like my home in Utah, it doesn't work as much anymore.
I've learned that I've been conditioned to see people of different religions as "other" rather than looking for the similarities in our humanity. People of other faiths have always been projects to me, something to fix, and I'd find reasons to be around them specifically because they weren't believers and maybe, just maybe, I could get them to see and know Jesus like I did. Being a part of the dominating narrative afforded me that mentality.
We've become so "me" focused, we ask so much what church can offer us that we have forgotten that church, as the bridesmaid of Christ, is here to fix the world, not just us. And so the world does not care about us because we do not care about the world.
Not good.
church the world
