Just Who Are Your Friends?
A culture of suspicion--that's what really bugs me about the Confessionals in the LCMS. Always has. There was once a Confessional group I knew of who insisted on quizzing me about what Seminary I went to and what "professors I liked," about what I thought of certain prominent people in the Synod, about who my friends were before I was allowed to visit with them at a conference. I was suspect of something until I could prove otherwise. It's happened other times too. In all fairness, it's not just the confessionals that do this. Liberals drop bait in conversation as well, asking some of the same questions about which Seminary one attended and so forth.
I suppose as our Synod grows more divided it's somewhat necessary to know where people stand, to use Shibboleths to figure it out.
10 comments :
Well, yes. . . what profs did you like? Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Apollos party?
It gets very tiring from my side of my pulpit as well. It's like we are just craving a leader to lead us to the theological promised land, but since we don't have one leader to follow (in the Church) we create these stupid criteria. Oigh.
You know what, even St. Paul once hung around with guys who liked to throw rocks around. Yes, one must be careful with whom one associates, as we have seen with Obama and his former pastor, but we expect that in the political arena. The church should be another story.
Even polar opposites can agree, as evidenced by a high school teacher I once had. We were political opposites, yet we had one topic on which we agreed.
I digress. Point is we should be able to smile and converse with those "on the other side of the [church]aisle" and not be branded with anything. I like to consider it Christian behavior. It's hard to bring two opposite sides together if all they do is grunt at each other now and then and call each other names the rest of the time.
Amen.
(oops, does that sound too evangelical? I'm confessional. Really I am)
I think it extends to blogs as well - let's see who you have in your blogroll, *if* you have the right blogs maybe you can be trusted (within whatever group, Confessional or not).
Emily,
I'm sunk then!! Now I know why not all of the "cool kids" hang out with me! I'd better get out my secret decoder ring and see what I'm doing wrong.
RPW,
I've wondered this for awhile... Are you the wife of a rebellious pastor or are you both rebellious and the wife of a pastor?
In Christ,
John
I had to laugh at this because it reminded me of the question always asked by St. Louis natives, "Which high school did you go to?", the sole purpose of which is to determine one's economic status. Ladue, St. Lizzie's and the like meant your parents had money. McKinley or Bishop Duborg meant you came from the low rent district. But it freaked me out when we moved back to STL for a brief time and in my 40's I was still being asked this question! My brother was able to elevate his status in the world because he married a gal who graduated from Clayton.
Sorry to say, Pastor Hall, but my visits here are affirmation enough that you couldn't possibly be one of the cool kids! ;)
Dixie, that's funny!
Anyways, I've always thought that the kids that weren't cool were the coolest - probably because I always was one!
Me too, Emily!
It is just so cool to not be cool.
It's hip to be square.
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