Thursday, January 19, 2006
Fundamentalist success stories
I had the great pleasure of hanging out with a new friend over some potato corn chowder this afternoon. He's a philosophy major at UW. Very cool, bright, sincere guy. He was kind enough to tell me his story. I won't go into great detail here because I didn't get his permission, but he's seen the ugly side of the Christian religion - the fundamentalist side. Behave according to a specific set of black and white standards, submit to a hierarchical and rigid leadership structure, bend to the will of a manipulative control game. This worked so well for him that he went in search of some other ways of living. He still wants to be moral and live well - rarely have I observed such a deep drive for goodness in a person of his age. It's just that he doesn't see that being compatible with normal Christian values. From what I heard of his experience, neither do I.
Meanwhile, I'm working with some other friends who are experiencing worlds and worlds of pain. Circumstances involving some terrible choices, but infused with tons and tons of baggage from fundamentalist experiences of the same variety I've just described.
When did Jesus stop being good enough?
