05 January 2012

So. . . I Got De-Friended Yesterday

And it's not really a huge surprise. It's been coming for a while, I guess.

An old schoolmate of mine kept posting his views on politics and religion. Okay -- no problem there, except that we disagree on so many things. Again, we're both adults -- so, it's okay that he has his views and I have mine.

EXCEPT. I got tired of him preaching to me (and everyone else) that we are doing religion wrong. I had several conversations with him saying that I believe religion is a very personal decision and that each person has to come to terms with their faith in their own way, based on their own experiences. Nope. He continued to bombard our shared social network with his views on who is (and who is not) preaching the "true" gospel and who is leading people down the path of "health and wealth".

Seems to me that God is running a huge RV park for us and here's what I mean by that: There's an enormous space fenced off and set aside for believers and however you get to that space should be up to you. There are certain rules for living in that space (which I struggle with), but we all don't get there off the same exit. What upsets me about the de-friender is that, not only was he telling people what exit he wanted them to take, he was berating them if they came to the RV park via a side road.

I also find it grating that he would not even begin a conversation about how he might be running people away from Christianity with his inflexibility. It's not like God put him in charge at the gate. GOD is in charge of the gate. (And the entire RV park, for that matter.) I believe that we are in charge of helping as many people as possible to know about that park and to show them, by our words and deeds, as many ways to enter that park as possible.

His view of things was not to reply to me -- to start that conversation -- but to wait until his choir chimed in, reinforcing his entrenchedness. He feeds on "amen, brother", but not "well, but there's more than one way to look at this". He is the very essence of the current Republican wingnut fringe and that scares me.

It worries me that his stubbornness cost him a friend or two along the way. It worries me more that he is going to have to answer to the Man Upstairs for shoving others off the path because they didn't do it his way.

Thoughts ?