05.15.07
Posted in faith, culture, life at 4:22 pm by Brandon
Perusing technorati.com you’d think it was Christmas. Frankly, I was a little shocked over the content of many entries I noted today about how very happy people were that Jerry Falwell had passed on. Even Christians (at least the progressive kind) seemed overjoyed that Rev. Falwell had passed.
I have to say, that sickens me a little.
If grace is true, then grace extends beyond my little political world.
If grace extends beyond my political world, God probably loves those who disagree with me politically, morally, and socially.
If God loves those who disagree with me, then God probably wants me to love them too.
It’s hard to remember sometimes, I think. I’ll admit, my first reaction upon hearing news of Falwell’s death wasn’t to be sad. It should have been, but it wasn’t. Sometimes, I think we all need a reminder that death–no matter whose–is the enemy, not a solution.
Tags: falwell, Jerry Falwell
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Posted in faith, culture, life at 4:22 pm by Brandon
Perusing technorati.com you’d think it was Christmas. Frankly, I was a little shocked over the content of many entries I noted today about how very happy people were that Jerry Falwell had passed on. Even Christians (at least the progressive kind) seemed overjoyed that Rev. Falwell had passed.
I have to say, that sickens me a little.
If grace is true, then grace extends beyond my little political world.
If grace extends beyond my political world, God probably loves those who disagree with me politically, morally, and socially.
If God loves those who disagree with me, then God probably wants me to love them too.
It’s hard to remember sometimes, I think. I’ll admit, my first reaction upon hearing news of Falwell’s death wasn’t to be sad. It should have been, but it wasn’t. Sometimes, I think we all need a reminder that death–no matter whose–is the enemy, not a solution.
Tags: falwell, Jerry Falwell
Permalink
Trackback URL »
http://www.badchristian.com/2007/05/15/on-the-passing-of-rev-falwell/trackback/
-Dave said,
May 15, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Good call.
Bill said,
May 15, 2007 at 6:44 pm
I didn’t agree with a lot that Falwell said and done (so I am not defending him). But I don’t think reveling, like some are doing, in his death is appropriate. It certainly doesn’t give them the moral high ground. How does it make them any better than the Westboro Baptist bunch and what they did at Matthew Shepard’s funeral?
shelly said,
May 15, 2007 at 9:15 pm
I’m not exactly revelling in his death; but at the same time, I’m not exactly sad about it, either. Heh.
Rachel said,
May 15, 2007 at 10:10 pm
I agree…good call.
Scholaster said,
May 16, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Excellent observation. I’ve seen some incredibly hate-filled blogposts on this subject. It goes to show, I think, that even where Falwell went wrong, some of his enemies could be just as far wide of the mark. The loathing directed his direction upon his death is every bit as dangerous as anything he promoted. It’s time for the self-styled enlightened among us to practice what they preach.
dorsey said,
May 17, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Well said, Brandon.
The self-satisfied enjoyment that some bloggers have displayed is a bitter irony, I think.
Quintesence said,
May 20, 2007 at 12:33 am
I don’t see what there is to be sad about. The passing of someone on to God’s judgment doesn’t seem to be anything to be sad about. I mean, isn’t God’s justice perfect - by definition? So whatever the late Reverend Falwell encountered upon shuffling off this mortal coil, was exactly appropriate to what his life warranted. It’s not really our responsibility to speculate on the verdict, and regardless of our opinions of the man, and regardless of the divine verdict, shouldn’t we rejoice in it’s unknowable perfection? Shouldn’t we be glad that whatever rewards or punishments have befallen Jerry Falwell, he deserves them?
BeMore said,
May 20, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Brandon,
If you look there are so many negatives that we can look at with the prodigal Bad Christian and his/her ways. The bottom line is that the Bad Christian is motivated by human traditions not truth. There is always been a voice of reason amongst the madness of every age and the voice cries out;
If you call yourself a Christian redeemed by the saving grace of Jesus Christ yet do not have a burning desire to see others saved as you are then you are NO Christian at all.
BeMore…..
Quintesence said,
May 20, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Something I’ve been struggling with for a while is the idea of salvation. What it comes down to is that I can’t reconcile the idea that God is loving, merciful, and benevolent with the idea that He denies salvation to anyone. This occurred to me when I was trying to figure out how anyone could fail to embrace God’s grace. I mean, salvation is accompanied by the certainty of eternity in Heaven after death, while the rejection of grace damns one to Hell. The consequences of dying unsaved are so dire, and the rewards associated with the already incalculable reward of salvation are so sublime, that no sane person would even consider rejecting God’s grace. Yet many people do just that. The only logical conclusion I can come to is that many people’s minds are so clouded by doubt and sin that they are incapable of recognizing what is at stake. Furthermore, I must concede that their minds must’ve been clouded from a very, very young age (or even birth) since even a child knows better than to give up such an obviously good thing for an illusion of atheistic “security.” From Romans 1: 18-20 we know that God’s presence in the world is always evident and known to all. So, in order for anyone to think that they don’t know God exists requires them to be blinded to the obvious truth that’s always right before and within their eyes. This obviously requires some seriously delusional befuddlement. All this lead me to wonder if they can be considered responsible for their poor decision-making since their minds are so clearly addled. We can know for sure that their minds are addled because if they weren’t, everyone would’ve been saved already, because God’s work is everywhere as we read in Romans. So here we’ve got all these people sinning and rejecting the grace of God, not because they really want to, but because the life they were born into has totally warped their perceptions - driving them literally mad! How could God - whose love and mercy are truly infinite - possibly condemn these poor deluded souls to Hell because they had the misfortune to be insane? Only at the moment of judgment, after it’s too late, and their souls have departed from the world of sin and illusion would these people suddenly understand what has really been going on around them their whole lives. For all the real choice they had, they were no more able to choose grace than a newborn babe. How could God justly sentence these people so harshly? I just don’t think He would.
BeMore said,
May 21, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Quintesence,
The question you ask is one that is asked over and over by those that require proof that God exists in a tangible physical sense. Remember the rich young ruler of
and how the things he did since youth were done in vain.
Love without freewill/choice is no love at all if we did not have the choice it could not be considered love. Consider the love of a husband and wife they choose each other and enter into covenant love by choice and stay there by choice as well.
So is the covenant love of God. Now the covenant love of God offers us 58 covenant blessings throughout the entire Bible that cover every aspect of our lives and we claim those covenant blessings by the gift of saving faith which is offered freely to all men if they would humble themselves in prayer, so God could reveal himself.
states that many are called but few are chosen.
Chosen for what you may ask? How about chosen for closeness as in the closeness we experience with a friend we can relate with one to one or the closeness of parent and child or siblings, etc. God calls us to a covenant relationship that we enter into because He says He loved us first. So then God initiates the relationship and we choose to reciprocate based on growth, trust, love, etc. Our creator knows us and so does the enemy that is why the enemy attacks a lot of would be Christians at the church level driving them like cattle into the arms of apostasy. If we take responsibility for our relationship with God then the only one left to blame for not having a good relationship with the heavenly Father is ourselves which is as it should be. Christianity is more than going to church. It is offering the message of the covenant relationship you experience with the living God to those whose hearts are prepared to receive that message. Those that don’t hear are not ready and may never be ready.
BeMore…..
Maria said,
May 22, 2007 at 4:54 pm
I think my friend’s boss (the CEO of a Episcopal based organization) said it best: “May he rest in peace, even though I don’t think I’ll personally be mourning him.”
Eric Von Kruse said,
May 22, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Quintesence,
Doesn’t that seem odd that god would create people in cultures that have not heard of Jesus? I am an atheist, born into a deeply christian family, and I feel lucky to have unchained my mind from religious authority and realized that christianity and god is not just a form of wish-thinking, but it is psychologically damaging.
People are most likely to believe what they are told to believe as children. I realize that my comments may not be welcome, so if anyone wants to continue this discussion with me directly… ericvonkruse@mac.com
Quintesence said,
May 22, 2007 at 7:34 pm
BeMore: What you said is perfectly good, and of course I agree with you. But what you said only reinforces my doubt in the existence of Hell. After all, what kind of love would have God say to us, “come enter into the covenant with me freely, but if you choose to reject this covenant you will suffer eternally?” What kind of free choice is it when one choice leads to eternity in Hell?
Dangerous Christian said,
May 22, 2007 at 11:06 pm
I wrote a post on the late Rev. Falwell’s passing. It’s at:
http://dangerouschristian.wordpress.com/2007/05/20/rest-in-pieces-jerry/. It’s actually called, “Rest in Peace, Jerry”.
I think we’re going to hear enough sides on Falwell’s death for the days ahead.
Peace!
wildwest said,
May 24, 2007 at 7:46 am
I felt sad for his family. But that’s all.
Mark said,
May 28, 2007 at 8:29 am
Wha?… A Christian who is saddened by death? How? Death is the best thing that could possibly happen to a Christian!…
Silly Christian…
Lisse said,
May 29, 2007 at 9:59 pm
One human condemning another to hell is not the way to save anybody. Falwell seemed to forget that he didn’t get to decide who makes it into heaven. And by the same token, the rest of us humans don’t get to decide where he’s going either.
Much as we might like to.
Recovering said,
June 4, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Well put, Brandon. I felt the same way.
Quintesence said,
June 6, 2007 at 4:57 pm
This was a question that Christian theologians addressed several centuries ago with the idea of “invincible ignorance.” Basically the idea is that God wouldn’t punish people for not accepting Jesus if they’d never heard of Jesus. Similarly, God wouldn’t punish children who were too young to really understand acception/rejection of Jesus.
The problem with invincible ignorance is that there’s no way to know for sure how ignorant you have to be to escape judgment and eternal damnation for your unrepented sins. So it doesn’t really solve the dilemma I’d brought up earlier.
We might also make a distinction between the human cultural institutions of Christianity and the actual revelation of Christianity as discussed in the Bible. I mean “Christian” literally means “Christ-like” implying that to be Christian you must actually attempt to emulate Jesus in your daily life, not just accept Him as your personal Lord and Savior. This brings up another sticky wicket in that if to be Christian (and thus saved) “only” requires you to be Christ-like, it doesn’t necessarily require that you ever hear that Christ even existed. Since many spiritual teachers taught very similar things throughout world history, we might suppose that following any of their teachings might be sufficiently Christ-like to warrant salvation.
Quintesence said,
June 6, 2007 at 4:57 pm
PS. All that’s of course highly speculative and probably heretical.
Sarah Jane said,
June 12, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I’m a bit late, but I wanted to thank you for stating this, and for stating it so graciously.
A.G. said,
June 13, 2007 at 4:41 am
God may indeed have loved Jerry Falwell but perhaps was grieved by his words and deeds.Just as a parent can love their child but not always the way they act..
A.G. said,
June 13, 2007 at 4:50 am
This is just human nature, but often the bad things can be seen as overshadowing the good things a person does.So the harm and damage they do is like bad karma so to speak. Disagreeing with the man on what he said and did is not the same as hate, to me hate is the same as wishing the person were dead, but it should all cause us to reflect deeply on our own words and deeds.What will we leave behind and be remembered for? Look at historical figures like Hitler for example if anything it should be a lesson in what hatred breeds and the kind of destruction it sows. The bible does say what you sow you will also reap. Spiritually this is true, I can’t speak for the afterlife, but people make a choice either for good or for evil.
Tripline said,
June 13, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Yeah, no matter where you stand concerning some of the things Jerry Falwell has done/said, I think celebrating his death is rather ridiculous. Clearly, for anyone who considers themselves a homosexual or an ally, you would hate this man’s politics. But in all the things he’s done, I’ve never considering hiimself one that HATED gays. The same goes with conservatives who think that immigration laws should be stricter and the borders more “secure”. I don’t think they hate Mexicans, or Cubans for that matter, I just believe that they stand for their view of Americanism. Same with Falwell, sure, he was anti-gay, big time. Doesn’t mean he’d laugh at one’s death. I think he deserves that same respect.
Nate said,
June 14, 2007 at 2:55 pm
This is convicting, and I needed to hear it. Thanks for this post. My first reaction was “good riddance”. What a terrible thing to say or think when a brother in Christ passes on.
Johnny Brooks said,
June 20, 2007 at 3:08 am
I have to admit that I did have feelings of joy at the news of his passing, but I repent of that. Sure I am on the other side of most issues, but still he was a child of God as are all people.
Joe Wright said,
June 20, 2007 at 9:39 am
I just blogged about a very similar topic. Fearing God…and what it really means to fear Him, but still accept His grace. My blog contains non traditional thoughts on spirituality. I would love your thoughts on my blog. Also, if you are a young adult, I recently started a great non profit organization that will allow you to help others while meeting lots of great new people! I hope you can check them out!
Blessings,
Joe
UR4given said,
June 24, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Nice to see Brandon and others active here again. This blog went dormant got dormant and this is the first in a couple months I have checked back.
I also give kudos to Brandons statement. It seems some of us “bad Christians”…in many cases we more “humanist” Christians…forget easily some of the attitudes and reasonings we departed the more traditional Christian church in America in the first place. Many of us I believe just got fed up with the judgementalism and inhumane treatment of fellow persons and fellow Christians in the organizations that call themselves “Christian”.
Sure, many of us on blogs such as this have moved far from the fundamentalist roots we came from…and obviously Jerry Falwell never got far away from his initial conversion point and fundamental style faith. I think it takes reading the history of the man to understand where and why he was coming from his extreme fundamentalist leanings. I can no more judge him than I can my grandparents and others who grew out of the same movements and never changed. That is what they knew…and how they lived…and in most cases were very sincere in their motivations to share their faith and convictions to “save the world” that it turns out didnt really want to be saved.
My fundamentalist minister grandfather did not and would not had he lived this long agree with everything of the “moral majority” as he would have been more involved in building the “kingdom of heaven” versus worrying about mansions and kingdoms of this world. And he died believing as he lived…whether right or wrong…true or false. That much you have to admire…and that much is what I admired about Jerry Falwell. Who knows where the line fell between ego and true loving motivations or caring about what is right in his mind or world? I’m not sure anyone did or will know. But you still have to respect anyone who fights and stand up for what they believe in. I have equal respect along those lines for well spoken secular humanists. It doesnt mean I have to adopt their tag or be in that box hook line and sinker.
So…while I have grown very distant from the fundamentalist fold of American Christianity…I still respect the desires and efforts of people like Falwell…and many still dear family members…who carry on those traditions and values…even if I am “no longer there”…
Loving god said,
July 14, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Death is not bad. Death is a new begining. Death should not be mourned but celebrated. You should be happy he died and you should be happy when I die to.
Minda said,
July 16, 2007 at 10:37 pm
“death is the enemy”? For reals? As much as I agree that people being gleeful over the death of any human is distasteful and against what God would seek to do in us, I’m afraid I can’t go along that death is the enemy.
Sorry dude.
Brandon said,
July 19, 2007 at 9:25 am
So, Minda, if death is not the enemy, then please do share…what exactly do you think it is?
Robert Easter said,
August 15, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Again- good call!
Glad to see folks running blogs with an attitude of being a Christian and making that mean more about being an honest person than fitting into a one-size-fits-all Plaster Saint mold. And behind all the prgrams and publicity, JF was some guy that Jesus loves, and we gotta respect that. Thanks for the good word.
Dude, I’m also in grad, but if you do have the time, please do hop over to the link I left and see if you can add it to your blogroll, and I’ll be glad to return the favor!
Thanks,
Robert