Christianity or Bust

Note: This is a follow up post to the last post

Last night was painful. Again my guest spoke a lot of mind-numbling rubbish and didn’t have the sensitivity to pick up that I was bored, tired and needed time to relax. She also ranted on about how she was too intelligent for her own good. Never in my life have I encountered someone who said so much but actually said nothing. I wonder if there is something psychological here that makes her feel compelled to talk about how much worth she has. In her conversations and prose writing (a MySpace blog, which has a very conversational style) and in her conversation, she’s very scatterbrain, probably as a result of drug abuse. Her blog is almost unintelligible.

We had our first argument. I asked her what problems she had with Benny Hinn, which I was sure would be different from my complaints about him. She told me she went to a healing service where a wheelchair-bound quadrilplegic man collapsed but noone noticed and helped him for 5 minutes because they were so enraptured with the show. I tried to explain it as a Pentacostal thing for people to collapse but she wouldn’t let me talk. I said that it angered me that she talks so much all the time but never gives me a change to reply. She the the mature thing: threaten to leave. I should have made her. I still wanted to talk about it for awhile but then let go when I asked her if she was upset that Benny Hinn didn’t heal her.

I believe I’ve done plenty to help her but she seems blinded by arrogance and a refusal to listen to others. Well, for that matter, to God. As I described in my earlier posts, it’s pretty clear God has tried to reach out to her personally but maybe all she sees Christians as are people who are kind and can be used to serve her. I see why her last housemates evicted her and her Christian aunt refuses to answer phone calls from her. I think my hope of being kind to her and letting her stay has been a mistake for I don’t think any individual Christian can make an adequate impression without her at least softening her heart. Getting her to come to a service hopefully will let her see that coming to a church isn’t going to be painful and that Christians won’t treat her as an outcast.

I’d say there was a point where I’d kick the dust from my feet and move on if this wasn’t my own home, In case you are wondering, I trust her not to rob or trash my place but am not 100% sure. I believe there is a reasonable point where Christians can let go and claim they have done more than enough to help.

Note: This post is inspired by the title of one of the few Ramones albums that I do not own: Halfwy to Sanity and a reference to being stuff between things in an earlier post. This post is a followup to that post.

Zvpuryyr is sleeping on my couch until Monday before she leaves for Brisbane.

It’s really really weird having someone else stay at my place. For the last 2 years, I’ve lived alone and had complete control of my own home (other than the cockroach problem and water seeping underneath the floorboards). For that matter, I haven’t had incursions of guests for more than 4 hours.

At times, I can sense that things are going to be painful. She keeps forgetting to shut my balcony door when smoking. Last night, I think there was a repeat episode of “Shock Docs” about people suffering from compulsive hoarding She wanted to watch my DVD The Thing while I wanted to watch Australia vs West Indies match in the Cricket World Cup. I caved in because the match had barely started and I knew I wasn’t going to get to watch much before I had to go to bed. It really bugs me that she demands to watch things then is so engrossed in talking about rubbish that she doesn’t actually pay any attention to the TV. Yes, I understand the concept of multi-tasking and am quite skilled at it. She isn’t but claims to be. Another thing is that she really talks a lot of rubbish. It’s agony listening. She has a weird fascination with the Freemasons and talks about them as if they are just a nice men’s club who build things. I may lose my sanity by having to listen to the things that come out of her mouth. (Side note: Is this an additional sign I should ask someone out because she doesn’t talk the ears off a donkey and is genuinely great to talk to when not moody?)

I’ve got to emphasize the positive things. She accepted a copy of a pocket-sized Gideons Bible containing a copy of the New Testament and Psalms and agreed to come to church on Sunday if she has no family commitments. I’m thinking of skipping helping at creche to make sure she comes and doesn’t act like Puevf1 again.

Wow. I found a link to Blessed Are the Merciful: Go Vegetarian.

I have to say that my bullstuff detector sensed something was wrong. Overall, my impression of their Frequently Asked Questions section is that there is a mixture of misquoted/misinterpreted scripture where used, lazy use of scripture by not putting in the verse number and arguments that are fudged in to fit with their “Blessed are the Merciful” angle.

Here’s a list of pages that irked me:,

• “As you do to the least, you do to Him.” -
  This is one of those quotes that sounds roughly like what you’d read in the New Testiment but isn’t. Why? The passage that inspired it is “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:40) Let’s face it. It’s absolute rubbish. One of my Christian friends who reads this blog crushes cockroaches with a passion - that doesn’t equate to her being a zealous hater of Christ. I use a crème brûlée blowtorch on them - that doesn’t mean I’d do that to Jesus.
• 1 Timothy 4 and Romans 14:
  Web site quote “Some vegetarian Biblical scholars simply note that the author of First Timothy says that “all food is lawful.” Animals are not food, they note, but living creatures of God in their own right. The food given to humanity by God is the food of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1:29) and the food of heaven, where “no one will harm or destroy over my holy mountain, for as water fills the sea, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord” (Isaiah 11).”
  My thoughts: Well, Jesus definitely treated animals like food. Matthew 7:9-10, Matthew 14:15-21 (of course, I am assuming they ate the fish and didn’t stick them in their ears like Babel fish and you can look up more examples.
• Why don’t we have a passage reading, “Thou shalt not eat meat”
  Web stie quote: “It is helpful to remember, reading the Bible, that it was written by a variety of divinely inspired human authors, each part with a specific purpose, for a specific community, in a specific time period. The Christian Scriptures (New Testament) are the product of three centuries of intellectual and spiritual discussion and dissent among early Christians. The books were transcribed, again and again, over three centuries, often losing original meaning and taking on new meaning.
  My thoughts: What the web site is saying is that the Bible has errors. Yet I’ll pick and choose the bits I like to fit my personal beliefs even if they disagree with God’s.
• How can you use Scripture to prove that Jesus was a vegetarian, while discounting Scripture that disagrees with your assessment?:
  Web site quote “There is not one stationary truth, valid for all eternity.”
  My thoughts Truth is not a moving target. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6).
• Doesn’t Jesus eat fish after the resurrection, help the fisherman catch fish, and serve fish during the multiplication miracle?
  Web site quote First, regardless of whether the fish in these events are actual fish…
  My thoughts Seriously, these didn’t exist back in the time of Jesus and they certainly weren’t swimming around.

  Web site quote But even a literal interpretation does not justify eating animals. Multiplying fish who are already dead (thus causing no additional suffering), to feed them to hungry people who do not understand the ethical objection to eating fish, could be seen as an act of compassion.
  My thoughts So does that mean it’s okay to eat roadkill for the same reasons?

  Web site quote In Luke and John, Jesus is seen helping the disciples catch a vast quantity of fish. In Luke, the event is depicted as his first call of the disciples. In John, the event occurs after the resurrection.

  Most reputable Biblical scholars see the events symbolically, and from a symbolic standpoint, Jesus assisting the disciples in netting massive quantities of fish could not be much clearer, especially considering his promise that he will make them “fishers of men.” They are bringing disciples (fish) into the fold.

  My thoughts This really lacks scholarly citation because nobody would agree with it. I agree that there is symbolism to the use of the words “fisher of men”. Really… Can it be any more clearer than this: “When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink” (Luke 5:4-6) Can that be any more literal?

• Doesn’t God call for animal sacrifice?
  My thoughts This whole page is a mess. Let’s take a look at the reasons.

  Web site quote Hosea and Jeremiah state explicitly that human beings created animal sacrifice as an excuse to consume flesh: “They offer sacrifices to me because they are those who eat the meat, but Yahweh does not accept their sacrifices, for He is mindful of their sin and remembers their wickedness” (Hosea 8:13). My thoughts This passage is taken out of context completely and it only takes a look at the entire chapter to see that. Verse 1 states that Israel has rebelled against God and acknowledges God but doesn’t treat Him appropriately “An eagle is over the house of the LORD because the people have broken my covenant and rebelled against my law”. The verses leading up to verse 13 describe idolatory, rejection of good”. So things aren’t exactly how God planned Israel to behave. The Israelites are just pretending to be loyal to God and enjoying the meat. God’s law in Deuteronomy 12:27: “Present your burnt offerings on the altar of the LORD your God, both the meat and the blood. The blood of your sacrifices must be poured beside the altar of the LORD your God, but you may eat the meat.” It’s not all an excuse to eat meat!

  Web site quote Jeremiah 7 finds God saying that He never intended animal sacrifice and making the direct link between animal sacrifice and meat-eating.
  My thoughts This refers to the above passage from Hosea so we get the same reading out of context problem. here is the entire Jeremiah 7. Note how it again states that Israel has turned its back on God and things are messed up. In verse 20, God expresses His anger at Israel and sees what they have done and reminds them of the passage in Deuteronomy. Verses 22-23 is particularly relevant: “For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you.”

  Web site quote John the Evangelist places this as the first act in Jesus’ ministry and places it just prior to the Sabbath (“As the Passover was at hand, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple court?”). So Jesus enters the temple and prevents people from sacrificing animals for the Sabbath meal. The crucial point is that these people were only selling animals and only for sacrifice. The people would eat the flesh of the animal sacrificed.

  My thoughts Again, totally missing the point of the story so they can put their slant on things. The passage referred to is: After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” (John 2:12-16). The passage makes it pretty clear that it’s not about the sacrifice of animals but the way they treated God’s house.

• Jesus was an observant Jew, so wouldn’t he have eaten the sacrificial lamb on Passover?
  Web site quote here are other Jewish “laws” that Jesus unequivocally rejects. For example, gathering grain or wood on the Sabbath was punishable by death (Numbers 15), yet Jesus gathers grain and heals on the Sabbath; adultery was punishable by death (Leviticus 20), but Jesus calls for nonjudgmentalism; and crimes were supposed to be punished in kind, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Leviticus 24), but Jesus calls for forgiveness.
  My thoughts There were good reasons why Jesus healed on the Sabbath, which he explains. Are we at the stage where “Christians” can conjecture anything and say that maybe Jesus rejected that law too? Will there ever be a stage where “Christians” can use this to deny the Father or Holy Spirit?

This is a painful site. I seriously doubt that it was written by genuine Christians as there seems to be a lack of understanding of the Bible and context of things.

I probably shouldn’t spend time rebutting this on a blog but should spend time writing a well thought out letter and seeing them reject it. After all, it was made by PETA.

PPS: If God didn’t want us to eat meat, he wouldn’t have made animals so tasty.

On Friday night, St Barnabas had a Network BBQ dinner. (Network is a group of worker age people.)

Amazingly some of us talked about topics that are conversation killers including sex, drugs and of course, politics because the state election was on the next day. Our group was a politically liberal group. Amusingly someone said her father suggested to her that if she can, to live in a Liberal seat and to vote for Labor. (Note: In Australia, the Liberal party are conservative politically and the Labor party are liberal politically.) This made me wonder which district SMBC is located in. I’m fairly sure Moore College is located in a safe Labor seat. I also think it would be cool if someone set up a Bible college in John Howard’s seat and softened it up for Labor.

Although I was disillusioned with politicians, I decided not to dummy vote. This was also the shortest distance I’ve ever travelled for an election: around the corner to St Scholastica’s College, the Catholic all-girl’s school that is also our neighbour That’s enough information for you to stalk me or any Muslims angry at my blog to whack me.

Anyway, Sc Scholastica has this very visibly on the path to the polling booth.

I’m not sure if it’s cool, typical Catholic idolatory or actually something really practical as a reminder of positive female roles in the Bible and staying pure until marriage.

One of the great things about St Barnabas is that it builds up its members.

One of these ways is in knowledge. Some people may argue that Anglicanism is too intellectual. I don’t.

We’re also built up in practical experience of serving. For example, a couple of months ago, people who do Bible Readings were sent an audio CD of Clifford Warne’s “How to Read the Bible Aloud”. Tonight, I continued my guitar training with the Worship Minister.

Is there more than that? Yes, there is! These forms of growth don’t come from just sitting at home on a Sunday night or sleeping in on Sunday morning.

On Sunday, I found out that St Baranabas now has a tax deductable School Building fund for the reconstruction of the church. To the best of my limited knowledge, it’s because there is a federal law that allows money donated to the building of a building to be used for teaching to be classified as tax deductable.

For all my hatred of the Howard Government, there are things that they do right.

I’m not curious to find out how much I get back in June…

I’m also a bit concerned. It’s that if everyone put their money into that fund, there are many areas of ministry where Barneys could suffer eg staff, International Ministry. Maybe this is a good reminder that a church is not a building.

Burnout weekend wasn’t too bad in the end. Things felt pretty bad on the Saturday but turned out okay.

In the end:

• Saturday:
  1. Old church friend: he cancelled the day before
  2. Yo La Tengo’s annual guest appearance on the radio station WFMU’s marathon pledge drive: I decided to go in to work to check that things were working and that I’d have a backup and found that a server had crashed and that I lost my connection to the Internet. Luckily a co-worker was at work on a Saturday to attend a course and he let me use his machine and fixed my problems.
  3. Beach Mission reunion: it was really enjoyable to be with them even though I didn’t know them that well because I missed the actual Beach Mission. Getting there and back was a nightmare. I got lost driving there twice. It’s stupid how Princess Highway stops beint Princess Highway for about 200 metres when it becomes Arcadia Road (if I recally correctly) so I took the wrong turn off. After that, I missed the turn off to the house and got stuck on a highway where I couldn’t do a U-turn for several kilometres. In the end, I did an illegal U-turn at a quiet spot.
  4. Attend a John Dear talk: neither of us went because we didn’t know what time it was on.
• Sunday:
  1. Walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge as part of its 75th anniversary celebration: This was cool. I enjoyed it and all the walking that day made me lose a kilogram! The crowds were painful towards the end though.
  2. Attend a Creche training session: It’s harder than I thought to get from George Street to Newtown. So many services that run during the week, don’t on Sundays. In the end, I only made it for 20 minutes of the session and was told I might as well go home and come again. I was pissed off.

I can’t help but think that maybe I should stop volunteering for Creche. I mean, the female to male ratio is phenomenal but I hate these burn out weekends.

Last night was the first time I went to my new small group.

So far, I really like how we have a home cooked meal together before it. Sadly, I didn’t show up punctually because I thought I had left my bicycle lock at home and cycled home to look for it (it was actually at work) then drove there.

The introductions were surprising. Everyone had to introduce themselves by telling everyone their name, their favourite band, their favourite food, what they did and what they expected to get out of it. People’s taste in music was good to horrendous. It was mainly mainstream. I am such a music snob… but if you know me, you already know that.

Here’s the stuff I was originally meant to do:

• Saturday:
  1. Be visited by a friend from my old church (he is ill now and can’t visit)
  2. Listen to, record and divide into tracks Yo La Tengo’s annual guest appearance on the radio station WFMU’s marathon pledge drive. Yo La Tengo play cover songs of the listeners’ choosing to raise money for this radio station.
  3. Attend a Beach Mission reunion for the Beach Mission I missed because I was diagnosed with diabetes a week before it.
  4. Attend a John Dear talk with a friend but I have no idea what time it starts and can’t find a start time on the web!
• Sunday:
  1. Walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge as part of its 75th anniversary celebration
  2. Attend a Creche training session

Anyway, pledge some money to WFMU!:

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Last night was strange.

It should have been the first night of attending a new Bible study small group. However, I said I couldn’t make it because I had only gotten an hour of sleep on the train back from Melbourne and expected that I’d just collapse in a mess of fatigue during the study.

In the end, I decided to have a carbohydrate-rich snack (a muesli biscuit) and go to the gym for 50 minutes of cardio.

It was also a night of phone calls. Puevf2 called me before I left work and wondered if I was still alive. Puevf1 called while I walking to the gym with my iPod blaring.

After gym, I called up Zvpuryyr, the unsaved friend who two of my friends in separate independent incidents describes as “She really needs Jesus”. I haven’t told me friends that they are more right than they know even though I dislike the overuse of that sentence. Since the time they met her and now, she’s lost her job and been given an eviction notice by her housemates. I called her to invite her to Barney’s current evangelistic series of dinners “Introducing God”. She said she’d come to that and invited me over to her place, which is 2 blocks from my home, to pick up two DVDs that I had lent her before she moved out of Sydney to go to the Blue Mountains then Brisbane. (In case you’re wondering the DVDs were Buffalo Soldiers and Evil Dead II.)

When I got to her place, we talked about God for awhile. Part of me made me want to hit my head against the wall. Often, there were things she had said that I really wanted to reply about but she would get the conversation side tracked.

She seems to have some very New Agey beliefs. You know the whole “God is within us” and God is a powerful impersonal force things. I told her that Jesus was a human being and a person and that God is a person. She said that she didn’t like putting names on god and that by choosing a specific god to follow, people create barriers between each other.

She said so many inconsistent things at times such as that she was an antheist (initially), that she believed in taking the best bits of each available religion that she was something I have never heard of. The name of the religion sounded like “snoofi”. Apparently they have great respect for artists and believe their art is the manifestation of God’s word and back in ancient times, when there was an evil sultan, they would play their instruments all day and all night outside the sultan’s palace until the sultan stopped his evil ways and would throw money at them. My friend considers herself a poet.

It was clear that she had seen some amazing stuff and that Jesus Christ had personally tried to reach out to her. This is an amazing double testimony: When she was 8 years old after her father had passed away, she and her mother were homeless and would drive around regional areas. They were impoverished and wouldn’t always have enough to eat. One night, a woman saw that they were hungry and gave them a meal and place to stay. The woman told them her testimony: that she had lived a rough life (drugs etc) as a Country and Western singer and developed terminal throat cancer and not long to live. She prayed that if she was healed, she’d serve God. Subsequently, she spent her life in rural areas spreading the word of God. I sensed this was one of many stories Zvpuryyr had of Christians making a positive impression on her life.

This made me think. I asked her how many people of other faiths had miracle survivals. She said she knew of a Muslim whose doctors cured her neck problems. Then I asked her about those who survived against the big C (cancer) and told her about knowing someone who looks to survive his second battle. She said that the only reason it seemed that Christians get miracles more is because Australian as a society is based upon Christian principles. Ha ha. That was funny. The point I was trying to get across was that there is only one real god and the rest are false gods. I asked her if she knew of gods that provided rain and she said she had seen Native AmericanIndians ask for rain successfully. Do false gods have those sorts of powers? I kept thinking of Elijah and the part where he and the prophets of Baal set up altars and old God succeeds in the challenges.

I asked her if she thought Jesus could make a difference in her life as He had made in the Country singer’s. She used the “I don’t want to polarise” myself answer as she had earlier.

This is where the bulk of the strangeness begins.

After this, we went on a secret errand. I actually thought it was a fool’s errand because I don’t have much confidence in Zvpuryyr’s organisational skills and it seemed like she didn’t know where we were walking to. That cvffrq me off. During this, pressumably I broke the law (however, it was too dark to see any signs).

I wondered if in my attempt raise this friend up, I was brinnging myself down.I also realised that my friend reached places in this world that I didn’t and that I didn’t hang out with enough tax collectors.

In the end, you wouldn’t believe where we ended up. Glebe is such an interesting area.

Throughout the night, Zvpuryyr kept saying encouraging things to me. I think she must believe in the power of positive thinking. She repeatedly told me that I didn’t have to put up with anyone who gave me a hard time for being a Christian and that I’m not a bad looking guy and that I’ll be alright. As a result of the latter comment, I too casually hit on the housemate that is taking over her room.

I got home around 1 am and finally had dinner and two injections of insulin and somehow managed to get to work on time - unlike normal. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to make crème brûlée for the dinner.