My Struggle| Legitimacy

Lately I have noticed a very serious presence of arrogance. It started around my confirmation, and is getting stronger every day.

Most noticeably, it turns up when I’m (usually reluctantly) talking theology with people. I go to a Dutch Reformed school, dominated by Catholics, and am in a Wesleyan family. Usually in these discussions I am the one defending things like apostolic succession, episcopal governance, the sacred nature of the sacraments, or why I don’t recognize the Pope as the end-all-be-all of church authority (but still think of him as a swell guy). I try to be diplomatic, but in the back of my head and heart I am secretly thinking “give up your Presbyteries, come back to the true church”

More Dangerously though, my arrogance turns up when I’ve been meeting with people to discuss and discern possible paths for ordination. I’ll ask  my questions and listen to what they have to say, and then something along the lines of “There is no way I am going to be a pastor in the Reformed Eastern Anglo-Catholic Church – Lutheran Rite, they are not truly of God” Usually my reason for thinking this is rather stupid to.

That is very dangerous. In the first example, its a simple disagreement, we all have them; Coke vs. Pepsi, Obama vs. McCain, AFC vs. NFC. Life moves on. But in the latter, Im not just waging a debate, I am dismissing an entire demographic as not being of God, dismissing their faith as a sham, dismissing them as people.

This is my struggle. If I do enter the ministry, I should go into it thinking that my tradition is the most holy way to be in communion with God, meaning that I have to denounce other traditions as insufficient faiths. How can I take this position, and still see the fact that God is at work within these other traditions, that their faith is as legitimate as mine?

+Alex Resurgent

Random thoughts on Forgiveness

Forgiveness is something I struggle with at times. Times like now. Most sermons I hear on forgiveness tend to be the “forgive everyone, don’t let your pride get in the way of the Lord’s will” and I dont want to sound boastful, but thats really not the problem I have with forgiveness.

I have a hard time with it because I have a hard time knowing what it looks like.

On the surface (and in the depths), its the ability to admit that someone wronged you, and the ability to not hold it against them, to be able love them in spite of the past.

Okay, easy enough. Someone makes an inappropriate comment about my heritage. It hurt, but it was a slip of the lounge. I forgive them, and its forgotten within 36 hours. Next!

The tough ones are where the transgression was more personal, and im driven in one of two directions.

The first case: I had a teacher verbally abuse me in 10th grade, call me names, accuse me of things with no evidence, and then she had the moxie to “forgive” me for this “transgression” but only because she had to because her brother was “guilty” of it as well. (I cheerlead (past tense), just FYI). As you can tell there is still a little bit bitter about it. Afterwards, i did not report her, i still did work for her class. I did not plan a coups within her class. I just wanted to never have unnecessary contact with her again. Was my attitude of not having revenge enough to constitute “forgiving”, even with the lingering bitterness. Is my lack of desire to show love to this teacher a sign that i have not “forgiven” her in my heart?

Case Two: I was in a harmful relationship this past year. This person kept wronging me, and I kept forgiving them and forgetting – forgetting as in I let the transgression continue to occur. In this case I dont think there was genuine repentance on the other persons part. This for sure is not a true form of forgiveness, its a true form of stupidity.

But how does one walk that line. How does one stand up and say “I do not forgive you because your not really repenting” and do it with a pure heart, and do it lovingly? And not do it with respite or hatred or revenge? How do we remember the wrongs that people have committed against us in a neutral manor?

How does God?

+Alex Resurgent