Keeping Up

As an attempt to keep my "personal" blog a little more alive, I have a goal which I'm calling the "twice a week thing" where I post two times each week.  Hence the name "Twice a week thing."  (wink)  I became so enthralled with my comic book and movie blog that I began to neglect this one.  Well no more my friends!  Random Incoherent Jargon is back in business!

As a celebration of this "born again" status of my blog, I would like to reminisce on my very first post, "I Believe In Nothing."  It caused a lot of turmoil within the family.  Apparently my Aunt had read it and became immediately offended by the entire post and began to tell the entire family about it.  The news had traveled all the way up to my grandmother who became so upset that she cried over it, coming to the conclusion that I "hate them."  My sister had gone to visit them in East Texas where they spent a good chunk of time talking about the post since Granny apparently needed to talk about with her.  I heard so much news about the post from my mother, my sister and my father that everyone in the family has been talking about with everyone else and was incredibly upset by it, concluding that I'm ashamed of them and my post was uncalled for and unloving.  All of this was being said to everyone...except me.

Now I understand completely, It's hard to talk to your loved ones about such heated topics, especially when it's within your own family.  But why they felt the need to talk about it with everyone else, but not me is beyond my imagination.  My aunt did make some comments about it on Facebook a few times, but she never tried to call or even send me a message attempting to dialog with me about the post.  I attempted to call my grandparents and my aunt but the phone was never picked up, and I never received any calls back.  If they had tried to contact me, I might have been able to clear up any confusion on their part as to the implications of the post and how wasn't an attack on the family, nor was it me portraying any type of embarrassment of them. I think they read certain phrases and decided they knew what it was trying to say when in fact they got it completely wrong.

However, I do need to clarify that I am not sorry that I wrote it.  If there's one thing I took away from growing up with this family, it's this...None of them will hold anything back!  We all speak our minds, and we do it ever so abruptly and without mercy.  We don't worry about what people think of our opinions, whether they be individual or collective, just so long as we are heard!  What prompted the specific blog that apparently caused such a fuss within the family was seeing so many of my Church of Christ friends on Facebook making Facebook statuses and/or comments that talked about the "other" religions (that are Christian none the less) and how their belief structures are wrong.  Sociology has been one of the best things in my life, but has also caused a lot of frustrations, especially when it's with my own family after seeing such cultural insensitivity and an unwillingness to understand a religious society and portraying a very false image of God in general.

Growing up in the Church of Christ, I was never truly exposed to other Christian belief systems, nor were most other Church of Christ goers.  Yet week after week, they would go to church where they would sit and agree with sermons which focused on how the Church of Christ has it right, and everyone else is wrong.  Topical sermons like "Are instruments in worship godly?" or "Who are the people of God?" or (and this is a real sermon which I heard at the Church of Christ in Crane Texas) the very abrupt sermon "Why God hates people outside the Church of Christ."  Going to college and becoming someone who studies cultures, these anti-cultural focuses within church hurt me more than enriched my understanding of Christianity and it's history.

I find it silly as well seeing as how the Church of Christ hates on everyone else, but the other Christian churches could care less.  It's as if it's assumed within the Church of Christ that it's voice echoes throughout the world, being heard by millions, even though the Church of Christ is truly only predominant within the south, a part of the U.S. the majority of Americans have little respect for anyways...especially Texas.  My point is, the typical Church of Christ has a very conceited aura about them, as if they have this monopoly on what the "truth" is and they are the hope and future for all those outside their church walls.  I would argue that the Church of Christ has one of the most (if not THE most) culturally insensitive belief systems I've ever encountered.  I can't be apart of that church ever again because it goes against my sociological education and moral convictions.  I don't think it's an evil church, I just disagree with almost all of its teachings and practices. I'm especially against they way it attacks other religious sects without considering the fact that they themselves are sinning by condoning such behavior within their church.