The loudest voice in Christianity

Frankly I am fatigued in hearing my fellow Christians bemoan what might be considered the loud voices in Christianity. Be it the fool in Florida who offends Islam (and all religions) every six months or the misguided church that protests funerals of soldiers or the mega-church pastors where the stadium is packed every Sunday. Maybe you are feel the "religious right" or the "liberal media" "attacking" religion voice is among the loudest voices within religious conversation.

Contrary to popular belief,

not one of these is the loudest voice in Christianity

.

The loudest voice in Christianity is the collective whispers that are spoken under the breath of Christians around the world. 

The whisper of prayer at a bedside.

The whisper of forgiveness one gives to another.

The whisper of grief in tragedy.

The whisper of disbelief at those who use religion to deface Love, God and all that is declared good.

So let us all agree to stop complaining that one group or church or person has the loud voices that are "speaking for Christianity". The whisper is the loudest voice in all of Christianity.

The loudest voice in the world has always been the

whisper

.

Missing the point of college and religion

Freakonomics had a podcast ᔥ in which one of the people interviewed mentioned something about college that got me thinking about church.

He mentioned that those who attend college do so to obtain credit hours, but too many attend college for a degree. Think about that.

College is that place where most students are not learning a set of skills but different ways of seeing. We learn what it means to be a product of the Enlightenment and how that influences a great number of things that we "know". We gain a new language with words like "post-modern", "historical-critical", "behaviorism" and "meta-narrative" in order to understand the world in new ways. We are invited to see that as we sail closer to the island of the known the broader the shore of mystery becomes. We have reduced going to college to getting a degree, a slip of paper, a certificate of completion. As a means to an end, rather than a end unto itself.

Similarly, many of us (religious and atheist) view religion in the same way. As a means to an end.

I hear that people don't need religion to lean to be a good person or a moral individual. True.

But this is not the point of religion.

Like college religion at its best is designed not to get you somewhere but to teach you to see.

It is a shame that so many of us view college and religion as only worth it if it will provide me something in the future. The fact of the matter is, neither religion or college is set up to do that. They are institutions that are in place to help people see in ways they could not get on their own.

Yea, so I published on Patheos (kinda)

I submitted a short response to the Tony Jones challenge for progressive Christian "theo-bloggers" to say something about God.

Long story short, Patheos (one of the biggest religion sites) picked it up and put all the responses together here.

Jason Valendy made the cut at number 25. I don't think they are in any order at all, just in case you wanted to count.