IPECAC
Apostasy West’s Ed Bacon thanks Vague, Ambiguous, Infinitely-Malleable, Inclusive, Affirming, Open-Minded And Tolerant Deity Concept that he is not as other men/women/other are:
A storm cloud has swept over us and is raining down fear and intolerance. On Dec. 15, an American Muslim organization, MPAC, will hold its 12th annual convention at All Saints Church. This has caused some to vilify our community and has brought out the Islamophobes.
Those would be actual Christians.
At All Saints, we believe that to be religious in the 21st century is to be interreligious.
Told you.
It is time to end the toxic narrative that too many of our religions have promulgated that says that in order to become a part of my religion you have to hate somebody else in another religion.
“Toxic narrative.” Believing what your religion believes. ”Hate.” Thinking that what your religion believes matters eternally.
Let me give you an example. This past Wednesday was the culmination of a long conversation we have had with a couple that has attended All Saints Church for a while now. The couple is of different religions, one Christian and one Jewish, and they have two children. Our conversations, which included a rabbi, were about the fact that the children have begun to put down spiritual roots here, and it was time to take note of this, to mark and honor this transition.
However, in this community of prayerful discernment we didn’t want to baptize the kids, and make the experience feel exclusive in any way. We wanted it to be inclusive.
Of course you did.
We carried out the baptismal font that we use here and placed it under the oak tree. We blessed the water, making it holy by recalling all the important transitional moments in Jewish history and Christian history in which water had been redemptive.
During the Sabbath meal, observant Jews have a ritual called blessing the children in which each person present at the table blesses the children. The rabbi suggested we incorporate this into our special ceremony that day. So the children walked among us on the lawn by the oak tree and we each whispered a blessing while we touched each child.
Taking evergreen branches and dipping them into the holy water, we then sprinkled them on top of the children. To recognize that the children themselves are ministers, too, we gave them a little bowl of the holy water and their own evergreen branch. They, in turn, went around and dropped holy water on the top of each one of us.
Fast Eddie just LOVES him some meaningless ceremonies.
I realized at the conclusion of the service that my heart had swollen. My chest had expanded. My soul had grown twice as large just so that it could have the capacity to hold all of that God-compassion and love in it. And it took me a full day for my lungs and my heart and my soul and my chest to come back down — and it didn’t come back down as shrunken as it had been before. It stayed expanded a little bit.
That right there is why Fast Eddie doesn’t mind interfaithing all over the floor now and then. It’s not because universalism is from Vague, Ambiguous, Infinitely-Malleable, Inclusive, Affirming, Open-Minded And Tolerant Deity Concept. Ed Bacon enjoys this garbage because it allows him to think that he’s “spiritual” without requiring anything at all from him, least of all having to confront a basic fact.
If you think that all religions are true, then you really think that none of them are.
A storm cloud has swept over us and is raining down fear and intolerance. On Dec. 15, an American Muslim organization, MPAC, will hold its 12th annual convention at All Saints Church. This has caused some to vilify our community and has brought out the Islamophobes.
Those would be actual Christians.
At All Saints, we believe that to be religious in the 21st century is to be interreligious.
Told you.
It is time to end the toxic narrative that too many of our religions have promulgated that says that in order to become a part of my religion you have to hate somebody else in another religion.
“Toxic narrative.” Believing what your religion believes. ”Hate.” Thinking that what your religion believes matters eternally.
Let me give you an example. This past Wednesday was the culmination of a long conversation we have had with a couple that has attended All Saints Church for a while now. The couple is of different religions, one Christian and one Jewish, and they have two children. Our conversations, which included a rabbi, were about the fact that the children have begun to put down spiritual roots here, and it was time to take note of this, to mark and honor this transition.
However, in this community of prayerful discernment we didn’t want to baptize the kids, and make the experience feel exclusive in any way. We wanted it to be inclusive.
Of course you did.
We carried out the baptismal font that we use here and placed it under the oak tree. We blessed the water, making it holy by recalling all the important transitional moments in Jewish history and Christian history in which water had been redemptive.
During the Sabbath meal, observant Jews have a ritual called blessing the children in which each person present at the table blesses the children. The rabbi suggested we incorporate this into our special ceremony that day. So the children walked among us on the lawn by the oak tree and we each whispered a blessing while we touched each child.
Taking evergreen branches and dipping them into the holy water, we then sprinkled them on top of the children. To recognize that the children themselves are ministers, too, we gave them a little bowl of the holy water and their own evergreen branch. They, in turn, went around and dropped holy water on the top of each one of us.
Fast Eddie just LOVES him some meaningless ceremonies.
I realized at the conclusion of the service that my heart had swollen. My chest had expanded. My soul had grown twice as large just so that it could have the capacity to hold all of that God-compassion and love in it. And it took me a full day for my lungs and my heart and my soul and my chest to come back down — and it didn’t come back down as shrunken as it had been before. It stayed expanded a little bit.
That right there is why Fast Eddie doesn’t mind interfaithing all over the floor now and then. It’s not because universalism is from Vague, Ambiguous, Infinitely-Malleable, Inclusive, Affirming, Open-Minded And Tolerant Deity Concept. Ed Bacon enjoys this garbage because it allows him to think that he’s “spiritual” without requiring anything at all from him, least of all having to confront a basic fact.
If you think that all religions are true, then you really think that none of them are.
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