OK, I’m starting from where we were yesterday. We have a tendency to go down the rabbit hole of our own self righteousness. And this leads to a diversion. We are in a time of trial: it may not have hit (yet) but as we are in peak secularism and peak academie the people who question this (which is not merely Christians) are being stigmatized or worse.
And we have to react to this. Historically, it was more like this:
My analogy was the opposite: that we should not move our children into a dangerous area just to prove a point about how holy we are. Missionary work isn’t a child’s job, it’s the job of men unmarried women. If it’s a missionary field, we should leave it and send in the experts.
Traditionally, Christians packed up and moved as a group, so taking along everyone, even those without the financial resources to flee themselves.
Now, the thing is we have to work together, and not be diverted into issues we cannot afford to deal with. We need to, functionally, be one.
20“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
The snark appears in some odd places. At a time when Coptic Orthodox are being attacked in their cathedral arguing over the fine actions within the mass — which is occurring among the ultra traditional Catholics now we have a new Pope — seems silly to this Presbyterian. We have enough real divisions that witness against us. We don’t need to make another one.
The Church is her own worst enemy, more’s the pity.
Moving away to a corner of the globe and a big farm has been a fantasy of mine for decades. We devoted quite a long thread at TC to our fantasy village a few months back – seems to be a common fantasy. But can it be achieved? Not without everyone thinking about it most seriously and feeling the wind of change leading in that direction.
In the meantime, I suppose I do live in paradise… minus the gangbangers.
Might as well enjoy it.