Sunday, 01 June 2008

• Something that annoys me to no end...preaching to the choir. PTTC being defined as trying to make believers out of people who already believe. It's not my #1 pet peeve (that would be the fact that I am once again working in a warehouse this summer), but it's definitely in the top 5.

  Remember that debate I talked about a few posts back? Students for McCain vs. Students for Obama? Yeah. An hour and a half of preaching to the choir on both sides. The McCain delegation repeated all McCain's catchphrases, and the same for Obama's side. The Democrats all cheered when the Obama folks talked about how much Bush sucks, and the Republicans applauded when Obama's mistakes were pointed out. And I don't think there was even one person who actually decided who to vote for as a result of it. People went in there knowing who they agreed with, they applauded with the person they agreed with, and they walked out of there talking about how their side had obviously won the debate. Except for me, I guess. I decided I'm not going to vote. And folks wonder why people might be disillusioned with politics and why only 50% of Americans vote.

  I turned on the TV a little bit ago. An obese enthusiastic preacher walks up about 5 steps to the podium, pauses for 30 seconds to catch his breath. “And today, we have a prayer request from Harold! *huff* *puff* Now it appears that Harold is going through a lot of struggles in his life right now, but Harold, I feel this incredible feeling washing over me and it's saying 'Harold, I'm going to be there for you...and all of you out there if you think you might need Jesus, we have operators standing by at this number...'” And so on and so forth. And if I wasn't a Christian, that wouldn't move me closer to becoming one, it would simply reinforce my impression of Christians as being freaks. And people wonder why people are disillusioned with Christianity and religion in general. We have all this stuff that is ostensibly aimed at non-Christians and yet only a Christian watching it will have any idea what the crap is going on.

  I get really disillusioned by people who can only seem to say things that their audience agrees with. And me looking on, I'm just like, whatever. Everyone does it. Democrats, Republicans, Christians, Atheists, Muslims, Environmentalists...everyone. I do tend to be more cynical than most people though, so I like to think I have an advantage in seeing when people are PTTC.

  One of the things that I like about Jesus is that he didn't “preach to the choir.” He complimented people if they were doing well and everything, but I get the feeling that Jesus just didn't see the point in saying anything that both he and his listeners both knew and both already agreed on. He taught people all kinds of stuff they had never thought of before, He infuriated people when he poked holes in some of their pet ideas and theories that they held dear, and He encouraged people all the time.

  But He never stood in front an audience, told them to open their scrolls to a passage, read it in its entirety, and repeated things that only Jews would get and were things that everyone had heard before (your typical sermon, in other words). I realize I'm generalizing here, but I just wish the preachers and politicians in this country would take note.

  Wow. I guess the key to undoing writer's block is to wait until after midnight to do your writing.

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