A Conundrum if You Will...

I am stranded in York for two more weeks. Every morning I get up and look out my window at the dead campus and let a single tear roll down my eye, pollution-indian style.

Anywho, in keeping with the great educators of history, this week I choose to teach by posing questions. The following is a series of questions that were posed in my Wednesday night High School class last week, and I've got to say, they handled it very well. So now, allow me to play Yoda to your Luke.

I'm not going to directly cite any scripture today, which might be a gutsy move, but I would rather that you open scripture and search for yourself on this one. I will direct you to the Sermon on the Mount in early Matthew, and James 2, starting around verse 15. Now, moving on.

Consider two people. First, a personal hero of mine whose picture hangs on my wall next to one of my many Spiderman posters. No, not Optimus Prime. Mahatma Gandhi. In case you're not up to date on your Indian civil rights leaders, let me fill you in. Gandhi quit a job as a high paid lawyer in order to live with the Untouchables, a group of people in India who were seen as literally, untouchable. They lived in poverty and disease, because they were considered outside society, beneath the notice of civilization. Gandhi dedicated his life to these people, living among them and living like them, trying to help them. This is in fact the most Christ-like thing I've heard of since feeding a multitude.

Unfortunately Gandhi had a major problem in his worldview, namely, Hinduism. Now I'm not about to denigrate someone else's beliefs, but at the same time, I'm not about to say that all roads lead to God. They don't. Some roads lead to lots of vague and fictitious gods, and that's what Gandhi chose.

Exhibit B however is one of my least favorite people in the world. While he has yet to acknowledge our feud publicly, I consider this man to be one of my arch-enemies. I am of course speaking of Pat Robertson of the 700 Club. Pat, for those of you not in the know, has used his media empire to spread wonderful Christian beliefs. Like the time he said that 9-11 was the will of God, brought on to punish us because of feminism. (Might have been Katrina, I'm not entirely sure, so if you read this Pat, don't go getting all techinical on me. You know what I'm getting at.)

So Pat Robertson, a man who is far more concerned with making sure we know who goes to Hell than with helping others get to heaven, calls on the name of Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior. While I'm never ever going to say that Pat Robertson is any kind of Christian, at the same time, I also have to believe that grace can cover hypocrisy and bigotry, or a great number of Christians, including myself, are all going to Hell.

So consider this a different sort of post; rather than a challenge or a moral, today I leave you with a question. Which of these two is more pleasing to God? The man who lives a Christ-like life outside of Christ, or the man who embraces all encompassing grace but denies it to others?

(jake)