I have a friend who identifies as charismatic. Maybe pentecostal. I told him of several abuses. Some have assigned "prophecy" to the same category as God's Word offering both a corrective to Scripture as well as commands to individuals "because it's God's Word." Some have declared that if you don't speak in tongues, you aren't saved. A large number of them are perfectly happy to have masses speaking in tongues in church without an interpreter in direct contradiction to Scripture (1 Cor 14:27). And so on. When I asked about the abuses of the gifts in the theology of that group of people, he was dumbfounded. "We don't do that." Now, I know those things do happen and happen openly, but he agreed that those were abuses and argued that they shouldn't be associated with his beliefs and practices. I was wrongly connecting him with the abuses of others in his group.
It's not uncommon. In fact, it appears to be the norm. I'm white, so I must be racist. I'm a male, so I must be sexist. I'm a Christian, so I must be a right-wing loon. I'm a Republican, so I must be a Trump lover. I'm conservative, so I must want a civil war because they served Trump with a search warrant. All glaringly false. But my objections are overruled because, well, I am all of those first statements and we all know that the conclusions inevitably follow. It doesn't work in reverse, though, does it? Aren't all liberals socialists, maybe even communists, hoping to jail all the conservatives and lock up the Christians? Aren't they all TINOs -- "theists in name only"? If they do claim to have a faith, it's only so that people won't recognize that they are practical atheists. They all want to mind-control your kids, all want to groom your children for the LGBTQ, all want to take away your gun rights and your free speech and ... you get the sense of it. And the correct answer is accurately a resounding, "No!" That particular group of people I described are a minority. A loud minority, perhaps, but no less a minority than the other side I described above in the previous group.
I will set the record straight. I was born a white person, but I got in trouble in high school because my best friends were black and hispanic. I'm not racist. I am a male, but I absolutely deny that men are more important or valuable than women. I'm a Christian, but my only "right leanings" there are in the direction of what God's Word says. I'm a Republican, but fellow Republicans near and far have repudiated me for warning against Trump and for refusing to vote for him on multiple occasions. (Oddly enough, one of those who likes to lump me with Trump lovers actually lauded one of my pieces in opposition to Trump but still lumps me with Trump lovers.) I'm conservative but have no issue with legal search warrants being served on anyone. In fact, according to those Internet tests, I fall mostly in the category of "centrist" rather than liberal or conservative in matters of morality, social values, and even economics.
I am actually not concerned about being misidentified based on my demographics. Setting the record straight won't fix the problem. Telling the truth here won't change minds. There are individuals in all categories and generalizations of those individuals is always in danger of being completely off base. But, hey, let's not allow the truth of individuality get in the way of our prejudice and stereotyping. Wait ... what is it that so many on the left call prejudice and stereotyping? Oh, yeah, "hate."
5 comments:
It's something I've seen more and more of late. The notion that sharing something with one group or another makes you responsible for the worst actions of anyone loosely affiliated (as defined by people anti the group they put you in) with the group.
So, while I wouldn't hold your charismatic fiend accountable for the abuses you mentioned, nor would I hold one of my RC friends to account for the actions of priests, I do think it's fair to ask them questions. I find that I take way too much crap for things done by others, than for things I've actually done myself.
I've asked people about some in "their" group who have said something like, "Oh, yeah, wasn't that terrible?"
I don't think that the rank and file of a group are necessarily responsible for what others do, but it does seem like there is a point where you might want to distance yourself from whatever group you might be in. I think the problem is that group "membership" is too often decided by a third party who is trying to criticize either the individual or the group.
That's often the party. I'm a Christian -- can't distance myself from that -- but because of it I get associated with all sorts of people and groups and types with whom I have no association or even agreement, so I can't disassociate myself from them becuase the assignment was made by someone else. Unvortunately, very few people have the grace to ask, "Do you associate yourself with 'that' group?"
We have a problem in our culture that allows our group associations to be determined by those that disagree with or oppose us. Which usually means that they will connect us with some fringe, whack job, who calls themselves X while not actually being part of X.
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