Culture Wars
A Beautiful Form of Christianity
by Tim Lien
I often read columns from McSweeney’s. The writing is usually off-beat, thoughtful, funny, and well-crafted.
Naturally, my curiosity was piqued when one of their contest finalists’s work (Assimilate Or Go Home: Dispatches from the Stateless Wanderers) was described as “a beautiful form of Christianity.” I’m always just a bit dubious when any form of Christianity gets a positive plug from a wide audience. So, of course, I just had to read the essay: “We Are Fundamentalists,” by recovering Christian fundamentalist, D.L.M. from Portland, OR. (only 1,200 words)
Like my fellow readers, I look for a)what is to be despised and b)what is to be praised, according to the author. What important observations float to the top? What is significant? What are the conclusions, based on the observations?
What is a “beautiful form of Christianity” to a wide-spread audience? Well, for one: no Cross. It’s too offensive. It is not beautiful. Settle for mutual struggle, humanity, and misfits trying to make sense of the world thru whatever personal lens their experience has afforded them. Celebrate the struggle, not the Victory. Celebrate the fact that tolerance is not a Reconcilation of chasms, but a hopeless realization that we must just accept it as reality.
Remember this: the neo-postmodern virtue of tolerance is an admission that the fragmented must always be fragmented. The problem: A Triune God is a truer reality: One who is Three, and Three who is One. Now, that, is a beautiful form of Christianity.
Comments no longer accepted for this entry.
To prevent spam, comments are no longer allowed after 60 days.