Preaching To An Empty Congregation With Two Guys In The Choir - Tumblr Posts

Light vs. Dark

I'm noticing a strange relationship between what a community says it is and how it actually acts. Having snooped around on the Internet quite a bit, it's disturbing to see this trend hold true everywhere I look.

There's these dark corners of the world where the people are broken and twisted and hurting. These outcasts from society are left to suffer by themselves. Yet, despite their own conditions, they treat each other with honor and respect, and do their best to help each other through their messes. It's a certain dignity rarely seen in society at large these days.

Then there's a disturbingly large amount of religious communities (especially Christian), who are supposed to be beacons of light and goodness, that do the opposite. They have this righteous and elite attitude not unlike nobility, and expect others to fall in line. Instead of being helpful and loving and caring, they push others away, saying "you must be this holy to enter" like it's some sort of club. Not that they have to care anyway; life is already set up for them, they don't need to worry about anyone else!

Obviously there are counterexamples to this, but these are the general trends - the "dark" places are showing more love than the "light." Why is this? I'm not saying it should be the opposite - I'm glad there is love in the world at all, especially in the darkness - but shouldn't the light be showing an equal amount of love or more? Like, you know, we're supposed to?

Instead we lapse into whatever's comfortable, taking pride in our own self-worth and scoffing at anything we find reprehensible without doing anything to change it. We have the opportunity to help fix what's broken, and instead we cast it aside like it's garbage? For shame!

For anyone who's looking at me like I'm a hypocrite simply by typing this and yelling at the world while sitting on my own high horse... to paraphrase my dad, you can't preach at people without doing some self-examining of your own first.