Soapbox and Suds

Regarding my previous post...the ministry of presence is certainly the 'right thing' regardless of my personal moral perspective on 'diversity.'

But I'm still hung up on the other issue. I think it's because this issue represents an area of major hypocrisy in the conservative evangelical church and holiness denominations especially. Drinking alcohol is perceived as a sinful association with the world within which we are trying to be 'in' but not 'of.' Yet how many of these (including myself) pious individuals populate the bar/restraunts throughout the week and even on the sabbath? The only reason I don't drink is because I have been religiously conditioned from an early age to believe that drinking alcoholic beverages is the choice of the morally inferior and spiritually unenlightened. I could certainly list a few other behaviors and activities which God speaks against that my fellow conservative Christians engage in regularly....envy, materialism, social injustice, overeating, gossip, workaholism, divorce, robbing God of tithe etc etc.

I just don't think it's going to continue to "fly"...projecting extra-biblical restrictions on people while ignoring many of the biblical ones for ourselves. If I can build a bridge to someone over a cold Corona or a hot Caramel Macchiato...either way, I'm going for it. And that brings up perhaps the most tragic characteristic of the modern evangelical conservative Christian...they're not even trying to build bridges! Most are content to have their own little church-world and proclaim the door is always open...but insist that people walk through that door first! That's bunk...and it's not the Church Jesus died for us to BE!