[ Hmph! ] It Happened at Church

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Actually, it happened again ...

A young couple from the neighborhood attended, for the first time, the church my wife and I go to. These two people weren't what most would call "pretty", nor were they exactly dressed to impress. The woman had visible tattoos and the man had long hair. In short, they were kind of "scruffy" looking.

I was the first to walk up to them, smile, shake their hands, and welcome them to the church. Then we sat and talked for about 45 minutes before the service started, we sat together throughout the service, and I introduced them as friends during the "Community News" portion of the service. During the "Sharing of the Peace" portion of the service, a few brave souls actually shook hands with them.

But my wife and I were the only ones to actually talk with them.

Once the service was over -- a message on stewardship, tithing, and the giving of money to the church, by the way -- everyone else gave them a wide berth, and otherwise ignored them. All of those fine, upstanding, well-dressed "Christians" did not seem to want to make eye contact with these less-fortunate newcomers, much less bump up against them. I spoke with them some more, learned a little more about their histories, memorized their names, and asked them to come back next week.

So, to put it in perspective ... the only person to great the newcomers was someone who is himself something of an "outcast" among Believers. No one else seemed to even care that these newcomers were there, and no one seemed to express any interest in them during the "hospitality" portion of the day's events. So they left.

I wonder if they will come back (I hope they do; they seemed like nice people) ... I wonder what they are telling their friends about "that church" ... I wonder if the other members of the church even care ...

The fancier the church on the outside,the fancier you have to dress.Just my opinion.
I haven't been in a church in years,one of the last ones I went to was actually ok.It was a small rural church,the women had nice dresses on and the men in overalls or jeans.Everyone was real friendly and there was more bluegrass music than preaching.It was the most laid back church ever,the small kids were allowed to move around and play quietly,and the adults talked quietly among themselves.Everyone greeted you and was friendly.Jesus would have liked this church.

I attend an urban congregation that draws its members mostly from surrounding suburbs,and I wear jeans to church, including on Sundays like yesterday when I was the assisting minister/cantor. Anybody who doesn't like it is welcome to sod off.

There,s something about religions that seem to make folk into self-righteous sinners that cannot help but form Caste systems, Its why I stopped going to any of them, I thought I was doing Jesus will be helping the Spiritually Weak, and was critisised by those who considered themselves Spiritually strong.

They seem to overlook what Jesus said at LUKE 18 LINK

You sound more like Christ Fnord than any of the others.

Jesus himself would hug Lepers to demonstrate this point.

So, why are you attending this service?

Church, to me , appears to be no different then a high school popularity contest.

Fnord, I can propose an explanation. You were not thinking like a member of the church. You did not see those tattoos as sinful and filthy.

It probably has more to do with them trying to stay holy (self-righteous or not) than them not being friendly enough.

Holiness shouldn't have anything to do with shunning people who quite possibly just don't know any better.

Actually why should a tattoo be sinful and filthy, so in which way is another person hurted, if someone gets a tattoo?

And actually in which verse of the bible is it, that Jesus talked to his followers and ordered them to judged their citizens by their external appearance, ignore their personality, and exclude them from your community if their external appearance is not good enough?

Its some time ago, I read the book, but really cant remember about that scene? Instead I thought that there was some other stuff, like Jesus going to the ill and banned, the poor, not judging people upon their wealth but their personal qualities. But who knows, maybe the reason why Maria Magdalena was not rejected by him, was because of her at least being a non tattooed prostitute. If she would have been tattooed, then surely he would have told his followers to push her away from him.

Sorry, for talking, I am sure there was somewhere an 11th order of god that you should be a Hypocrites about your religion. ^^

As a former fundamentalist Christian, that's what they had me believe regardless of the reason.

If I remember correctly, it was something to do with tattoos bringing unwanted attention to one's own body and not being productive in bringing all the glory to God instead.

There is at least one verse in the Old Testament that many fundamentalist Christians (mis)use against tattoos.

I always thought Christianity was about Christs and his new testament, the guy whose biggest message was the turn from the old testament and the cruel old "drain complete humanity, turn people into salt because of them turning their head, and sacrifice me every of your firstborn, including animals and humans" and instead bringing the message of the gods will to forgiveness and redemption, sacrificing his own son for humanity instead of asking humanity to scrifice him their male firstborns?

Maybe they didnt get the memo. Personally I always thought that someone telling us to forgive our enemies, was as well able to forgive some people their wild teenie and tattoo years. So you could say, that if you get after your wild years into more religious years, that you could remove the tattoos, but with the costs that a propper tattoo removal affords, you can as well keep an Romanian orphanage running for a month. So when it comes to the typical "What would Jesus do?" question, I think he would care more for using that money to help people, instead of removing some harmless tattoos.

My wife is a devout Christian, and likes that particular church. I go to keep her happy and for the occasional uninterrupted nap during services.

My my.... devoted Christians being cliquey, snobby and standoffish ?
Well, it's a good thing that I was sitting down when I read this topic - or else the shock might have floored me !

Exactly the same musing occurred to me too. In other news fish discovered to live in water and birds to fly in the air.

It's the same way at my Catholic church too.

I am proud of you Fnord. You are such a good person.